Comments to the discussion group. Clinical applications of developmental propositions

This note summarizes some of the areas of difference between the author's views, rooted as they are in the contributions of Freud, Klein, Winnicott, Bion and certain other British theorists, and those of the various American schools influenced by ego psychology, as they pertain to developmental propositions and their application in clinical work. The areas of differences in understanding touched upon relate to, inter alia, how early development of the ego is conceptualized; the role of the infant's objects, actual and phantasied; the factors that inhibit or promote such development; and the implications of these ideas for clinical work and for the aims of analytic therapy.