The Significance of Infant Observational Research for Clinical Work with Children, Adolescents and Adults. Edited By Scott Dowling Arnold Rothstein Madison:  Int. Univ. Press. $32.50  257 pp.

Infant-observation research has been making much more of an impact on psychoanalysis in recent years. It seems that researchers and clinicians are more willing to listen and talk to each other. The empirical researchers are able to carry out increasingly sophisticated research on mother-infant interactions, which enables the clinicians to see more clearly the links with their work. This book bears evidence of this interchange, focusing particularly on the effects of infant research on individual psychoanalysts' clinical work and theoretical thinking.

It is the fifth in a series of workshops sponsored by the American Psychoanalytic Association. Overall it gives some indication of changes in psychoanalytic theory and technique in the USA, as well as raising many interesting questions about theory which the empirical research provokes.

Following an introduction and overview by Phyllis Tyson, there are eight clinical accounts and four discussion papers. There is a wealth of material here. The clinical papers present a variety of views on the influence of infant-observation research which are thoroughly discussed in the papers by Morton Shane, Harold Blum, William Meissner and Leo Rangell. Important issues are raised — the continuity versus discontinuity in development debate, the translation of bio-behavioural studies into the psychological realm, the relationship of normal to pathological development, nature-nurture effects on development.

What these papers demonstrate is the useful effect of research in provoking further questions about existing theory, and the direction of future research. For example, do certain aspects of the relationship between the caregiver and child express themselves continually throughout development? The need to distinguish phase-specific strains from continuous strain effects. And overall, the necessity to distinguish clearly the different conceptual frameworks.

There are some cautionary remarks from Tyson and Rangell on the dangers of new rese