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Infant research has provided psychoanalysis a world of new information with which to enrich its theory and practice, and within the discipline there has been an increasing awareness of the relevance of these discoveries, a willingness to confront the challenges the data pose to long cherished notions. Stern (1985) described the paradigm shift that made the revolution in learning about infants possible, as having “consisted of turning the situation on its head, by asking not, what is a good question to pose to an infant? but, what might an infant be able to do (like sucking) that would serve as an answer?” (p. 38). Gifted observers in subsequent investigations then gave us a “new” infant. Unlike the “classical” psychoanalytic infant, the new infant is organized and differentiated from the start , learns cross-modally (Stern, 1985), and is capable of influencing as well as adapting to influences of his caretakers, in the course of which a “system” is created (Sander, 1962). The infant is capable of expressing and understanding the affective expressions of others (Trevarthen, 1979), on the basis of which he possesses a sophisticated communication system using facial expressions, sounds, and gestures. He understands turn-taking (Beebe et al., 1985). The infant is object seeking and stimulation seeking and is an exquisite reality tester (Stern, 1985), responding contingently from day one (DeCasper & Carstens, 1981). The infant's main goal seems to be to elaborate an ever-expanding array of initiatives within the context of a secure relational milieu.
With infant research has come a clearer awareness of disturbances of infancy, giving rise to the field of infant psychiatry and intervention (Stern-Bruschweiler & Stern, 1989). Attempts at classification of disturbance have been made (Sameroff & Emde, 1989).