Many psychoanalysts view Piaget's observations and genetic theory of development as useful to their own retrospective constructions and direct observations of the emerging cognitive object. Piaget comments in the foreword: 'though I am ranked rather highly for my imagination concerning hypotheses, I received in general a rather low grade for their verifications'. This confession suggests that the affinity between psychoanalysis and the Geneva School of Psychology rests on more than theoretical grounds. Both Piaget and psychoanalysis therefore can mark the publication of this book as a welcome attempt to observe infants from three to twenty months in large enough numbers to be treated statistically, and put the traditional imaginativeness of both groups to the test of equally traditionally scientific demonstration.

This is a cross-sectional study of three groups of infants reared