ABSTRACT
Initially, psychoanalysis considered a completely egocentric infant seeking to fulfill positive and negative impulses and defined infant states in terms of psychopathology. Freud’s followers, however, focused on infants’ relations with their caregivers and described them as a coherent dialogue in which emotions are exchanged. These descriptions were based on microanalysis which originated in late 1930s, and it is still an unsurpassed method for studying early interactions. Current psychoanalysis examines dynamic processes of self- and interactive contingency using a time-series approach and applies this method to adult treatment. Nevertheless, the idea that early interactions are primarily regulated by the mother has not been totally abandoned.
