Product Description
Challenging 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. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Excellent and Foundational Reading
I lost my earlier edition in Hurricane Katrina. This book is must reading for every serious student of human development,including parents and professionals who work with people of all ages. The text describes years of infant observation and developmental research in a highly-readable format.As a psychoanalytic-psychotherapist, it is a continuous reference work, which is why I chose to replace it in my professional library.

In my opinion it is "must" reading for teachers, clergy, counselors, child care specialists, and medical professionals who work directlyin serving people.Why?Because human beings are relationally-organized intheir developmental history, and this wonderful text outlines the foundations.

Having been on the forefront of clinical work with traumatized survivors of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita (2005), I know on the basis of my own first-hand experience how totally disorganizing adult onset trauma affects people;the ability of the core-self to recover from such wounding becomes the significant issue.The "sense of self" lies at the core of the issues involved in healing and psychological recovery. I really missed my "lost copy" and am most grateful to once again have it at my fingertips.

Walton H. Ehrhardt, EdD, LPC, LMFT, CGP

The Clinical Implications are Huge
Thirty-four years in "the game;" twenty-two of them with some form of certification or license. I told someone else in the game I was into the developmentalists. She said, "Read this."

There are good books, great books, and life changers. For me, TIWOTI is somewhere between the latter categories. (I'd give it =six= stars if I could.)

Stern not only effectively built a case for a very solid, neo-neo-Freudian nosology of very early life development, he ties it all together with what it needs to be tied up =to=: the clinical implications for those who will deal with the results... of the pre-cognitive core self, of a new way of looking at attachment, of maternal attunement, of purposeful consciousness, of agency, of the formation of the verbal symbolic -- and thus =cognitive= -- self.

His notion of the "observed" -- as opposed to "theoretical" -- infant could only have been devised in the new era of computer-facilitated, empirical research that had dawned in the decade preceding the first edition (1985). He makes no assertions without grounding them in statistics.

For those of us who thought we had it all "down" with the great Erik Erikson, John Bowlby, Mary Ainsworth, Margaret Mahler, Melanie Klein, Don Winnicott and Diana Baumrind, this will come as a real eye-opener. Because Stern can =see= into the developing mind by virtue of a rigorous means of empirical observation.

Many (though by no means all) of the pure Freudian and British Object Relations theories fall like flies before a can of Flit. Here =is= the platform Terry Brazelton, Alan Schore and my cross-town colleague Dan Seigel had to climb up upon to provide us with all the hugely valuable insights they have added since this book fell in their laps.

Stern argues for parallel and continuous, rather than discrete and staged, ego development. (His work greatly influenced my own about the continuous parallel processing of the seperate ego parts we can =observe= in the borderline personality organization.)

Stern presents us with a neonate and infant who is "working on himself" at every level that his continuing neurological maturation makes possible for him. No linear phases of "trust here" or "autonomy there" or "initiative over there" (though I continue to =observe= that these processes and acquitions influence each other). He and his associates and contributors see =all= of the supposed Erikson stages in process from the git in =cyclical= and interactive, rather than linear and stair-step fashion.

(Watch a five-month old =after= you've read this. It's all so self-evident, I wonder now how I missed it for so long.)

His notions about the socializing influence of maternal mis-attunement rooted in the mother's own socialized "false self" had such immense ramifications for those of us who deal with borderlines and other dissociatives that I had to put the book down and wander around for a half hour in a daze of inter-hemispheric computation on that =alone=.

"Gradually, with the cooperation between the parent and the child, the false self becomes established as a semantic construction made of linguistic propositions about who one is and what one does and experiences. The true self becomes a conglomerate of disavowed experiences of self which =cannot be linguistically encoded=."

If you studied -- and utilized -- the Big Ideas from the cognitivists like Beck, Ellis, Seligman, Wessler and Young; you'll grasp the clinical relevance of that quotation in three or four seconds... but you may wind up pondering it for a lot longer.

The paperback may weigh less than a pound, but it's impact needs to be measured in =tonnage=. This is one of the great, great books in our field.

Highly recommended
This is an excellent book that outlines the infant to caregiver bond in human development. Dr. Stern challenges the traditional developmental sequence and the erroneousviews that certain fundamental attachment patterns are confined to infancy alone. This is a great book that understands how scaffolding works in establishing patterns of relationship that can last a lifetime. The fundamental basics that make our human bonds to one another pleasurable and fulfilling are rooted in the establishment of secure attachments, trust and the creation ofbalance in human giving and receiving. He outlines what can go 'right' and what can go 'wrong' in these early bonds. His focus on loving and attuned presence, reading cues of overstimulation, or understimulation, captures the essence and joythat is both given and received when caretaking is done well or as has been described elsewhere, is 'good enough'. A great read and guide also for parents and clinicians, a great step in helping to build empathy and awareness about this criticalperiod in human development. Highly recommended.

Good Choice
Dr. Stern did an excellent job in describinghuman development that is empirically based.What has resulted is a questioning of Dr. Margaret Mahler's 1st and 2nd stages of development.Though Dr. Mahler's work is superb, her theory is derived from observation, whereas Dr. Stern utilized computer technology to research similar material consequently presenting a major contribution to the literature.Finally, his writing style is easy to read that all readers can benefit from, especially those who have or work with children.I recommend reading this book.
... Read more

Product Description
A major synthesis of the exploding field of infant mental health that creates a new model of treatment. ... Read more

Product Description
Every new parent wants to know what the infant's experience is really like. In Diary of a Baby, renowned infant psychiatrist Daniel Stern brings us closer than ever before to penetrating a young child's consciousness. In alternating sections of evocative prose, representing the baby's own voice, and explanatory text, Daniel Stern draws on his research findings and years of clinical experience to re-create the baby's world. Diary of a Baby, with a new introduction by the author, can be read alongside Dr. Stern's book on the motherhood experience The Birth of a Mother. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Great for new parents
I give the book to every new parent or parents to be.It gives them a very easy to read and understandable view, from the baby's perspective, of what's going on developmentally during the first couple years of birth.An excellent read for all parents!!!

Litterature for becoming parents
This book is based on most serious psychological research and reflects the knowledge we at the moment have about how babies percieve and experiences their environment. A book I recommend for all becoming parents, and it ought to be read before the child is borne. It explains how, and why the relational environment is of paramount importance for the psychological developement of all children. Do you want your child to have a psychologically sound developement? Then read this book!

Very annoying book
Based on some guys fantasies. Get "What's going on in there" by Lise Eliot instead.

a little too verbal for a baby
This author pretends that he is speaking as the baby and its ridiculous. He is a baby with a HUGE extensive vocabulary and is also very poetic. At times these baby narrations just become too silly to even take this book seriously.

A great gift for new parents
As a pediatrician, I love this little book and have given it to all my friends when they had their first baby. Dr. Stern is a recognized expert on early childhood development and teaches at Cornell. In this book he has done something quite unusual. He succeeded in weaving the pearls from his academic work into a delightful, readable book that any interested person can enjoy. This book makes it fun to understand your child better. ... Read more

Product Description
An exploration of the power of the profound but fleeting experiences at the root of interpersonal relationships.

Beginning with the claim that we are psychologically alive only in the now, readers are invited to reconsider their day-to-day experiences. Certain moments of shared immediate experience—such as a knowing glance across a dinner table—are paradigmatic of what Stern shows to be the core of human experience, the three to five seconds he identifies as "the present moment." This book offers a novel response to age-old questions about the passage of time, what the future offers, and how humans change during the course of their lives. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

An insightful and inspiring book by an original thinker
A stunningly fundamental book. Full of insight, suggestive perspectives, inspiring crystallizations. A research-based account of the psychology of the present moment with far-reaching consequences for our concept of ourselves, for intersubjectivity and for philosophy of life.

Key concepts: subjective experience, experience as it is lived, the moment of meeting, microanalytic interview, implicit knowledge, temporal dynamics, vitality affects, the present moment, the now moment, a lived story, intentions, intentional-feeling-flow, the intersubjective matrix, the mutual interpenetration of minds, mirror neurons, conscousness, intersubjective consciousness, sharing, intersubjective orienting, sloppiness in cocreation, the moving along process, a shared feeling voyage, change.

"This book is about subjective experience - especially experiences that lead to change.... The idea of presentness is the key." (p. xiii)

Psychoanalysis integrating results of child development, neuropsychology and general, research based psychology
3 years ago, I have heard a presentation on Stern's vitality affects, and that was one of the reason for I started my psychological studies.

In Daniel Stern's and the Boston Process Change Study Group approaches I found something that I looked for years: the trial of integration of general research based psychology, child development and applied psychology in psychotherapy.
Wundt felt that the psychology needed to be based on scientific research, but dod not found the "spirit". Neuropsychologysts see the "hardware" but can not respond to every day life phenomens on the "software" level, analytical approches found the spirit but forgot the interpersonal, socialpsychology drives everything from the "social" and does not leave place for the person.

This is an "integrator" work, I beleive one of those, which will be the basis of the 21st century psychology and psychotherapy.

I hope it will be soon translated to several languages and initiate also base researches on the nature of "human present moments".

Helpful but rushed
The hardback edition of this book is filled to the limit with spelling and gramatical errors; who edited it?The sloppiness takes away from an interesting, if occasionally dull, perspective about how change occurs in small moments of shifting awareness of self and other.Stern seems unsure of his audience and so his book falls somewhere between being suitable for the general reader or geared towards the professional. ... Read more

Product Description
From the renowned infant psychiatrist and author of the classic Diary of a Baby comes the first book to address the unique psychological transformation that occurs in women when they become mothers.

According to Dr. Daniel Stern, pregnancy and motherhood can have an enormous psychologically transforming effect on women, who find themselves guided by new hopes fears, and priorities. Yet these dramatic and frequently overwhelming emotional transformations often go unexplored in favor of discussions of morning sickness, exhaustion, and the relative merits of nursing and bottle feeding.

Based on interviews with hundreds of women, The Birth of a Mother paints a wonderfully evocative portrait that gives voice to those unexpressed thoughts, feelings, and fears that accompany motherhood. The book is an invaluable sourcebook for new mothers, validating the often confusing emotions that accompany the development of their new identities, as well as a resource that helps prepare pregnant women for the life-changing journey they are about to begin. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

Raw honesty about PPD
I was in complete despair after the birth of my beautiful daughter. I had read other books about PPD and nothing hit home for me...until I read this book. If you are having an identity crisis as I was reading this book made me weep with relief. I could finally put words and concrete feelings to my emotions. Now my daughter is 13 months old and I am just as attached to her as she is to me. I love her more than seems possible. I would even say that this would be a good prenatal book for those of us who are worried about PPD. All this knowledge and written by a man!!!!

For the Mom-to-be!
This book is a perfect read when you are pregnant, and the meaning you take from it changes even more after you give birth. I have shared this book with 5 other friends who loved this read as new mothers.

A Book for evry Pregnent Woman
This is a book, based on serious psychological research, and contains the state of the art knowledgge about becoming a mother. It ought to be obligatory reading for evry mother to be. perhaps even to be read before deciding to have a baby.
Espen Collett, teaching psychoanaytic psychotherapist

must read for anybody living in the real world - not in fairyland
This book was an assigned reading from our family therapist.
Each woman starts her own motherhood a certain way - some become a mother at 8 or 12yo, when caring for a younger sibling, some become a mother at 50yo, when taking their late-arrived child for the first time to the ER, and some, during a miscarriage or after an abortion.

The book won't create a mother of you, but will help you identify several essential steps of your personal maturity that created - or will create a mother of you.
Unlike a "pregnancy book" that most likely fairytales the labor and explains how most women are soaked with love during pushing and become a mother here and there, this book addresses deep thoughts, and maturing processes that are independent of any single physical moment. You don't need to be pregnant to be a mother, you don't need to have a vaginal birth to be a mother. You don't even need a child to be a mother!
And vice versa, having a smooth pregnancy and dream vaginal birth doesn't create instant perfect love toward the new baby.

You need that book to acknowledge your own identity thru your own personal life and experiences, beyond what "people think of you".

As for me, it helped me be proud and active in my own IDENTICAL AND EQUAL love toward three children who came to me thru three different ways, loving my children for who they are, not for the how or when or when of their arrival.

Maybe good for after birth??
This book is supposed to be what the mother goes through during pregnancy. Though some of it is accurate, I'd have to say that it's not something that I wanted to read while pregnant. It was suggesting things that pregnant women think about that were negative and thoughts I wouldn't have thought had I not read this book. One story in there is about a woman who goes through 'excruciating' labor and some about miscarriages.

It does have some valid information and may be good for some in the field and this is the only reason why I gave two stars. If you're looking for an upbeat pregnancy book that will encourage you and help you with what you're going through - this book is not for you. ... Read more

Product Description
In his new book, eminent psychologist - Daniel Stern, author of the classic The interpersonal world of the infant, explores the hitherto neglected topic of "vitality" - that is, the force or power manifested by all living things.

Vitality takes on many dynamic forms and permeates daily life, psychology, psychotherapy and the arts, yet what is vitality? We know that it is a manifestation of life, of being alive. We are very alert to its feel in ourselves and its expression in others. Life shows itself in so many different forms of vitality. But just how can we study this phenomenon? Till now, this has been a topic considered impervious to any kind of scientific study, but according to the Stern, it is possible to trace vitality to real physical and mental operations-- including movement, time, perception of force - as well as spatial aspects of the movement and its underlying intention. Within this fascinating book he shows how an understanding of vitality can help the psychotherapeutic process (including a look at the developmental origins of forms of vitality) and looks at how these theories of vitality might fit with our current knowledge of the workings of the brain.

Truly a tour de force from a brilliant clinician and scientist, Forms of Vitality is a profound and absorbing book - one that will be essential reading for psychologists, psychotherapists, and those in the creative arts. ... Read more

Product Description

Daniel Stern's pathbreaking video-based research into the intimate complexities of mother-infant interaction has had an enormous impact on psychotherapy and developmental psychology. His minute analyses of the exchanges between mothers and babies have offered empirical support and correction for many theories of development. In the complex and instinctive choreography of "conversations," including smiles, gestures, and gazing, Stern discerned patterns of both emotional harmony and emotional incongruity that illuminate children's relationships with others in the larger world.

Now a noted authority on early development, Stern first reviewed his unique methods and observations in The First Relationship. Intended for parents as well as for therapists and researchers, it offers a lucid and nontechnical overview of the author's key ideas and encapsulates the major themes of his subsequent books.

"When I reread The First Relationship I was astonished to find in it almost all the ideas that have guided my work in the subsequent decades. At first I didn't know whether to be depressed or delighted. As I thought it over, I am encouraged by the realization that I had some basic perspective at the very beginning that was sufficiently well founded to guide twenty-five years of observation and ideas...This book makes it possible to see, or foresee, the unfolding of an intrinsic design."
--from the new introduction by Daniel Stern

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
This volume is produced from digital images created through the University of Michigan University Library's large-scale digitization efforts. The Library seeks to preserve the intellectual content of items in a manner that facilitates and promotes a variety of uses. The digital reformatting process results in an electronic version of the original text that can be both accessed online and used to create new print copies. The Library also understands and values the usefulness of print and makes reprints available to the public whenever possible. This book and hundreds of thousands of others can be found in the HathiTrust, an archive of the digitized collections of many great research libraries. For access to the University of Michigan Library's digital collections, please see http://www.lib.umich.edu and for information about the HathiTrust, please visit http://www.hathitrust.org ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
This volume is produced from digital images created through the University of Michigan University Library's preservation reformatting program. The Library seeks to preserve the intellectual content of items in a manner that facilitates and promotes a variety of uses. The digital reformatting process results in an electronic version of the text that can both be accessed online and used to create new print copies. This book and thousands of others can be found in the digital collections of the University of Michigan Library. The University Library also understands and values the utility of print, and makes reprints available through its Scholarly Publishing Office. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
"Over the years, as Danny has published more stories and novels about films, and suicide, and the existential issues confronting contemporary mankind, I have come to appreciate his erudition, his writing talent, the richness of his imagination, and also his wonderful humor. To spend an evening with him without laughing is quite simply inconceivable," Elie Wiesel has written of Daniel Stern, the novelist, teacher, and cellist whom this book celebrates. The writers included are Frank Kermode, Elie Wiesel, Edward Albee, Adam Zagajewski, Edward Hirsch, Robert Brustein, Dr. Arnold Cooper, Morris Dickstein, and Hilma Wolitzer, among others. ... Read more

Product Description

Marie de Flavigny (1805-1876), countess d'Agoult, in later life was called by her friends "an Amazon of thought." One of nineteenth-century France's free and independent women long before feminism came into its own, she was Franz Liszt's lover, a friend of George Sand, and a writer under the name Daniel Stern. She bore two children in her marriage with count d'Agoult and three by Liszt, including Cosima, who would leave her first husband to marry Richard Wagner.

Despite strains in her personal life (she never gained legal custody of her children and was disinherited by her own family), she made her Paris salon a multilingual center of European artists, writers, and revolutionaries. Through them she partook in and wrote about the great events of her lifetime, including her authoritative account of France's 1848 revolution. History has not treated her well despite her stature in her own times because much of what we know of her has been written by partisans for Liszt or Sand. In this new biography, historian Phyllis Stock-Morton takes Marie d'Agoult out of the shadows of Liszt and Sand and allows her to be recognized in her own right.

Product Description
This is our seventh set of Happy, Healthy Pet titles. Like the others, they are books pet owners can turn to for the essential information they need to raise a healthy, happy pet. All books contain information on:

• feeding
• grooming
• housing
• health care
• what to expect from the pet
• basic training

Customer Reviews (1)

Good General information
We bought this book, because we are looking for the perfect breed to join our household. So whenever we fancy a certain breed we like to get a book about it. This inexpensive little book gives an exellent first time greyhoundowner guidebook. Not only does it give you tips how to housetrain an ex-racer, but givesgood and sound advise for training, feeding and dogcare in general. It gives examples, little stories and facts to make the read more intersting. Did you know that Bo Derek owned Greyhounds? Daniel Braun Stern' book made us read (and buy) several books about sighthounds and the adoption of retired racehounds.

You will need more indepth information later on, but if you get this book to make up your mind - in that case it is a very good book to buy! ... Read more

Product Description
"When I reread The First Relationship I was astonished to find in it almost all the ideas that have guided my work in the subsequent decades. At first I didn't know whether to be depressed or delighted. As I thought it over, I am encouraged by the realization that I had some basic perspective at the very beginning that was sufficiently well founded to guide twenty-five years of observation and ideas ... This book makes it possible to see, or foresee, the unfolding of an intrinsic design." --from the new introduction by Daniel Stern Daniel Stern's pathbreaking video-based research into the intimate complexities of mother-infant interaction has had an enormous impact on psychotherapy and developmental psychology. His minute analyses of the exchanges between mothers and babies have offered empirical support and correction for many theories of development. In the complex and instinctive choreography of "conversations," including smiles, gestures, and gazing, Stern discerned patterns of both emotional harmony and emotional incongruity that illuminate children's relationships with others in the larger world.Now a noted authority on early development, Stern first reviewed his unique methods and observations in The First Relationship. Intended for parents as well as for therapists and researchers, it offers a lucid and nontechnical overview of the author's key ideas and encapsulates the major themes of his subsequent books. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

signifigant research effectsof first infant/parent understan
This is a very important book for the research it presents re. the nature& lifelong effects of parent/infant relationships developed through thefirst year of bonding. So soory it is out of print as there are few easilyreadable books on the market that help parents comprehend the data in sucha beautiful way. Knowing that their child's entire future is effected bythe nature of the relationships established in infancy with each of itsparents, can assist parents in supporting optimum development of theirchild in all areas of the child's development: emotionally, intellectually,socially, physically and spiritually.

Please ask author to revise andreprint. Then, of course, notify me. Thanks! ... Read more