This is a fascinating book: not only is it a very good read, but it also helps the reader understand, quite clearly, what are some of the main debates and differences of opinion within current psychoanalytic theory.

Andre Green and Daniel Stern stand on opposite sides of the debate around research: does infant observation and empirical research have relevance for clinical psychoanalysis? This is the main question of the book, and the reader is left to make up his / her mind, since both Green and Stern eloquently express their- very different- opinions.

Very briefly, Green's point of view centers around the idea that baby observation (and consequently all attachment-theory-based research that is currently very fashionable) has nothing to do with psychoanalysis. Green very persuasively argues that what is of relevance to psychoanalysis is always closely linked to the notion of 'apres coup', i.e. that time is always an interaction between past and present and that meaningful memories from the past become what they are in the context of a complex interplay between today and yesterday. The notion of 'apres coup' is a central one for psychoanalytic theory, leading to the idea that there is no such thing as 'action' which can be observed in a baby, since fantasy- both the parent's and the child's- is always involved, and since the actual action of the baby's present moment will take and retake its meaning in the context of future unconscious thoughts, memories, fantasies, etc. The main consequence of these ideas point to the fact that any observation of a baby can only ever take into account the surface, i.e. is in the end a behaviouristic procedure.

As for Daniel Stern's opinion, it is possibly more well known by American readers. He insists that baby observation and research around it are- if not directly, then indirectly relevant to psychoanalytic theory. He refuses to accept that what he does has anything to do with behaviourism, and makes the point that his studies help to delineate what is and what is not possible for a baby of this or that age- setting certain limits, in a way, for what clinical psychoanalysis can then set out to theorise.

I found Green's points far more persuasive, even though Stern's ideas are also interesting. The fact that they're interesting though, does not make them psychoanalytic. Green's insistence on the difference between psychology and psychoanalysis, and his general stance of pointing out differences and not points of contact between different views and theories was great and made things clear. As I see it, it is a problem that most writers (especially in the Anglo-American literature) have the tendency to be too polite, too careful, too 'nice'! This stance does not help theoretical issues become clear and certainly does not lead to any new ideas being produced, since there is such an overinsistence of everyone agreeing with everyone else!

All in all, this is a good book, very readable, and should be of interest not only to psychoanalysts and therapists, but to the general reader who is interested in psychoanalytic theory.… (más)

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marialondon | Jun 30, 2009 |

Dimensions of Psychoanalysis por Joseph Sandler

University College, U. of London, in 1974 established a visiting Chair, whose occupant would be known as the Freud Memorial Professor. This work celebrates 14 years of the program, collecting the inaugural lectures of the professors, noted scholars from several disciplines who demonstrate how wide a range of thought psychoanalysis now influences.

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antimuzak | Nov 25, 2005 |