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Traditional psychoanalytic theories of infancy were challenged a number of years ago by Peterfreund (1978) and Milton Klein (1980), but published debate on this issue has only recently begun to appear. The main purpose of this paper is to respond to Zuriff's (1992) argument that new data from recent observational research on infants fails to refute earlier theories of infancy. The following quote from Zuriff is a good introduction to the topic: “For many years, a frequent and consistent criticism of psychoanalytic theory is that it is not testable (Nagel, 1959; Popper, 1962). That is, no matter what the evidence, psychoanalytic theories can always be maintained because they are too vague, incomplete, and indeterminate to be falsified. Yet, in the area of contemporary psychoanalytic theory of infancy, we seem to have a counterexample to this criticism. Supporters of the new theories claim that the experimental evidence refutes older psychoanalytic notions of infancy, such as normal autism and symbiosis, and establishes a different model, that of the ‘competent infant.’” (p. 19).
Zuriff's arguments are directed mainly against The Interpersonal World of the Infant by Daniel Stern (1985), which he regards as the most influential and detailed of what he calls the “New Psychoanalytic Theories of Infancy” (NPTI). To judge the relative merits of the new versus earlier theories, we must have a clear understanding of their differences. Let us begin with the concept of “normal symbiosis” postulated by Mahler. Zuriff quotes Mahler, Pine, and Bergman: “From the second month on, dim awareness of the need-satisfying object marks the beginning of the phase