PSYCHOANALYSIS AND INFANT RESEARCH - SOME CENTRAL ISSUES IN THE DEBATE

In Dornes' view it is time for psychoanalytic development psychology t o stand back from its preoccupation with the reconstructed child and g ain access to the real child via direct observation, thus re-establish ing contact with the state of research in neighbouring disciplines. Su ch direct observation would both stimulate a review of the cogency of the symbiosis and borderline theories of normal early development and question the assumption of lack of psychic differentiation in newborn children. So far, the author contends, psychoanalytic theory has both underestimated and overestimated the abilities of infants, ascribing t o them in the latter case the capacity for complicated psychic operati ons (hallucinatory wish fulfilment, grandeur fantasies, projective ide ntifications) which are in fact beyond their powers.