Clinical and Observational Psychoanalytic Research

Few topics elicit greater controversy within psychoanalysis today than the role of research in justifying or expanding upon analytic theory. The text collects papers from a London conference, along with additional material, to explore the work of discussants Daniel Stern and Andre Green. Stern, whose work and psychoanalysis and infant observation is world-renowned, and Green, the French psychoanalyst whose trenchant views on the limitations of research are equally well known, each focus on the issue of infant research and its long history within the psychoanalytic movement. Additional discussions by three prominent British psychoanalysts, Anne Alvarez, Irma Brenman Pick, and Rozine Jozef Perelberg, expose a different point of view from that of green and Stern. Also included is a previous debate on this topic between Andre Green and Robert S. Wallerstein, former president of the International Psychoanalytic Association. An illuminating introductory chapter by Riccardo Steiner further describes the main points of the debate with marvelous clarity. This book will be invaluable for all those who wish to involve themselves with contemporary views on this important topic.