René A. Spitz: Dialogues from Infancy—Selected Papers: edited by R. N. Emde. New York: International Universities Press, 1983.

During the 1940s Rene Spitz (1887-1974) seemed a somewhat shadowy figure in American psychoanalysis, while Hartmann, Kris, and Loewenstein were in the forefront of the proceedings. Spitz maintained an elusive, marginal presence also at conferences of the American Psychological Association and of the emerging organizations for child development and mental health. He was one of the few researchers then primarily reporting direct observations on infants; now the fresh concern with character disorders has spurred much research in this area together with respect for its findings. Today, a decade since his death, his central ideas about “dialogue” from infancy may serve comprehensively to encompass the major new trends in clinical psychoanalysis as well as in developmental theory.

This substantial volume includes his papers from 1945 to 1972. Most famous now are his early studies on deprivation of mothering, “Hospitalism,” “Analytic Depression,” and “Autoerotism.” His later formulations, beyond both traditional object relations theory and primary narcissism, yield a fresh perspective and a possible framework for the current polarization of psychoanalytic concerns with object relations theories and self psychologies. His final hypotheses also evoke old, unsettled philosophical issues about the nature-nurture controversy and the question of an original self, a human soul. However, I intend to venture no further than into some implications of Spitz's work on dialogue for a rethinking of our classical, clinical approach to analytic patients.