Beyond the Symbiotic Orbit

"""Beyond the Symbiotic Orbit is an extraordinary volume. Honoring Selma Kramer, an outstanding leader in child analysis and cherished friend of the late Margaret Mahler, it elaborates, refines, and extends Mahler's psychoanalytic perspective on early development. The chapters comprising this collection clearly illustrate the broad applicability of separation-individuation theory to psychoanalytic theory and technique, while maintaining an evenness of scholarship rarely found in edited books. It is a major work in the field, undoubtedly among the most thorough and accurate examinations of separation-individuation theory in its historical, theoretical, and clinical aspects. I highly recommend the book to analysts, psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and all those interested in child development and mental health."" - Bernard L. Pacella, M.D., American Psychoanalytic Association ""If any one person should be credited with preserving the traditions of separation-individuation theory and conveying its essential meaning and relevance to mental health professionals, it is Selma Kramer, longstanding colleague and friend of Margaret Mahler, and now world-recognized authority on separation-individuation and early childhood development in general. It is altogether fitting, therefore, that this informative and inspiring volume, Beyond the Symbiotic Orbit, is published in her honor. The contributors are to be commended especially for realizing the promise of separation-individuation theory in its original form through innovative extensions of the theory informed by recent developmental and clinical findings. As each contributor illuminates a new facet of separation-individuation theory, so he or she enlightens the reader about the possibility of yet further applications to clinical and developmental theory, observational infancy research, understandings of child and adult psychopathology, and p"