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Based on a tradition that goes back to the very beginnings of Greek culture, care of the self correlates closely to both medical and philosophical thought and practice. This ancient correlation has assumed an increasingly greater breadth to the point where Plutarch could say philosophy and medicine belong to 'one single identical field' (mia chora).
Notwithstanding the fact that the concept of self has very ancient roots, it is only in the last twenty years that its use in the language of clinical psychoanalysis has intensified to the point of becoming an almost ubiquitous term. Much more problematic, however, is the appearance of such a concept in psychoanalytical metapsychology. In fact, in spite of the wide use to which it has been put, there are very few authors who have tried to give a systematic place to the self in the body of metapsychology. If, on the other hand, we seek to infer, from the diverse usages of the term, some definition of the self, we realize immediately the, at times, radical divergences among the various authors.
With the intention of asking questions about this theme and of stimulating a clarifying debate, the book The Birth of the Self, edited by Massimo Ammaniti, contains the contributions of authors, for the most part Italian, presented at the meeting 'The Self between psychoanalysis and biology' held in November 1987 in Naples.
The central intent of the editor, whose tolerance and erudition are evident in his introduction, is to compare different views of the concept of self; to correlate classical psychology, psychobiological research, experimental psychology and the growing body of psychoanalytical knowledge in an attempt to give it a 'theoretical placement'.
The book, which presents the contributions of fourteen authors, is divided into four parts relative to the different spheres within which studies of the self are developed: the self in theory and in the clinic, the biological roots of the self, the self in infantile development,