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In his introduction Peter Neubauer pointed out three salient characteristics of longitudinal studies: they concern a significant period of the developmental process; they refer to propositions in the psychoanalytic theory of development; and they are ongoing and prospectively oriented. Much of the psychoanalytic theory of development has been formulated on the basis of retrospection and reconstruction, that is, on the basis of the grown patient's looking backward. Child analysis, however, qualifies as a longitudinal study in terms of the three characteristics mentioned. Also, the interpretative steps in analysis assume a future developmental organization and thus have predictive meanings. Noting Hartmann's emphasis on the importance of understanding underlying developmental processes, and also Kris's stress on distinguishing validations in analysis from validations outside of it, Neubauer went on to recognize that methods other than the clinical psychoanalytic one are necessary to study the period of early childhood. Thus, the study of certain structural and maturational aspects of the early ego requires assistance from other disciplines and other methods. He observed, however, that in some studies direct observation of children has been carried out in conjunction with subsequent or concurrent psychoanalytic treatment, and also that second analyses have made possible follow-up studies of earlier developmental propositions: such data make it possible to compare propositions based on different fields of observation. As the field of psychoanalytic observation expands into infancy, and as it resorts to observational techniques other than treatment, it also becomes necessary to face the question of how to conceptualize longitudinal data: in terms of clinical theory, developmental theory, general psychological theory, or the higher levels of abstraction of psychoanalytic metapsychology? We must clarify how the propositions of each longitudinal study are related