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Paulina Kernberg died on April 12, 2006, and this book was published later that year. Her daughter, Karen Kernberg Bardenstein, a coauthor of another of Paulina Kernberg's books,1 writes in the afterward that this book was the author's “last comprehensive creative effort, spanning over ten years of intense observation, reading, integration, and writing” (p. 193). Kernberg's interest in the mirror paradigm goes back well over twenty years, as evidenced by a 1983 paper of hers.2
The brief introduction to Beyond the Reflection not only gives a pithy review of how language and literature treat mirrors and reflection worldwide, but also gives a very useful outline of the organization of this complex book. Kernberg begins the historical discussion of mirroring by referring to the ideas of Lacan, a pioneer in grappling with the role of the mirror in human development.
The author opens the first chapter, called “Mother as Mirror,” which deals with self-development, mirror behaviors, and attachment, by telling how she became interested in mirrors. As director of Cornell University Medical School's residency program in child and adolescent psychiatry, she was teaching her students about attachment and was observing a 21-month-old girl. When the mother left the room at Kernberg's request, having left her purse next to her daughter and saying she would come back in a few minutes, Kernberg had expected to see signs that the girl