The Little Book of Child and Adolescent Development

THE LITTLE BOOK OF CHILD AND ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT The Little Book of Child and Adolescent Development Karen J. Gilmore AND Pamela Meersand 1 1 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 © Oxford University Press 2015 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gilmore, Karen J., 1948– author. The little book of child and adolescent development / Karen J. Gilmore, Pamela Meersand. p. ; cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978–0–19–989922–7 (alk. paper) I. Meersand, Pamela, 1956– author. II. Title. [DNLM: 1. Child Development. 2. Child Psychology—methods. 3. Adolescent Development. 4. Adolescent Psychology—methods. 5. Psychoanalytic Theory. WS 105] RJ499 618.92′89—dc23 2014019490 This material is not intended to be, and should not be considered, a substitute for medical or other professional advice. Treatment for the conditions described in this material is highly dependent on the individual circumstances. And, while this material is designed to offer accurate information with respect to the subject matter covered and to be current as of the time it was written, research and knowledge about medical and health issues is constantly evolving and dose schedules for medications are being revised continually, with new side effects recognized and accounted for regularly. Readers must therefore always check the product information and clinical procedures with the most up-to-date published product information and data sheets provided by the manufacturers and the most recent codes of conduct and safety regulation. The publisher and the authors make no representations or warranties to readers, express or implied, as to the accuracy or completeness of this material. Without limiting the foregoing, the publisher and the authors make no representations or warranties as to the accuracy or efficacy of the drug dosages mentioned in the material. The authors and the publisher do not accept, and expressly disclaim, any responsibility for any liability, loss or risk that may be claimed or incurred as a consequence of the use and/or application of any of the contents of this material. 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Contents Disclosure Statements | vii 1. A psychoanalytic orientation to development in the twenty-first century |1 2. Infancy: Psychoanalytic theory, developmental research, and the mother–child dyad in the first year of life | 29 3. Toddlerhood: Separation–individuation, rapprochement, and the forerunners of superego development | 51 4. The oedipal phase and the oedipal complex: Developmental advances and theoretical considerations | 71 5. Latency: The era of learning, autonomy, and peer relationships | 101 6. Preadolescence and early adolescence: Introduction to the adolescent process and the challenges of sexual maturation | 121 7. Middle and late adolescence: Sex and gender, individuation, and identity in progression toward the threshold of adulthood | 157 v vi | Contents 8. Emerging adulthood and contemporary society: Development in the third decade | 189 9. Conclusion: Why study development? | 213 GLOSSARY | 219 INDEX | 223 Disclosure Statements There are no conflicts to disclose. I am clinical professor of psychiatry at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, and training and supervising analyst at the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research. There are no funding sources or other possible conflicts of interest. Karen Gilmore, M.D. I have no conflicts to disclose. I am assistant professor of medical psychology in the Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University, and training/supervising analyst and director, Child Division, at Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research. I am associated with no funding sources and there are no possible conflicts of interest. Pamela Meersand, Ph.D. vii 1 A Psychoanalytic Orientation to Development in the Twenty-First Century The Challenge In attempting to craft a concise introduction to human development, we face a near impossible task in contemporary psychoanalysis. Psychoanalytic theories of development, like their associated psychoanalytic schools, suffer from proliferation, fractionation, and a scarcity of shared theoretical assumptions. Moreover, the lack of empirical foundations (with the exception of attachment theory) and the failure to interface and integrate with progress in other disciplines, such as biological research, neuroscience, and trends in theory-making, has marginalized the entire field (Stepansky, 2009), leaving the many developmental theories embedded within the various schools untouched. Among these, a significant proportion are “part” theories (ibid), tilted toward infancy and early childhood; they produce “psychoanalytic babies” (Thoma & Kachele, 1987; Tolpin, 1989) who (mostly) bear little resemblance to actual babies, who fail to thrive because their schools abandon them after early childhood, and who are rarely nurtured by the fruits of advances in developmental science. In fact, many theories, or at least some of their important adherents, openly discredit attempts to align developmental research and findings with the developmental theories of their school; they dispute the psychoanalytic value of any observa- tional data when obtained outside of the consulting room (Wolff, 1996). In the view of some commentators, efforts to integrate 1 2 | LITTLE BOOK OF CHILD AND ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT psychoanalytic theories with each other, or to maintain a pluralistic field, and/or keep pace with scientific progression have foundered on the shoals of insular partisanship (Stepansky, 2009). In this book, we sweep aside these differences and the historical resistance to the integration of new scientific knowledge with an admittedly biased broom: We propose a developmental orientation that incor- porates what we consider fundamentals of psychoanalytic thinking and developmental science, creating an open system that can be inclusive and reconfigured in pace with knowledge. Developmental thinking is work in progress and subject to continuous correction and augmentation. Although discovery may not find immediate application in psychoanalytic theorizing or clinical work, the active interface between psychoanalytic developmental theories and developmental science keeps our theory-making an organic, evolving process in sync with contemporary society, ultimately enriching psychoanalytic theory and clinical work. And although postmodern theories may disavow interest in childhood history, many were themselves offspring of new findings from developmental research. Indeed, it has been argued that developmental thinking is the pre- miere fount of creativity in psychoanalysis (Govrin, 2006). We believe that vibrant and relevant psychoanalytic developmental thinking adds a crucial component to twenty-first century developmental science and psychiatry, highlighting the importance of the mind of the child and the autobiographical narratives that shape adult experience: The child is (and always will be) the father to the man (Cooper, 1989; Freud, 1938). Our Position in the Psychoanalytic Terrain In brief, the fractionated landscape can be divided, for our purposes, between the traditional or classical theories (see glossary) originating before 1980 and the postmodern or post-postmodern schools that have proliferated over the last three decades. Traditional schools— those that emerged before 1980—have detailed developmental ideas that are more or less comprehensive. Most incorporate some A Psychoanalytical Orientation to Development | 3 version of Freud’s original psychosexual progression, but these developmental theories vary considerably in their school-specific notions of psychopathology, their concepts of therapeutic action, and their interest in actually observing infants and children to test their hypotheses. The traditional developmental theories origi- nated in psychoanalytic explorations of the mental life of adults and children, but some have incorporated and integrated observa- tional and research data, depending, of course, on its approach and theoretical bias (Fajardo, 1993, 1998).1 In contrast, the psychoanalytic schools emerging in the last decades of the twentieth

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