Introduction

I Quoting Valenstein and SchrOdinger to the effect that the greatest of life's failures is not to try, Max Stern ambi­ tiously calls for the reformulation of psychoanalytic theory so as to take into account the progress in biology in general and neurobiology in particular. A clinical psychoanalysis grounded in the best knowledge of the brain offers our field an unsurpassed pathway for growth; for psychoanalysis to ignore such developments, however, is to risk losing status with the public, stagnating as a science, or both. Other specialists, not as psychologically informed as psychoana­ lysts, would then be free to play increasingly important roles in health care delivery systems. I am, therefore, extremely proud to have been asked to write an introduction to this

volume and hope the reader appreciates the critical timeli­ ness of the publication of Stern's pioneering attempt to integrate aspects of psychoanalysis and neurobiology.