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In his book Developmental Theory and Clinical Process, Pine has a complex purpose. He advocates a broader technique for 'difficult' patients; he advocates the use of psychoanalytic theory in the traditional 'intellectual wasteland' of supportive psychotherapy; and he advocates the use of developmental theory derived from child observation in order to create new technique and to build a bridge between psychoanalysis and supportive therapy. Pine uses a 'parent-child model' to draw psychoanalysis closer to supportive therapy, emphasizing that analysts have always played a parenting role in providing 'a context of safety' and in facilitating psychological growth. Wanting to create a developmental theory that will appeal to all health-care professionals, Pine addresses a wide audience which includes the 'classical' analyst who has been too 'narrow' in his approach to therapy and the non-analytic health-care professional who could benefit from the precision of psychoanalytic ideas. The remarkable success of the clinical aspect of the book is that Pine's description of clinical process will often appeal to the whole range of his readers.
In order to encourage a broadening of psychoanalytic theory and technique, Pine sets out to show the ways in which developmental studies can contribute to psychoanalysis. The areas of focus that he finds too largely ignored by psychoanalysis—and better understood through child observation—are 'early experience, environmental inputs and quiet pleasure'. About the failure of the psychoanalytic approach to early experience and environmental input, he writes, 'the Oedipus complex is still widely accepted as the core of pathogenesis in "official" circles'. But Pine knows that his description of classical psychoanalysis as a drive-defence theory is inaccurate. Three quarters of the way through the book, he admits: 'To write of "classical psychoanalysis" for the sake of argument always runs the risk of creating a straw man. But for the m