A clinical study of the intergenerational transmission of eating disorders from mothers to daughters.

Clinicians and researchers have long recognized the existence of eating disorders in very young children, including infants whose mothers have eating disorders. This paper combines reviews of the literature relevant to the study of eating disorders from the perspectives of both research and psychoanalytic theory in order to explore the psychodynamics of the intergenerational transmission of eating-disordered pathology from mother to child. A developmental pathway as well as several mechanisms that illuminate the pathogenesis of the intergenerational transmission of eating disorders are proposed and described.

Stock-still behavior: a potential developmental marker.

During the course of a pilot study of toddlers' behavior and play, the experimenters observed a previously undocumented behavior. This behavior now labeled "stock-still" behavior, was noted at the age of 17.5 months and consisted of the toddlers' standing motionless at or near the doorway of a nursery when previously they had marched, seemingly intrepid, into the room on their own.

Further reflections on the "watched" play state and the role of "watched play" in analytic work.

This paper expands upon the concept of "watched play," a play state in which the mother silently but attentively watches her child play. The regulatory presence of the "watching mother" is introjected and internalized through the child's development of mental representations of mother's latently interactive presence, contributing to the development of self-regulatory mechanisms. By contrast, the consequences of failed "watched play" are disorganizing play disruptions which foster ambivalence and affect disregulation.

The analysis of a pre-adolescent girl with primal scene fantasies.

This paper presents the analysis of Daphne, a ten-year-old girl whose prominent primal scene fantasies organized the analytic process in a rather unusual way, creating challenging technical problems and offering the analyst the opportunity to learn more about the formation of primal scene fantasies and their potential impact on psychic development and function. The data are consistent with the view that primal scene fantasies become organized in response to the cognitive requirements of development--to answer the enigmas of sexual difference, genital sensations, procreation, and parental rejection; that these fantasies arise from phase-specific libidinal and aggressive struggles such as voyeurism, exhibitionism, sadism, and homoerotic fantasy; and that they influence superego development. Daphne, however, appeared to have used the primal scene fantasy in a rather extraordinary way to organize and integrate the vicissitudes of development and especially to master conflict.