You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Six blind men were asked to determine what an elephant looked like by feeling different parts of the elephant's body. The blind man who feels a leg says the elephant is like a pillar; the one
Page 801who feels the tail says the elephant is like a rope; the one who feels the trunk says the elephant is like a tree branch; the one who feels the ear says the elephant is like a hand fan; the one who feels the belly says the elephant is like a wall; and the one who feels the tusk says the elephant is like a solid pipe.
A king explains to them: All of you are right. The reason every one of you is telling it differently is because each one of you touched the different part of the elephant. So, actually the elephant has all the features you mentioned.1
How could two books that have the word psychoanalytic in their titles be so different as to appear exemplars of two different fields? Are psychoanalysts like the proverbial blind men touching the elephant and believing that their version of reality is “the truth”?
Unfortunately, too many psychoanalysts do not fully believe that our very limited perceptual abilities reveal only a small slice of reality, and that our perceptual experiences based on our preferred theory (psychoanalytic or otherwise) cannot possibly lead to a complete causal explanation of normality or pathology. Whether someone's pet theory is radical empiricism, constructivism, biologic reductionism, or any of the many popular psychological or psychoanalytic theories, we must all remember that, when it comes to psychological phenomena, that pet theory can almost always be refuted with the utilization of data derived from another theoretical perspective.
The two books under review here both discuss the complexities of infant and early childhood development and the challenges and joys of parenting. One, Young Children and Their Parents: Perspectives from Psychoanalytic Infant Observation, is authored by an individual, Gertraud Diem-Wille; whereas the other, Early Parenting