The recent explosion of new research about infants, parental care, and infant-parent relationships has shown conclusively that human relationships are central motivators and organizers in development. Relationships in Development examines the practical implications for dynamic psychotherapy with both adults and children, especially following trauma. Stephen Seligman offers engaging examples of infant-parent interactions as well as of psychotherapeutic process. He traces the place of childhood and child development in psychoanalysis from Freud onward, showing how different images about babies evolved and influenced analytic theory and practice.


Relationships in Development offers a new integration of ideas that updates established psychoanalytic models in a new context: "Relational-developmental psychoanalysis." Seligman integrates four crucial domains:








Infancy Research, including attachment theory and research







Developmental Psychoanalysis







Relational/intersubjective Psychoanalysis







Classical Freudian, Kleinian, and Object Relations theories (including Winnicott).





An array of specific sources are included: developmental neuroscience, attachment theory and research, studies of emotion, trauma and infant-parent interaction, and nonlinear dynamic systems theories. Although new psychoanalytic approaches are featured, the classical theories are not neglected, including the Freudian, Kleinian, Winnicottian, and Ego Psychology ori