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.
| Acknowledgement | ix |
| About the Authors | xi |
| Editorial Note by Meg Harris Williams | xiii |
| Preface by Gianna Polacco Williams | xv |
| Introduction by Romana Negri | xvii |
| Chapter One. The Pattern of Normal Development: Forming a Relationship with the Breast | 1 |
| A stunning experience; a state of normal non-integration and evacuation of sensations; the pull of the nipple; maternal depression and the difficulty of introjecting the object; digesting emotions; problems of identification in the mother; the breast that comes and goes away; the bottle, and a distance from the mother. | |
| Chapter Two. The Pattern of Normal Development: The End of Breastfeeding | 35 |
| The end of breastfeeding; feelings of aggression and seduction; representations of the breast; the lost breast and the nipple lifeline; mother returns to work—the new sweetheart; the only baby; the relationship with the father; how the new baby is made; the little chair—the new place in the family. |
| Chapter Three. The Story of the Birth of the Next Sibling | 89 |
| Feminine and masculine qualities; the value of fairy tales; the epistemophilic instinct; one day it will be his turn; a point of “catastrophic change”; birth of the next sibling; the “imbecile” infantile self that damages its objects; the second day at nursery school (with Donald Meltzer); the third birthday. | |
| Chapter Four. A Three-Year-Old Uses the Gang as Container | 155 |
| Summary of the first two observation sessions; the gang and circularity of time; the parents' unfulfilled childhood (with Donald Meltzer). |
| Chapter Five. Play Observation in a Hospital Setting: Some Diagnostic Implications | 183 |
| Eleanora: redefining a diagnosis of child psychosis as neurotic anxiety; Daniela: redefining a diagnosis of epilepsy as psychosomatic illness; Vittoria: redefining a diagnosis of brain pathology in terms of mental deficiency. |
| Two infant observations: Matteo (early internalization of the object) and Giuseppino (the child's look and the mother's emotional state). |
| Index | 231 |