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.
When The Body Speaks: Psychological Meanings in Kinetic Clues is a highly readable, thought-provoking collection of papers edited by Selma Kramer and Salman Akhtar, who also contribute chapters of their own. Other contributors are Alvin Frank, James McLaughlin, LeRoy Byerly, Sydney Pulver, and Bernard Pacella. All are distinguished, experienced, psychoanalytic clinicians; most of them are trained predominantly in adult psychoanalysis. The book is rich in clinical material and makes a valuable contribution to a growing literature concerned with integrating observations and theories of childhood development into the mainstream of traditional psychoanalytic theory.
In Pacella's comprehensive concluding chapter, he notes that “a most difficult task confronting the contemporary psychoanalyst is the valid application and integration of the data from early child development research, especially the observations of Mahler and colleagues , into psychoanalytic theory and practice” (p. 180). And subsequently he asks “to what extent can [the] behavioral manifestations of separation-individuation be recognized in derivative forms during the later phases of life, particularly during adulthood” (p. 183).
As if in answer to Pacella's concerns and questions, Kramer writes in her introductory chapter that “the enactment in the transference of the patients described by all three major contributors to this volume (Akhtar, Frank, and McLaughlin) are very reminiscent