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At the Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, an exhibit takes the viewer on a journey from the skin of a person into the molecular structure of DNA, followed by a shift telescoping out into the solar system and galaxies surrounding the individual. The ten chapters in this collection, the second in a series on primitive states, take readers on a
similar journey: first into the detailed activity of affect communication and then into the broader world of biology, neurology, genetics, affect regulation, archeology, and chaos theory. The book' dust jacket shows a thriving toddler atop a depiction of the double helix. While biology is present in the book, for these authors it is the explanatory power of projective identification that is considered the DNA of all communication. Analysts and therapists with other theories of mind may find the ubiquitous presence of this idea a challenge to their reading and yet welcome the fund of knowledge and clinical acuity presented in these chapters.
The authors in this volume are associated with psychoanalytic institutes in California, Argentina, and Spain and find their psychoanalytic home in the ideas of Bion and Klein; they are aware that their ideas are new to many North American readers. It is their explication of recent work on projective identification, along with their integrative approach and the beauty of their clinical descriptions, that will attract readers wanting to understand better how Bionian analysts think and work. James Grotstein' chapter is particularly informative and helpful for the newcomer. He presents an historical guide to the development of the concept of projective identification and its utility in understanding infant development.
Allan Schore, who has written a remarkably comprehensive book on human development, Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self: The Neurobiology of Emotional Development (1994), uses his expertise in psychoanalysis and neurobiology to focus here on the role of projective ide