The Irrelevance of Infant Observations for Psychoanalysis

Dados Bibliográficos

ID8333380
AutoresPeter H Wolff (Harvard Medical School, Boston, autor correspondente)
Ano1996
Volume44
Fascículo2
Páginas369-392
Data de publicação1996-04-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoJournal of the American Psychoanalytic Association (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0003-0651 • E-ISSN: 1941-2460
EditoraSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/000306519604400202
PMID8829100
OpenAlexW2224112865
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas28
Referências citadas41

The current consensus among psychoanalysts holds that direct infant observations are one means for testing the developmental propositions of psychoanalytic theory; that the observations have already falsified some of the theory's basic propositions; and that they hold the key to a qualitatively different developmental theory of psychoanalysis. The consensus, although not universal, has motivated a wide range of research programs on early infancy, whose findings are commonly interpreted as disclosing psychoanalytic metapsychology and clinical theory in an entirely new light. This essay examines some of the assumptions that have motivated such investigations, as well as the research strategies by which the new versions of theory are promulgated. On the basis of these explorations it is concluded that psychoanalytically informed infant observations may be the source for new theories of social-emotional development, but that they are essentially irrelevant for psychoanalysis as a psychology of meanings, unconscious ideas, and hidden motives

Developmental stage theories · Epistemology · Metapsychology · Psychoanalysis · Psychoanalytic theory · Unconscious mind · Child and Animal Learning Development · Philosophy · Psychology · Psychotherapy Techniques and Applications · Social Representations and Identity