Review of Relationships in development: Infancy, intersubjectivity, and attachment.

Reviews the book, Relationships in Development: Infancy, Intersubjectivity, and Attachment by Stephen Seligman (see record 2017-56323-000). This book proceeds by synthesizing the insights of a socially conscious intersubjective orientation with the laboratorytested observations of infancy and attachment research to arrive at a position that is genuinely breathtaking in the scope and depth of its scholarship. Part 1 begins with an engaging portrayal of the author’s own personal and professional development intertwined with an informed narrative account of the development of the professional field. Having asserted the primacy of observational research for analytic theory in Part 1, Part 2 begins the crucial move of linking the insights thus gathered to the exigencies of clinical practice. Part 3 further develops the understanding of how theory and technique are integrated in a relational-developmental approach by delving more deeply into the contributions of attachment research, cognitive neuroscience, and intersubjective psychobiology while integrating these with clinical vignettes and case illustrations. Part 4 is deceptively simple in its structure, composed of only two chapters that on the surface might appear only tangentially related to each other. Finally, Part 5 is largely concerned with dynamic systems theory as providing such an overarching framework in which this theoretical integration can occur. This book is an unmatched triumph of the two-person over the one-per...

Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology - July 30, 2018 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research