Bridging Cultures or Withering on the Vine

Many psychoanalytic ideas and observations have important implications for conceptualizations and empirical investigations in allied disciplines. In recent years, psychologists and psychoanalysts have reminded us again and again about these interfaces (e.g., Gerber in press; Hauser 2002; Holzman and Aronson 1992). More specifically, attachment theorists and psychoanalysts have celebrated collaborations, as indexed by a broad range of new articles, books, and empirical studies (e.g., Fonagy 1999; Lyons-Ruth 1998; Steele and Steele 1998; Slade 1999; Main 2000). Yet aside from these fruitful collaborations, the wider intellectual surround of developmental science has not been systematically discussed, applied in clinical practice, or used to grow new research by child analysts, the most obvious group within psychoanalysis to pursue these matters. Identifying our “splendid isolation,” Levy (2004) points out that the natural bridge from developmental science to research has by and large “been allowed to wither on the vine” (p. 972), and analysts have so far not participated in “an exciting domain [developmental cognitive science, neurosciences] that for the most part has marched on without us (p. 973).

If this pattern of relative isolation from psychology, the neurosciences, and the social sciences continues, great opportunities for new knowledge and advances in treatment will be lost to psychoanalysis. And in the worst case scenario, psychoanalysis will no longer be recognized as a serious discipline to which other scientists, scholars, policy makers, and students will turn. Moreover, financial and clinical support for psychoanalysis and psychodynamic therapies will wither. For example, if psychoanalysts and their intellectual collaborators cannot produce persuasive evidence that their treatments lead to clinically significant outcomes for specific conditions, then these treatments and their underlying theories will not be taught in medical schools, psychiatric residenci