Unifying Psychoanalysis and Developmental Psychology

  • Curtis R
  • Winarick D
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Abstract

Reviews the book, Attachment and sexuality edited by Diana Diamond, Sidney J. Blatt, and Joseph D. Lichtenberg (see record [rid]2007-07945-000[/rid]). In this case you can judge the book by its cover. The essays are as beautiful in their own way as the Klimt paintings of mother and child and of lovers one sees before opening the book. The book tackles two of the most important topics in psychology and psychoanalysis. Unlike some psychoanalytic books that ignore research findings, this edited volume incorporates empirical data with clinical material. Attachment and sexuality comes at a much-needed time for psychoanalytic theory. In order for psychoanalysis to survive as an influential theory in the field of psychology, psychoanalytic theoreticians must incorporate empirical data. The contributors pull together evidence from various sources, including neuroscience; social, cognitive, and developmental research; and clinical case material to understand the relationship between the two concepts. Before now, attachment researchers rarely addressed the role of sexuality in mental life. The book focuses on how the attachment system and the sexual system interact with each other. Nonpsychoanalysts may be surprised to learn that, at the outset, attachment theory was considered by Anna Freud and other classical analysts to be irrelevant to psychoanalysis because it does not deal with oedipal issues. Attachment motives are related to the infant's need to be protected from danger, whereas the sexual system has a different purpose--the passing on of genes. In Freudian theory, the infant's attachment to the mother was secondary to the role she played in reduction of the hunger drive. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

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Curtis, R., & Winarick, D. (2008). Unifying Psychoanalysis and Developmental Psychology. PsycCRITIQUES, 53(11). https://doi.org/10.1037/a0011014

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