Early Development and its Disturbances Clinical, Conceptual and Empirical Research on ADHD and other Psychopathologies and its Epistemological Reflections

In this volume internationally well known experts discuss whether psychoanalysis - with its rich mix of clinical experiences and conceptualizations of early development and symptoms - has something unique to offer through deepening the understanding of children suffering from this and similar developmental disturbances. The contributors consider therapeutic strategies as well as possibilities of early prevention. Surprisingly, psychoanalysts have only during the past few years actively engaged in the on-going and very important controversial discussions on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). There may be many reasons for the increasing interest in this topic over the past few years - for example the dialogue between psychoanalysis and contemporary neurobiology/brain research which opens a fascinating window on an old problem in European culture: the mind-body problem. This exchange also promises to enlarge the understanding of psychic problems probably connected with some neurobiologically-based pathologies, widely assumed to include ADHD.

Preface , Introduction , Controversies on different approaches in psychoanalytic research on early development and ADHD , Early Development and Its Disturbances , Attachment, trauma, and psychoanalysis: Where psychoanalysis meets neuroscience , Discussion of Peter Fonagy's Paper , Discussion of Peter Fonagy's Paper , Coping with children's temperament , Discussion of William B. Carey's Paper , Motion and meaning: Psychoanalytic inquiry of so-called ADHD children , Discussion of Heidi Staufenberg's Paper , Further comments on Sophia's mimetic autism, with special reference to Bion's theory of thinking , Discussion of Jorge L. Ahumada and Luisa C. Busch De Ahumada's Paper , Early affect regulations and its disturbances: Approaching ADHD in a psychoanalysis with a child and an adult , Psychoanalytic Research: Hopes, Views, Controversial Discussion , Logic, meaning, and truth in psychoanalytic research , Trauma or drive—drive and trauma: Revisited , Pluralism in theory and in research—and what now? 1 A plea for connectionism , New orleans congress panel: What does conceptual research have to offer?

Jorge Canestri