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Developmental Perspectives in Child Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy is part of the Relational Perspectives Book Series that publishes contributions to the Relational tradition in contemporary psychoanalysis. In the Introduction to this collection of thirteen essays, Andrew Harlem outlines some of the innovations that have influenced the ways these contributors think and work, for example, “the relational turn, nonlinear systems theory, post-modernism and feminism, and reconceptualization of gender development” (p. 2). It is these theoretical perspectives, he says, that motivated this volume which is intended to describe and clinically illustrate child analytic work. The focus is therapeutic action which, in contemporary relational psychoanalysis “must include an accounting of the analyst’s internal process and psychic/conceptual work, for it is this work that informs clinical technique” (p. 276).
The book is divided into four sections. In the first, authors incorporate research in child/infant development with ideas about reflective functioning and mutual regulation, as children move along the developmental line of a capacity to “be with” another. The second section focuses on the role of play: how it is used, understood, and contributes to the growth of the mind. The third section centers on mutuality, the self, and relatedness; the fourth explores the ever-growing conceptualization of gender and sexuality. While it is impossible to discuss each of these sections in great detail, I have chosen to highlight a few chapters that particularly caught my attention.
Graham Music’s “Neglect and its neglect: developmental science, psychoanalytic thinking and countertransference vitality” is one such exemplary chapter. Music uses the term neglect to cover a broad spectrum, from mild to extreme, and emphasizes that what is most important in considering these children is not what happened to them, but what did not happen. In this scholarly work, Music infuses psychoanalytic