In search of the early mental organization of the infant
contributions from the neurophysiology of nursing
pp. 419-431
in: Mauro Mancia (ed), Psychoanalysis and neuroscience, Berlin, Springer, 2006Abstract
The way the psyche unfolds itself from the biological organism at the beginning of life is bound to be a multifaceted and multidimensional phenomenon. Confirmed knowledge in this area of early human development is still sparse. Several different conceptual and empirical approaches have been applied to study the development of the early mind, comprising the span from the fetal stage to the successive postnatal developmental steps. Work such as that by Piontelli [1] has cast preliminary light on the impact of sensory experiences in utero. In the contributions by René Spitz [2,3], Donald Winnicott [4], Margaret Mahler and her study group [5], Stern [6], Tyson and Tyson [7] and Fonagy et al. [8], theoretical and empirical approaches have been combined. Retrospective derivation from adult or child clinical psychoanalytical material has been the method used by several psychoanalytical investigators, the most influential authors among them being Melanie Klein [9] and Wilfred Bion [10].
