The Story of Infant Development

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
EDITORIAL NOTE by Meg Harris Williams
PREFACE by Gianna Polacco Williams
INTRODUCTION by Romana Negri
CHAPTER ONE: The pattern of normal development: forming a relationship with the breast
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
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
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
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
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