Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

How do babies experience the world around them? How do they bring together the varied sights, sounds, and sensations to create a social environment? These questions have long intrigued students of human development, but until recently we have had to rely on adult memories to imagine what infants think and feel. Now, in this brilliant book, famed infant psychiatrist Daniel Stern brings together the exciting new research on infants and the insights of psychoanalysis to offer an original theory of how human beings create a sense of themselves and their relation to others.Unlike those who view early development as a gradual process of separation and individuation, Stern argues that infants differentiate themselves almost from birth and then progress through increasingly complex modes of relatedness. He describes this process in fascinating detail, vividly showing how infants and their caregivers communicate and share their experience. Stern challenges not only the traditional developmental sequence but also the notion that certain tasks are confined to infancy. Attachment, trust, and dependency are clinical issues throughout life, he contends--a concept that has important implications for psychoanalytic practice.Elegantly argued and rich in new insights, The Interpersonal World of the Infant is certain to be welcomed as a major contribution to our understanding of infancy and of psychological development throughout the life cycle.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Preface (p. vii)
• Introduction to the Paper Back Edition (p. xi)
• Part I The Questions and Their Background (p. 1)
• Chapter 1 Exploring the Infant's Subjective Experience: a Central Role for the Sense of Self (p. 3)
• Chapter 2 Perspectives and Approaches to Infancy (p. 13)
• Part II The Four Senses of Self (p. 35)
• Chapter 3 The Sense of an Emergent Self (p. 37)
• Chapter 4 The Sense of a Core Self: I. Self Versus Other (p. 69)
• Chapter 5 The Sense of a Core Self: Ii. Self with Other (p. 100)
• Chapter 6 The Sense of a Subjective Self: I. Overview (p. 124)
• Chapter 7 The Sense of a Subjective Self: Ii. Affect Attunement (p. 138)
• Chapter 8 The Sense of a Verbal Self (p. 162)
• Part III Some Clinical Implications (p. 183)
• Chapter 9 The "Observed Infant" as Seen with a Clinical Eye (p. 185)
• Chapter 10 Some Implications for the Theories Behind Therapeutic Reconstructions (p. 231)
• Chapter 11 Implications for the Therapeutic Process of Reconstructing a Developmental Past (p. 256)
• Epilogue (p. 275)
• Bibliography (p. 278)
• Index (p. 295)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

In a clinical descriptive manner, Stern integrates his two areas of expertise (psychiatry and developmental psychology of infancy) by presenting a shift in theoretical viewpoint. Stern is well prepared for research in parent-infant interaction. Traditional notions of phases and some clinical issues (e.g., autonomy, trust, and attachment) are now considered as changes in social experience and social relatedness and are attributed to the infant's acquisition of new senses of self. Stern contends that these new forms of social experience remain intact throughout life and thus are life-span constructs, not developmental phases. Each sense of self-an emergent self, a core self, a subjective self, a verbal self-is addressed in detail, bolstered by experimental evidence and clinical observations, although the book is not written in a heavily scientific style. In the last three chapters Stern discusses implications, particularly those of the therapist who reconstructs the client's developmental past. Stern recognizes that by using this perspective changes in thinking and acting may involve generations of patients; however, ``just as infants must develop, so must our theories about what they experience and who they are.'' A few figures; subject/author index; extensive bibliography, including current items. Stern's work is of major importance to pediatricians, developmental and clinical psychologists, and psychiatrists; it is appropriate for graduate students and upper-division undergraduates in related fields.-E. Pearson, Marywood College