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The Tysons are eminently qualified to accept the challenge of evolving an integration of psychoanalytic developmental theories. They have correctly perceived the need of students for assistance in assimilating in a coherent manner the vast and often contradictory literature on development. Their decision to maintain an intrapsychic focus assists in organizing the diverse theoretical perspectives.
To achieve the integration they are striving for, the authors construct an organizing framework derived from the work of Piaget, Spitz, Anna Freud, and von Bertalanffy. While specific applications of this framework may appear overly reductionistic and somewhat distorting, it does assist in providing a backdrop for understanding the developmental stages. The chart at the end of Chapter Two provides useful assistance in conceptualizing and understanding the authors' correlation of the different developmental sequences throughout the book.
An alternative approach would have been to tell the story of development longitudinally, avoiding the occasionally awkward division into separate systems. This alternative approach might have enabled the reader to obtain a more integrated picture of development at different ages.
To encompass such a rich and rapidly expanding body of knowledge in so few pages, the authors have had to make difficult choices. Major contributions are briefly summarized in a manner that at times does not communicate their full significance or complexity. The degree of acceptance of or doubt about certain contributions is not sufficiently elaborated. To the authors' credit, they