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.
Psychoanalytic psychology — underlying much of mental health practice — and Piagetian psychology — greatly influencing academic developmental psychology — have separate theoretical traditions, research orientations, and methods of intervention. Although both share developmental points of view, the differences are profound. One is a framework focusing on psychopathology, unconscious processes, and affective development; the other, a cognitive theory addressing structural reorganization in human thought.
These differences have contributed to past separation of the two fields. Interestingly, Freud and Piaget knew about each other's work as early as 1922 when Piaget presented his ideas about symbolic thought in Freud's presence. Since then, Piaget called repeatedly for a general psychology that could integrate psychoanalysis and the approach he termed genetic epistemology (Piaget, 1973). Despite this call, these two great developmental paradigms have had relatively little impact upon each other.