ABSTRACT
This book shows how variations in endogenous factors or environmental factors might produce an infant that looks more like the infants that Klein described, and other factors might produce infants that look more like infants that Winnicott has described. It highlights that Freud’s theoretical base provides the widest support for a new theory, and that Kleinian and Bionian theory are compatible with that base. Both of these theorists have changed the landscape of therapeutic interactions. Hartmann’s concept of adaptation has been too easily overlooked, in part because of his attempt to rescue aspects of Freudian theory that were not salvagable. All of the factors indicate that any reductionist theory does not do justice to the multiple factors that influence human development and the therapeutic situation. Many self-psychoanalysts find Kleinian theory to be at odds with their theoretical views.
