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“I am fascinated by human development … ” and so begins this remarkable journey into the importance and potential of our earliest years. In this volume, Paul Holinger explores how we become who we are and with hope for change when development goes awry and when societal problems contribute to mental health problems of individuals and groups gone awry. The overarching theme is the importance and potential of our early years. We learn how Holinger, a strong intellectual presence at the Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute and former Dean, works with perceptiveness and balance as a teacher, supervisor, and psychoanalyst. This is a scholarly and very accessible work that will be of interest to child and adult psychoanalysts and therapists, teachers, parents of young and older children and adolescents, and others.
The volume opens with a beautiful Forward by Claudia Lament that places this volume in the expanding world of how infants and young children express their feelings. The Forward itself is an important contribution.
This slim volume of 149 pages of text is divided into two sections. The first and longest section deals with affects, cognition, language, and the intertwining of these systems. In the second section, Holinger turns to social policy, focusing on societal problems of physical punishment, and bias, prejudice, and violence through the lens of these systems.
Each of the 13 chapters begins with an outline that orients the reader to the enormous wealth of ideas that are packed into each chapter. It feels as though he is saying to readers, “I know there is so much here and I want to make it as accessible as possible.” He provides clinically rich vignettes in both sections.
In this volume Holinger introduces new distinctions in psychoanalytic developmental theory. He conceptualizes the intertwining, the interconnectedness of affect, cognition, and language. These processes of development are fluid, always evolving, never ending, and placed within the context of relat