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A basic tenet of psychoanalysis is that early experiences in a child's life will have an enduring effect on the adult he or she becomes. Consequently, it is commonplace to read that every psychoanalytic theory includes some mention of development, whether implicit in its conceptual categories or fully elaborated as a developmental theory in its own right. Anyone wishing to teach psychoanalytic theory to the next generation of scholars and clinicians faces a difficult decision, not only in deciding which theories to include but also in addressing their implicit or explicit perspectives on development.
Such was the task facing Joseph Palombo, Harold Bendicsen, and Barry Koch, three educators who share a clinical background in social work and extensive experience in training programs (including, for Palombo and Bendicsen, the Child and Adolescent Psychoanalytic Therapy Program at the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis). In their teaching they found that students' “unfamiliarity with the history of the psychoanalytic movement limited their ability to appreciate the context in which the creative ferment of the first half of the twentieth century occurred” (p. vii). Guide to Psychoanalytic Developmental Theories is their remedy for that lack, and the rest of us are the grateful beneficiaries of the care and thoughtfulness with which they have satisfied their pedagogical desire.
The book comprises seven sections: Drive Theory; Ego Psychological Theories; Object Relational Theories; Life Cycle Theory; Interpersonal Theory; Theories of the Self; and Attachment Theories (Part 1: Traditional Attachment Theories; Part 2: Neurodevelomental Attachment Theories). The sections generally follow the chronological emergence of post-Freudian