‘Stephen Seligman’s new book is a valuable contribution to the psychoanalytic dialogue concerning developmental theory and its implications for analytic practice. His discussion of "relational-developmental psychoanalysis" is without parallel. It seems to me to pick up where Greenberg and Mitchell’s 1983 classic, Object Relations in Psychoanalytic Theory, leaves off. He presents in a highly readable way a multi-disciplinary approach that includes direct infant observation, experience with patients in psychoanalysis, as well as social, historical and biological contributions. The result is a compelling study of twenty-first century psychoanalysis, which will enrich the perspectives of psychoanalysts and infant observers, as well as students of any field that takes as its object of study the human condition in all of its complexity.’Thomas H. Ogden, author most recently of What Alive Means and Coming to Life in the Consulting Room‘This is an outstanding book. It provides a masterly account of developments in psychoanalysis particularly in relation to its theories of childhood and development. The account leads toward relational analysis yet takes off in highly original directions in its discussion of the importance of puzzled and open attention and the implications for the development of the sense of time and of the future in patients filled with a sense of futility. The chapters on the link between temporality and intentionality are fascinating and need urgently to be read by all clinicians. The whole book is wonderfully clear in the way it links infant observation and psychoanalysis. It is also a great read.’Anne Alvarez, Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist; retired Co-Convener of the Autism Service, Child and Family Dept., Tavistock Clinic, London, UK“This profoundly integrative work is a remarkable journey through psychoanalysis from the point of view of infancy and child development. Weaving together past and present, directly informing our clinical work with immediacy and energy, this book is superb.”Beatrice Beebe, Clinical Professor, Columbia University Medical Center
