The Essential Other: A Developmental Psychology Of The SelfIn its evolution, psychoanalysis has increasingly recognized that human behavior is as motivated by the search for a coherent sense of self as it is impelled by drives and defenses. In this comprehensive study of development, Robert Galatzer-Levy and Bertram Cohler examine how across the course of life—infancy, toddlerhood, early childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, middle age, senescence—humans primarily structure their experience by creating meaning from their relations with other people.Drawing on resources from diverse fields, including psychoanalysis, psychology, sociology, anthropology, and literature, this book clarifies the mass of thinking and research findings in human development. Plentiful and precise examples illuminate the principles and empirical findings discussed. The authors' multifaceted approach to understanding development allows them to examine how smaller developmental pathways—such as the growth of interpersonal skills, the awakening of the sexual self, the search for integrity—contribute throughout life to the search for solace, support, and meaning in the context of essential others.Packed with insights from many sources, this expansive description of the growth of the self will be an invaluable reference for both practitioners and researchers. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
The Human Environment of Infancy | 36 |
The Self and Morality | 64 |
Copyright | |
10 other sections not shown
Common terms and phrases
activities adolescent adult adulthood affect American American Psychoanalytic Association analysts Anna Freud aspects baby Baltes become behavior boys capacity career central child childhood Cohler cohort commonly complete psychological complex conflict context continue couples culture developmental developmental psychology distress early emergence emotional empathic ence environment essential example expected experience explore fantasies father feel function Gedo gender girls Hogarth Press homosexual human ideas identity important infant integrity International issues Journal Kohut Laius language less lives magical thinking marriage meaning menarche mentor middle-aged midlife moral mother Neugarten observed Oedipus Oedipus complex older parenthood parents particularly patients problems psychological psychopathology puberty relations relationship response rience role Second World War sense sexual Sigmund Freud Vol social society standard edition theory tion transition understanding University Press values women York young youngsters youth