A Psychoanalytic Theory of Infantile Experience: Conceptual and Clinical Reflections

by Eugenio Gaddini, Adam Limentani

Overview

Eugenio Gaddini, a pioneer within the Italian psychoanalytical movement, devoted a lifetime of research to the organization of infantile mental life.

In this edited collection of his papers Dr Adam Limentani introduces Gaddini's key theories showing how they are closely linked to, but different from, the thinking of Phyllis Greenacre, Donald Winnicott and Melanie Klein.

These ideas are of great clinical relevance for the treatment of adult patients, particularly in the understanding of psychosomatic disorders. The richness of the clinical evidence with which Gaddini supports his hypothesis, and the originality of his conceptions make this a rewarding and stimulating book for the practicing analyst and psychotherapist.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781134905416
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	10/18/2005
Series:	The New Library of Psychoanalysis
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	236
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Adam Limentani is a training and supervising analyst of the British Psycho-Analytical Society, and a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatry, London.

Table of Contents

Introduction, Adam Limentani; Chapter 1 On imitation; Chapter 2 Aggression and the pleasure principle; Chapter 3 Beyond the death instinct; Chapter 4 Formation of the father and the primal scene; Chapter 5 On father formation in early child development; Chapter 6 Therapeutic technique in psychoanalysis; Chapter 7 The invention of space in psychoanalysis; Chapter 8 Notes on the mind–body question; Chapter 9 Early defensive fantasies and the psychoanalytical process; Chapter 10 Acting out in the psychoanalytic session; Chapter 11 The pre-symbolic activity of the infant mind; Chapter 12 The mask and the circle; Chapter 13 Changes in psychoanalytic patients up to the present day;

Editorial Reviews

"Essential reading." - Robert Whyte, Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy

"This is an important book. From Gaddini's wealth of ideas and experience it offers, particularly, his unique views on development, involving his correlations and creative combinations of the psychological and the psychosomatic, of metapsychology and object-relations theory, of external observation and clinical practice, of body and mind, mental and physical, and so on; all used to give invaluably stimulating suggestions and new slants to these very problematic areas." - Anne Hayman, International Journal of Psychoanalysis

From the Publisher