Psychoanalysis and the emerging field of developmental psychopathology, a scientific field which Michel Rutter, Norman Garmezy, Dante Cicchetti, and Robert Emde should be credited with having pioneered, have in common the goal to uncover the developmental course of psychological disorders of childhood and adulthood. This paper is not about psychoanalysis. If I were reading it to the British Psychoanalytical Society, I could probably accurately anticipate the stage whispered comments in the break: “Interesting, but what has it to do with psychoanalysis?” I am aware that the New York Psychoanalytic, unlike the British, has a very distinguished tradition of seriously considering the results of empirical research work, even when such work was undertaken outside the conceptual framework of clinical