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In 1980 the National Institute of Mental Health published The Course of Life: Psychoanalytic Contributions Towards Understanding Personality Development, edited by Drs Greenspan and Pollock. I regarded these volumes as a brilliant example of the multiplicity and diversity of analytic thinking as they are synthesized into the format of a developmental approach. In subsequent years when I was looking to recommend a book to residents, candidates and friends that would embody and illustrate the breadth, value and scholarly approach of analysis to the span of life I would, with great pride, recommend these three volumes to them. The original printing apparently underestimated the demand and after a few years these volumes were no longer available from the U.S. Government Printing Office. It is a pleasure to see these volumes reissued and expanded.
The original volume I, Infancy and Early Childhood, consisted of 14 articles on infancy (approximately 400 pages). The current volume has 17 articles entirely on infancy totalling 696 pages. Authors had the opportunity to revise their original 1980 article. Some did so, others left their work intact. Anna Freud's article recapitulates her ideas concerning developmental lines, a concept that has demonstrated its usefulness both clinically and theoretically. The apparent simplicity and clarity of presentation are disarming. Careful study reveals the mass of clinical observations and assessments for which the concept of developmental lines is essential since it provides the coherence and synthesis for our theoretical understanding of childhood.
Erikson's panoramic view of the epigenetic process follows. It is easy to see the appeal of his psychoanalytic views to those whose basic discipline is other than analysis. Little new is offered but, taken in historical context, it remains classic Erikson. Bowlby contributes a 42 page chapter in which he traces the development of his ideas on attachment: 'a fundamental form of