End Remarks

Our panelists were posed the question, “What does it mean to you to “think developmentally” when doing psychoanalytic work. The articles were their responses to this question.

Our day began with Dr. Sally Bloom-Feshbach’s wide-ranging and deeply considered presentation of how she works with a developmental model solidly entrenched in her every intervention. Her aims for treatment and her approach to the work bespeak a broad background in clinical theory and a grounding in developmental research.

She highlighted the importance of the quality of attachment, a person’s history of experiences both as subject and object, the interaction of their personality and character, and how much someone shows whether they have a sense of basic trust. She emphasized the intactness and robustness of the self-other boundary, especially in its ability to tolerate affect, and the interrelated issue of object constancy and solid self-esteem, and then how these become self and other-representations.

In her fluid understanding of and participation in the clinical process, she draws on different perspectives at different moments in accordance with what seems developmentally attuned. This is in the tradition of Fred Pine’s “Four Psychologies” (Pine, 1988). His article looks at the ever-present existence of drive, ego, object relations, and self and how we attend at different moments to different aspects of our patients. Her emphasis incorporates moving back and forth between what it is like to take the perspective of the self and/or the other in any given moment in a clinical treatment.

She concludes with mention of the powerful developmental nature of what we do, both for our patients and for ourselves, and its affirmation of hope and growth.

Dr. Kay Long then spoke about the importance of having a vision of the future in our clinical work, a way of looking forward and framing it for our patients, so that they might be able to look ahead as well. This implies a notion of real plasticity, a possi