Book
The First Year of Life: A Psychoanalytic Study of Normal and Deviant Development of Object Relations
René Spitz's principal book, written with W. Godfrey Cobliner, expands his French work La première année de la vie de l'enfant (1958), which grew in turn from a 1954 paper on the genesis of the first object relations. Drawing on direct and filmed observation of infants, it traces the development of object relations through three stages: an objectless stage, a stage of the precursor of the object, and the stage of the libidinal object proper. The passages between them are marked by the smiling response and eight-month anxiety, and the acquisition of "no" follows. The dialogue between mother and child holds a central place throughout. The later chapters treat the pathology of object relations. They distinguish disturbances caused by an unsuitable quality of maternal attitude from the emotional deficiency diseases caused by its absence, namely anaclitic depression and hospitalism.
Main ideas
- The book expands Spitz's 1958 French study of the first year of life, itself rooted in a 1954 paper on the genesis of the first object relations.
- It rests on direct and filmed observation of infants.
- Object relations develop through three stages: objectless, precursor of the object, and libidinal object proper.
- The smiling response and eight-month anxiety mark the passages between stages, and the "no" follows them.
- The dialogue between mother and child is central to development.
- Pathology of object relations divides into disturbances from an unsuitable quality of maternal attitude and emotional deficiency diseases, anaclitic depression and hospitalism, from its absence.
What it shows
- 1959
René Spitz introduced Organizers of the psyche
Spitz set out his principle of organizers in A Genetic Field Theory of Ego Formation (1959) and built The First Year of Life around it.
René Spitz introduced Eight-month anxiety
Spitz named the infant's fear of strangers eight-month anxiety, called it the first true anxiety and made it the mark of the libidinal object proper.