Psychoanalytic theories of development: a historical, critical and comparative study, part II, present

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to show in an analytical, critical and systematic way the various psychoanalytic theories of the emotional development both to have an overall view and to establish possibilities of contribution and communication among them. On the one hand, it means filling a gap in the field of the theories of development in which psychoanalysis is shown in a very limited and poor manner (relating basically to Freud and Erikson) by reintroducing them more widely, respecting their complexity and showing that there are more elaborate current perspectives than those related to Freud and Erikson; on the other hand, by introducing each theory in an analytical and critical way through a single matrix of analysis, concentrate on the same variables and describe them to make a critical and comparative study possible. By doing so we believe it is possible not only to contribute to broaden and examine more thoroughly this area of knowledge but also to enable a dialogue among several psychoanalytic theoretical perspectives (different in semantic and descriptive terms). This proposal consists of two parts: (Part I) in which I introduce both the epistemological and methodological framework that provides the structure and the direction of the research and the analysis of the origins and the consolidation of the psychoanalytic theories as full theories of the emotional development, examining what Sigmund Freud, Anna Freud, René Spitz, Erikson Erikson and Margareth Mahler proposed (research supported by FAPESP, from 2019 to 2020, number 2018/17472-6, already finalized, with an approved report); and Part II, now being submitted, in which I will develop this proposal (using an analytical and critical matrix) to introduce the current psychoanalytic theories of development, based on the works by John Bolwby, Donald Winnicott, Daniel Stern and, finally, the presence of psychoanalytic theories of development in the field of perinatality psychoanalysis (Antonio Imbasciati, Bernard Golse, Sylvain Missonnier). The project that is shown here, within this overall perspective, corresponds to Part II of this research. (AU)