Margaret S. Mahler and her collaborators break new ground in developmental psychology and present the first complete theoretical statement of Dr. Mahler's observations on the normal separation-individuation process.Separation and individuation are presented in this major work as two complementary developments. Separation is described as the child's emergence from a symbiotic fusion with the mother, while individuation consists of those achievements marking the child's assumption of his own individual characteristics. Each of the subphases of separation-individuation is described in detail, supported by a wealth of clinical observations which trace the tasks confronting the infant and his mother as he progresses toward achieving his own individuality.A number of chapters are devoted to following five children epigenetically through their subphase development. A separate section describes the authors' methodology, the importance of the research setting, and the effects of changes in the setting. The extensive appendices by Fred Pine discuss the uniqueness of the data-gathering techniques used by the authors. In addition, a useful glossary of concepts defines the new terms that Dr. Mahler has introduced.This book represents an important breakthrough in understanding the human infant and makes a unique contribution to the science of human behavior.

In the fourteen articles collected in this volume, Carol Gilligan and her colleagues expand the theoretical base of In a Different Voice and apply their research methods to a variety of life situations. The contrasting voices of justice and care clarify different ways in which women and men speak about relationships and lend different meanings to connection, dependence, autonomy, responsibility loyalty, peer pressure, and violence. By examining the moral dilemmas and self-descriptions of children, high school students, urban youth, medical students, mothers, lawyers, and others, the authors chart a new terrain: a mapping of the moral domain that includes the voices of women. In this new terrain the authors trace far-reaching implications of the inclusion of women’s voices for developmental psychology, for education, for women, and for men.

"The problem of Ego Identity" is dealt with successively from the biographic and the developmental, the clinical and the social points of view. "Growth and Crises of the Healthy Personality" is an elaboration of the original attempt to go beyond childhood and adolescence and to spell out the critical stages of the whole life cycle.

In a study that takes him from the developmental crises of homosexual adolescents to the complex dilemma of homosexual men married to women and the often surprising effects of AIDS diagnoses on the psyhological growth of both the men facing death and those who will survive them, Dr. Richard Isay draws on his own experiences and those of his patients to explore the crucial role sexual identity plays in all stages of human development.

This book presents a new perspective on the development of theory of mind based on an integration of empirical research that has been conducted on autism and William's syndrome.