Carol and the beanstalk.

Abstract

Taking on the giants of psychological developmental theory (the likes of Erikson, Kohlberg, Freud, Piaget, Vaillant, Levinson) smacks of grandiosity. Doing so with grace, perspective, and intelligence transforms the shades of grandiosity into a demonstration that sensible and intelligent research still is being done in the real world. Maybe it is "Harvard" or her association with David McClelland or just the confluence of these factors with native ingenuity, but Carol Gilligan's In A Different Voice ought to inspire a retrofit of graduate psychology curriculum for the next decade.Her hypothesis is simple. The current theories of psychological development are biased by a single track comprehension of maturityseparation-individuation. This is a motif for all modern theories. There is nothing wrong here, except, the separation-individuation track has a distinctly male turn to it. In other words men develop in that way but, typically, women hardly identify with it.Gilligan studies, among other things, the relation between identity and moral choice as they are integrated during the long transition from adolescence to adulthood. For the male ". . . individual achievement rivets the male imagination. Great ideas or distinctive activity defines the standard of self-assessment and success . . . Power and separation secure the man in an identity achieved through work but they leave him at a distance from Requests for reprints should be sent to

Review of René A. Spitz: Dialogues from Infancy--Selected Papers.

“…One of these is that the analyst, willy-nilly must offer himself incessantly as an object to his patient, almost demanding to be clung to, and consisently interpreting anything contrary to clinging to an attempt at escaping from proper analytic work. (p. 102) Balint's clinical cue is recognized handsomely in a previous publication in this journal, in Jack Barlow's (1984) review of Carol Gilligan's In A Different Voice (1978), which is a sensitively feminist critique of our cultural traditions. Building on Balint, Jean Sanville and I have more fully explored the clinical task in a book, Illusion in Loving-A Psychoanalytic Approach to the Evolution of Intimacy and Autonomy (1978).…”

“…Balint’s clinical cue is recognized handsomely in a previous publication in this journal, in Jack Barlow’s (1984) review of Carol Gilligan’s In A Different Voice (1978), which is a sensitively feminist critique of our cultural traditions. Building on Balint, Jean Sanville and I have more fully explored the clinical task in a book, Illusion in Loving—A Psychoanalytic Approach to the Evolution of Intimacy and Autonomy (1978).…”