Clinical and Observational Psychoanalytic Research

Anne-Marie Sandler was born in Geneva where she studied psychology and worked with Jean Piaget. She came to England in 1950 and trained in child analysis with Anna Freud. She went on to train further at the Institute of Psychoanalysis where she became a Training and Supervising analyst for both children and adults, and a Distinguished Fellow. She is a former director of the Anna Freud Centre, former President of the Institute of Psychoanalysis and of the European Federation of Psychoanalysis and former Vice-President of the International Psychoanalytical Association. Joseph Sandler qualified as a psychoanalyst in the British Psychoanalytical Society. He was the Freud Memorial Professor of Psychoanalysis in the University of London and Director of the Psychoanalysis Unit at University College London, and in private practice in London. He was formerly the first Sigmund Freud Professor of Psychoanalysis at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Editor of the 'International Journal of Psychoanalysis' and the 'International Review of Psychoanalysis', and was President of the International Psychoanalytical Association.

Few topics elicit greater controversy within psychoanalysis today than the role of research in justifying or expanding upon analytic theory. The text collects papers from a London conference, along with additional material, to explore the work of discussants Daniel Stern and Andre Green. Stern, whose work and psychoanalysis and infant observation is world-renowned, and Green, the French psychoanalyst whose trenchant views on the limitations of research are equally well known, each focus on the issue of infant research and its long history within the psychoanalytic movement.Additional discussions by three prominent British psychoanalysts, Anne Alvarez, Irma Brenman Pick, and Rozine Jozef Perelberg, expose a different point of view from that of green and Stern.Also Included is a previous debate on this topic between Andre Green and Robert S. Wallerstein, former president of the International Psychoanalytic Association. An illuminating introductory chapter by Riccardo Steiner describes the main points of the debate with marvelous clarity. This book will be invaluable for all those who wish to involve themselves with contemporary views on this important topic.

• Publisher’s Note , Preface , Introduction , Part I , What kind of research for psychoanalysis? , Psychoanalytic research: where do we disagree? , Response to Robert S. Wallerstein , Part II , Science and science fiction in infant research , The relevance of empirical infant research to psychoanalytic theory and practice , Discussion (I) , Discussion (II) , Discussion (III) , Plenary discussion