What do you think?
Rate this book
The Interpersonal World Of The Infant A View From Psychoanalysis And Developmental Psychology
A View from Psychoanalysis and Developmental PsychologyChallenging the traditional developmental sequence as well as the idea that issues of attachment, dependency, and trust are confined to infancy, Stern integrates clinical and experimental science to support his revolutionizing vision of the social and emotional life of the youngest children, which has had spiraling implications for theory, research, and practice. A new introduction by the author celebrates this first paperback edition.
352 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1985
59 people are currently reading
913 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
September 9, 2020
Stern frames his work in this way: Research in infant developmental psychology is overly hesitant to ask questions, or propose hypotheses, about the infant's experience of the world. Instead, this research asks only questions rooted in behavior and other observable and quantifiable phenomena. This is a deep problem, for it prevents scientists from getting at crucial areas of phenomena, whose disclosure would also have implications for the interpretation of these observable phenomena. Stern believes, especially, that this non-observable explananda is critically important: Does the infant have a sense of self?
This question is so important because it gets at how infants experience the world and other people. If they do not have a clear sense of self, for example, they might be solipsistic, or experience objects and others as not distinct entities from themselves. If they do have a sense of self, it is critical to figure out exactly what this sense consists in. Different kinds of senses of self entail different kinds of relations one can possibly have with others and the world. We typically think that one requires a grasp of language in order to have a self-reflective sense (e.g., one is reflexively aware that one has awareness of having a self), for example. If infants lack that sense of self, which we adults have, then what kind of self do they indeed experience?
Stern will argue that pre-linguistic infants have certain, robust senses of self. He elaborates on exactly what these senses are like. They involve knowing oneself as an agent in the world, having physical cohesion, continuing in time, and possessing intentional states. Grasping these elements of self happens in stages. Stern argues from birth to 2 months of age, infants have an "emergent self". Then from 2-6 months, they have a "core self". At 7-15 months they have a "subjective self". After that they have a "verbal self". These different senses of self do not replace one another, but are continuous; each successive one grows out from and presupposes the elements of the former one.
The emergent self is defined by the infant's capacity to initiate, regulate, and terminate interactions with her mother. The core self is defined by the infant's capacity to have a perspective that she is physically and agentially separate from her mother; this depends on the former interpersonal capacities of the emergent self. The subjective self is defined by the infant's awareness that not only are other people other core selves, but also that they possess subjective mental states that can differ from the infant's own. The verbal self is defined by a range of skills that come with the grasp of language; the infant can organize streams of information across modalities into a single perspective, and can tailor this organization in fine-grained detail.
Here are some points I found especially interesting in Stern's accounts of these different senses of self. The development of the core self depends on the infant's motivation to "order one's universe", or to identify the stable features of one's experience and understand how they relate to one another. The infant realizes that her experiences of agency precede motor actions, for example, and this yields an understanding of individual agency, and how this is distinct from the agency of her mother.
Infants, from their birth, innately can share their mothers' perspectives on situations. Empirical studies show that infants will use, and respond emotionally to, objects in the same ways, as their mothers do, even without their mothers' explicitly teaching them. Stern speculates that infants are not primarily aware of properties of these objects that warrant such responses, but rather they take up gestalt emotional attitudes, or evaluative perspectives, onto the situations as a whole, which are shared by their mothers. This hypothesis is more explanatorily powerful than the former that infants just pick up on isolated, individual features of objects that are similar to those that their mothers cognize.
The development of the core self also depends on the infant's experience of "evoked companions". The infant is able to feel the phenomenological presence of her mother, even when her mother is not physically present. This phenomenological presence serves like any other environmental cue, regulating the infant's behavior. Such "evoked companions" come to serve as the basis of social norms or standards, which structure the meaning of events the infant perceives. This is all a fancy way of saying that the infant can perceive the world from her mother's perspective, or rather her imagined form of her mother's perspective. According to Stern, the capacity to access the world from alternative perspectives is just another level of description of the capacity to feel the presence of the people who possess these perspectives.
I found this idea especially fascinating. We typically take the ability to understand a familiar object from fresh perspectives (e.g., different theories, stories, or standpoints) as pretty commonplace, and as happening from within our own individuality. Stern's idea implies that in fact, when we do this, the phenomenological presence of the people or communities in which these perspectives are anchored is activated. We must've learned these perspectives in our concrete, in-person interactions with these people, and they remain present within us, even when they are no longer physically there.
Stern argues that infants, in sharing perspectives with others (either concretely present or "evoked"), can imagine or fantasize about what might happen in the future in a manner that is continuous with the standards and assumptions that define that perspective. He calls this "interfantasy". This is a fancy way to explain that parent's expectations can shape what the infant expects of herself, and thus the infant's actual development.
These interpersonal capacities serve as the foundation for the infant's development of linguistic capacities. Stern draws heavily on Vygotsky in formulating his account of this phase of development. Grasping language is a matter of "negotiation" between thought and word; there will be discrepancies between an infant's understanding of a linguistic expression that that of her caretakers, and the infant is innately driven to reduce these discrepancies. This drive is derivative from the drive to belong to a common world, to be in communion, with other people. Language, moreover, is like a "transitional object" (a la Winnicott). Originally, language is used when the infant is with others. Then, the infant can take language into her private life and use it to recreate the sense of being with others.
Stern implies that this is a more advanced form of "evoked companions". The infant can control, organize, and access ever more detailed features of other people's perspectives, given the affordances of language. These more nuanced perspectives can thereby shape the objects that show up in the infant's phenomenal world in greater detail and forcefulness. In my own extrapolation of Stern's ideas, I speculate that this means that the infant can have greater agential control over switching between different phenomenal worlds, anchored in different social perspectives. These different worlds can also be ever more phenomenologically diverse, since language apprehension enables more detailed elaborations on each perspective, so there is more opportunity for these perspectives to deviate from one another.
Stern elaborates on how the grasp of language enables the infant to narrate her own life, and this yields greater opportunities to change one's views about the self and world. One can achieved more nuanced understandings of one's own agency, for example, if one can tell a story of the causal factors that went into an outcome of one's actions, a story with a beginning, middle, and end. Stern also points out that with language, one can create a verbal version of one's self and world, a version which may differ from the non-verbal experience of one's self and world. There can be great divisiveness, and even troubling conflict, between these two versions.
I disagree with Stern's account here. Stern writes as if the pre-verbal version of self and world is more authentic or fundamental, and if the verbal version differs from it, this verbal version can only be distorting or concealing. But one's state of self and phenomenal world is intrinsically malleable and open to development. Often our verbal versions of these serve as guideposts, which drive this development. So in evaluating the truthfulness of a version of self, there is not a one-direction fit from a verbal self to some non-verbal, static self. There is rather a two-directional dialectic, where these selves constrain and shape one another.
Stern dedicates the last two chapters to applying these ideas to explaining psychological disorders. I found these parts less interesting. The applications were biased towards affirming Freudian psychoanalytic theories. I could imagine Stern's ideas applied in different ways so that conclusions did not affirm psychoanalysis.
I read this book because I saw it cited by major authors in the philosophical and psychological literature on joint intentionality and joint action (e.g., Michael Tomasello, Thomas Fuchs). I didn't learn anything new in it; I've encountered its ideas before in thinkers like Heidegger, Andy Clark, and Tomasello (I recommend these authors to readers who like Stern or are interested in reading him). If I hadn't read these other thinkers, I probably would've found this book absolutely amazing. Overall, Stern is a very clear and analytical writer, despite being labeled as under the psychoanalytic tradition. I am pleased.
This question is so important because it gets at how infants experience the world and other people. If they do not have a clear sense of self, for example, they might be solipsistic, or experience objects and others as not distinct entities from themselves. If they do have a sense of self, it is critical to figure out exactly what this sense consists in. Different kinds of senses of self entail different kinds of relations one can possibly have with others and the world. We typically think that one requires a grasp of language in order to have a self-reflective sense (e.g., one is reflexively aware that one has awareness of having a self), for example. If infants lack that sense of self, which we adults have, then what kind of self do they indeed experience?
Stern will argue that pre-linguistic infants have certain, robust senses of self. He elaborates on exactly what these senses are like. They involve knowing oneself as an agent in the world, having physical cohesion, continuing in time, and possessing intentional states. Grasping these elements of self happens in stages. Stern argues from birth to 2 months of age, infants have an "emergent self". Then from 2-6 months, they have a "core self". At 7-15 months they have a "subjective self". After that they have a "verbal self". These different senses of self do not replace one another, but are continuous; each successive one grows out from and presupposes the elements of the former one.
The emergent self is defined by the infant's capacity to initiate, regulate, and terminate interactions with her mother. The core self is defined by the infant's capacity to have a perspective that she is physically and agentially separate from her mother; this depends on the former interpersonal capacities of the emergent self. The subjective self is defined by the infant's awareness that not only are other people other core selves, but also that they possess subjective mental states that can differ from the infant's own. The verbal self is defined by a range of skills that come with the grasp of language; the infant can organize streams of information across modalities into a single perspective, and can tailor this organization in fine-grained detail.
Here are some points I found especially interesting in Stern's accounts of these different senses of self. The development of the core self depends on the infant's motivation to "order one's universe", or to identify the stable features of one's experience and understand how they relate to one another. The infant realizes that her experiences of agency precede motor actions, for example, and this yields an understanding of individual agency, and how this is distinct from the agency of her mother.
Infants, from their birth, innately can share their mothers' perspectives on situations. Empirical studies show that infants will use, and respond emotionally to, objects in the same ways, as their mothers do, even without their mothers' explicitly teaching them. Stern speculates that infants are not primarily aware of properties of these objects that warrant such responses, but rather they take up gestalt emotional attitudes, or evaluative perspectives, onto the situations as a whole, which are shared by their mothers. This hypothesis is more explanatorily powerful than the former that infants just pick up on isolated, individual features of objects that are similar to those that their mothers cognize.
The development of the core self also depends on the infant's experience of "evoked companions". The infant is able to feel the phenomenological presence of her mother, even when her mother is not physically present. This phenomenological presence serves like any other environmental cue, regulating the infant's behavior. Such "evoked companions" come to serve as the basis of social norms or standards, which structure the meaning of events the infant perceives. This is all a fancy way of saying that the infant can perceive the world from her mother's perspective, or rather her imagined form of her mother's perspective. According to Stern, the capacity to access the world from alternative perspectives is just another level of description of the capacity to feel the presence of the people who possess these perspectives.
I found this idea especially fascinating. We typically take the ability to understand a familiar object from fresh perspectives (e.g., different theories, stories, or standpoints) as pretty commonplace, and as happening from within our own individuality. Stern's idea implies that in fact, when we do this, the phenomenological presence of the people or communities in which these perspectives are anchored is activated. We must've learned these perspectives in our concrete, in-person interactions with these people, and they remain present within us, even when they are no longer physically there.
Stern argues that infants, in sharing perspectives with others (either concretely present or "evoked"), can imagine or fantasize about what might happen in the future in a manner that is continuous with the standards and assumptions that define that perspective. He calls this "interfantasy". This is a fancy way to explain that parent's expectations can shape what the infant expects of herself, and thus the infant's actual development.
These interpersonal capacities serve as the foundation for the infant's development of linguistic capacities. Stern draws heavily on Vygotsky in formulating his account of this phase of development. Grasping language is a matter of "negotiation" between thought and word; there will be discrepancies between an infant's understanding of a linguistic expression that that of her caretakers, and the infant is innately driven to reduce these discrepancies. This drive is derivative from the drive to belong to a common world, to be in communion, with other people. Language, moreover, is like a "transitional object" (a la Winnicott). Originally, language is used when the infant is with others. Then, the infant can take language into her private life and use it to recreate the sense of being with others.
Stern implies that this is a more advanced form of "evoked companions". The infant can control, organize, and access ever more detailed features of other people's perspectives, given the affordances of language. These more nuanced perspectives can thereby shape the objects that show up in the infant's phenomenal world in greater detail and forcefulness. In my own extrapolation of Stern's ideas, I speculate that this means that the infant can have greater agential control over switching between different phenomenal worlds, anchored in different social perspectives. These different worlds can also be ever more phenomenologically diverse, since language apprehension enables more detailed elaborations on each perspective, so there is more opportunity for these perspectives to deviate from one another.
Stern elaborates on how the grasp of language enables the infant to narrate her own life, and this yields greater opportunities to change one's views about the self and world. One can achieved more nuanced understandings of one's own agency, for example, if one can tell a story of the causal factors that went into an outcome of one's actions, a story with a beginning, middle, and end. Stern also points out that with language, one can create a verbal version of one's self and world, a version which may differ from the non-verbal experience of one's self and world. There can be great divisiveness, and even troubling conflict, between these two versions.
I disagree with Stern's account here. Stern writes as if the pre-verbal version of self and world is more authentic or fundamental, and if the verbal version differs from it, this verbal version can only be distorting or concealing. But one's state of self and phenomenal world is intrinsically malleable and open to development. Often our verbal versions of these serve as guideposts, which drive this development. So in evaluating the truthfulness of a version of self, there is not a one-direction fit from a verbal self to some non-verbal, static self. There is rather a two-directional dialectic, where these selves constrain and shape one another.
Stern dedicates the last two chapters to applying these ideas to explaining psychological disorders. I found these parts less interesting. The applications were biased towards affirming Freudian psychoanalytic theories. I could imagine Stern's ideas applied in different ways so that conclusions did not affirm psychoanalysis.
I read this book because I saw it cited by major authors in the philosophical and psychological literature on joint intentionality and joint action (e.g., Michael Tomasello, Thomas Fuchs). I didn't learn anything new in it; I've encountered its ideas before in thinkers like Heidegger, Andy Clark, and Tomasello (I recommend these authors to readers who like Stern or are interested in reading him). If I hadn't read these other thinkers, I probably would've found this book absolutely amazing. Overall, Stern is a very clear and analytical writer, despite being labeled as under the psychoanalytic tradition. I am pleased.
August 6, 2010
This book is a masterful integration of attachment theory with cognitive and behavioral psychology. It has greatly informed my theoretical orientation and clinical approach to working with both children and adults. Unfortunately, it is a difficult read - Stern's ideas are complex and his language is at times impenetrable. Best approached in a classroom setting with a complementary lecture series.
August 12, 2019
I read this as a psychology graduate student back in the mid 1980's. I loved it, one of the hands down best books on the topic. It's an impassioned subjective account of the infant, their apprehension of the world and their caretakers. Stern brings a wealth of experience, theoretical construct and observation to bear, all from a developmental, attachment, analytically interpersonal perspective. It informed me not only intellectually, but dramatically shaped my thinking in terms of the therapeutic relationship between client and therapist, and the clinical aspects therein. This is not just some academic tome, it's brilliantly lucid, not a bit turgid, and he writes like a dream--clear, clean, concise. Most of my school books I donated to the library or threw (yes, chagrined to admit it :-(, but Stern's book, is one of the rare ones I kept. It's sitting on my shelf because I could not bear to part with it: it gives me a sense of reassurance and comfort to think that he "knows" infants, and as such, a part of our soul as humanity, so intimately, it feels he holds us in the palm of his hand. Love love love this what surely must have been a labor of love for Stern :-)
January 23, 2020
Possibly because the author spent most of their time in clinical study, the book eludes the psychoanalytic hand-wringing characteristic of this kind of writing (even in America!) in the 70s and 80s. It's the most gentle refutation of Freud, but it's a doozy. I hope to have a pocket-copy of this to bust out when people start talking about "stages" and "complexes" around me, or when people would ignorantly claim that "babies are dumb."
Useful for reading Guattari--maybe even critical to understanding the motives behind Anti-Oedipus and especially grasping the "existential refrain." Maurizio Lazzarato has a really good section on this book in his "Signs and Machines."
Useful for reading Guattari--maybe even critical to understanding the motives behind Anti-Oedipus and especially grasping the "existential refrain." Maurizio Lazzarato has a really good section on this book in his "Signs and Machines."
April 20, 2025
This is very good indeed. It takes the observed development of infants and children, and assemblies a coherent, integrative, and very believable account of how us humans assemble our world views.
In doing so, he convincingly critiques analytical and theoretical views of human development which seem more of a reverse-engineering of adult psychologies and pathologies rather than what happens in practice. I read the 1985 edition, and am reviewing the updated context Dan Stern provides in his updated version.
In summary, it's a tremendous and illuminating read which fills many gaps on how we think about ourselves.
In doing so, he convincingly critiques analytical and theoretical views of human development which seem more of a reverse-engineering of adult psychologies and pathologies rather than what happens in practice. I read the 1985 edition, and am reviewing the updated context Dan Stern provides in his updated version.
In summary, it's a tremendous and illuminating read which fills many gaps on how we think about ourselves.
September 18, 2018
This book's target audience appears to be postgraduate Psychology students, accordingly I had enormous difficulty getting through it. It is well written, and the author provides ample references to support his opinions.
The book strives to define the emerging self of an infant. It takes into consideration what a living thing can understand and feel based off their senses, interpersonal relations (principally with their mother), and their growing ability to interact with their environment and express themselves.
The book strives to define the emerging self of an infant. It takes into consideration what a living thing can understand and feel based off their senses, interpersonal relations (principally with their mother), and their growing ability to interact with their environment and express themselves.
August 20, 2021
Vital synthesis of psychoanalytical and development-observational insights. Stern's model of 4 phases of self development (with each complementing and complexifying and not superseding or transcending the other) is a very useful way to proceed. What remains clear is the radical influence of the early months and years in the formation of character and, brilliantly expounded, the double-edged effects of language. Stern's discussion is a usefully down-to-earth alternative way-in to the Lacanian concern with Being vs. Meaning.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews