Adult Development: A New Dimension in Psychodynamic Theory and Practice

This volume is about the normal development of adulthood, as weIl as its vieissitudes and the contributions of such development to psycho­ pathology. The authors are psychoanalysts of great dinieal skill and perceptiveness, but while their focus is consistently a psychodynamie one, their conceptualizations about adult developmental processes are applicable to virtually all kinds of therapy. It is extraordinary how little attention has been paid to the effects of adult developmental experience on mental development. Obviously mental structures are not statie after the profound experiences of child­ hood and adolescence, nor are they merely a template upon whieh adult experiences are processed. The authors dearly demonstrate that current adult experience always adds to, and interacts with, existing mental structure, whieh is itself the result of all preceding develop­ ment. After a first section in whieh they examine life cyde ideas on de­ velopment from antiquity to the present, they present their own work as it relates to adult experience and adult development. Their hypoth­ eses about the psychodynamie theory of adult development are partie­ ularly creative and an enormous contribution to the psychiatrie litera­ ture and the dinical understanding of patients. Consistent with their views that development in adulthood is an ongoing and dynamic process, they elaborate their ideas that childhood development is fo­ cused primarily on the formation of psychie structure while adult de­ velopment is concerned with the continued evolution of existing struc­ ture and its use.