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Fred Pine is of course best known in the analytic community for his collaborative work with Margaret Mahler, and it is no surprise that this book clearly shows her influence on him. In this work, he offers us developmental theory, based on observational research and child-rearing practice, and attempts to demonstrate why it legitimately belongs in the mainstream of psychoanalytic thinking. He then focuses on the clinical practice of psychotherapy in an attempt to illuminate developmental theory.
Despite a title that emphasizes a particular point of view, the book lacks cohesion. It is apparent that different parts were written at different times, and for different purposes. Parts One and Two offer an overview of the concept of development as well as a creative and often brilliant elaboration of this concept from a theoretical and clinical perspective. There is a presentation of general concepts that is broad in scope and almost too embracing. It is once more an attempt to convince psychoanalysis that a developmental point of view is an essential, not a peripheral, part of psychoanalytic theory and practice, and should be acknowledged to be at least as important as or more important than our genetic point of view. Although the influence of Mahler on Pine is obvious, what is more significant at this point is the apparent influence of Kohut and self psychology on his thinking.
Parts Three and Four focus much more specifically on issues of child psychotherapy and child psychopathology. These sections tend to be how-to in design and often are quite elementary in contrast to the earlier parts of the book.
The whole book is written in a very straightforward manner, without jargon. It is deceptively simple because the concepts themselves are rich and complex in the first half of the book. The second half is another matter. In fact, in Chapter 14 Pine says, "Recently, when I was discussing some of the ideas presented here with a group of beginning therapists …" This