A remarkable achievement. Ammaniti and Stern have brought together an
outstanding group of thinkers who address the problem of representation
and psychoanalysis with depth and originality. Individually, each
chapter is a joy to read. Collectively, the book is an essential
addition to our thinking about the parameters of subjectivity and their
role in the therapeutic process.
--Alicia F. Lieberman, Professor of Psychology, Univeristy of California
San Francisco at San Francisco General Hospital and author of The
Emotional Life of the Toddler
Representations and Narratives provides an innovative approach to
understanding the internal world of infants and children. The creativity
tht is needed to develop such an understanding is contained in thi an
understanding is contained in this new and exciting edited volume. The
two editors, from different backgrounds and cultures, have brought
together a similarly diverse group of contributors who draw on their
differences to develop important new integrations of psychoanalytic and
developmental approaches to understanding psychic reality in early
development. This volume moves this field an important step forward in
creative and innovative thinking in this area.
--Joy D. Orlofsky, President, The World Association for Infant Mental
Health and Editor, Infant Mental Health Journal
The concepts of representation and narratives have played a key role in
the development of psychoanalysis, clinical research and theoretical
speculation. This work carefully analyze the growth of representation
and narratives in the history and practice of psychoanalysis.
Found in the early writings of Freud, the term representation identifies
the process of internalization; the building of an internal mental
world, separate from external reality, which allows us to give meaning
to our own experiences. Also found in Freud's early works, the concept
of narration as the idea that personal experience might assume the
character of a narrative construction provided the impetus for the war
between Freudian metapsychology and American psychoanalysts in the
1970's.
This significant addition to the Psychoanalytic Crosscurrents series
explores the close and necessary relationship between the two theories
and illustrate how they have developed the language of therapy and
affected the practice of both psychoanalysis and developmental
psychology.
