Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Thought. XV, 1992.: Developmental Reconstructions: Infancy from the Point of View of Psychoanalysis and Developmental Psychology. György Gergely. Pp. 3-55.

The author examines the empirical status of psychoanalytic theory with a view to demonstrating that the assumption among psychoanalysts—that the data derived from the clinical psychoanalytic situation are sufficient to develop an autonomous

and empirically valid psychological theory—is basically flawed. In addition, he holds that this view prevents the integration of psychoanalytic theory with cognitive psychology. The paper concentrates on the validity of psychoanalytic theories about the preverbal phases of child development. Specifically, the author explores the developmental origins of the concepts of defensive splitting and projection from the point of view of two psychoanalytic schools of thought, the Kleinian and the Mahlerian. Gergely states that their respective theories are not based on direct evidence, but are retrospective extrapolations from clinical observations of adult psychopathological phenomena such as the borderline or narcissistic disorders. Further, these theories are based on metapsychological assumptions to which Klein and Mahler were committed. Using the results of current infant and child developmental research, he arrives at several conclusions that call for revisions in theory. The first is in the assumption that in the infant there is a primacy of the pleasure principle over the reality principle. The second calls into question Mahler's undifferentiated phase because of the evidence that infants are able to form object representations in the first months of life. Yet the research also calls into question Klein's theories because the earliest object categories that the infant establishes are not specified in featured descriptions, e.g., of the penis or breast, but more in terms of place and path of movement. The author proposes that such cognitive ego mechanisms as causal and intentional attribution may be innate ego mechanisms which serve the function of adaptation to the social world of the infant, but which later on in the adult form