The book describes the psychoanalytic perspective of development of the parent-infant relationship in the first three
years of life. The importance of the earliest emotional experiences of the child in the interaction with the parents
shapes the emerging personality of the child. Pregnancy and birth also have a huge impact on the emotional life of
the parents as psychoanalysis has shown that deep layers of the personality are stirred up through new parenthood.
The book follows the life of a child from birth to the third year. The psychoanalytic understanding is offered to the
reader in a clear and accessible language with many everyday examples from families. In each chapter the
theoretical description of the child`s development is followed by the detailed narrative of the development of two
children, Kelly and Max. The clinical material is based on the two-year psychoanalytical Infant Observation of the
Tavistock Model, which is accomplished by the narrative of both parents about their view of the Child`s
development and their own experiences as father and mother. The last part of each chapter is dedicated to clinical
material from a case of a psychodynamic Parent- Infant Psychotherapy as well as a case of a child analysis.
For readers who also want to get an introduction to the main psychoanalytic theories about the first year of the life,
the main ideas of the Kleinian, the Freudian, the empirical infant-research (Stern) and attachment theories and their
critical discussion are highlighted.