ABSTRACT
This chapter will summarize the ideas presented in the book. It begins with the various ways my early training in infancy has shaped my clinical perspective, with particular emphasis on the experience of “being with” the other, and my use of the acronym of AIM. It will then discuss the value of taking a biopsychosocial perspective, which involves adopting a dynamic systems perspective and the two most essential needs, namely for psychic coherence and being an active agent in our lives. I then review the capacities of the newborn infant, and earlier denials of such capacities, and the importance of taking a good history, and looking for islands of positive experience. I then focus on Tomkins’ emphasis on the idiosyncratic process of making sense of one’s experience, and use the example of why my patients ended up in the hospital when their siblings did not. I review the process of script formation, and describe the important advance in Tomkins’ formulation of affects, his polarity theory, and his script theory, and the need to finally give up drive theory. I end by urging us to take a humanistic stance toward our patients and always ask ourselves: how is the patient right?
