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THE PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY OF DEVELOPMENT AS WELL AS clinical theory work with the assumption that development proceeds from the early dyadic relationship of mother and child to the oedipal triadic interaction. This implies that the child's preoedipal object relation is primarily a one-to-one relationship with mother; accordingly, the preoedipal pathology is viewed in the context of the mother-child interaction. I shall examine this proposition in the belief that it may constitute a simplification which does not do justice to the young child's ability to explore his environment and to extract from it what he needs, and which therefore leads to clinical reductionism, particularly as it relates to genetic reconstruction.
Object relations theory implies that all other relationships only mirror the child's relationship with mother, are substitutions for mother until the phallic-oedipal phase. It is not surprising that these assumptions have endured for so long, because indeed early infant studies have until recently supported the exclusive role of the mother-child dyadic relationship and the clinical data from analyses have consistently reconfirmed the primary role of this parental constellation.
It is the aim of this presentation to review new findings which