Some Contributions of Empirical Infant Research to Adult Psychoanalysis: What Have We Learned? How Can We Apply It?

The direct links among early development, a model of the mind, and the content of the transference are challenged from two vantage points—empiricl infant research and motivational systems theory. A discussion of these contributions and of their application in two case vignettes suggests a new view of therapeutic change—a view involving (a) recognition of the coconstruction of the analytic relationship, (b) contributions of self and interactive regulations, of their disruption and repair, and of heightened affective moments to the ongoing analyst—patient interchange, (c) emphasis on the analyst's recognition of the patient's communications as developmental strivings, (d) tracking of sequences of disruption and repair, and (e) dialectic between repetition and transformation. These various interctions develop in a patient new expectations of being understood, of being understandable, and of participating in a dialogue that does not, for example, require bolstering the other or sacrificing onself to the other. these new expectations lead to new themes as well as to the transformation of old themes that organize experience.