Unlock the Secrets of Normal Child and Adolescent Development

Written by renowned author Karen J. Gilmore, Normal Child and Adolescent Development: A Psychodynamic Primer offers a comprehensive and accessible guide to mental development, informed by contemporary research and psychodynamic thinking.

Dr. Gilmore and Dr. Meersand, with over a decade of experience teaching human development to psychiatric residents, psychology doctoral students, and psychoanalytic candidates, recognized the need for a resource that integrates recent findings in psychodynamic literature and psychology research with information on development as a dynamic interaction of the growing mind, maturing body, and evolving environmental demands.

This book is their response to that need, providing a unique and compelling exploration of the complexities of normal child and adolescent development. Replete with new ideas and fascinating connections, the volume is beautifully written and a pleasure to read, making it an invaluable resource for students and practitioners in psychiatry, psychology, and psychoanalysis.

A Comprehensive and Engaging Resource

The book begins with an introduction to its theoretical orientation, setting the framework for the authors’ perspective, and concludes with a brief reprise of the importance of developmental thinking in clinical practice. The chapters are organized around familiar developmental demarcations, informed by current thinking, covering:

• Infancy
• Toddlerhood
• Oedipal age (with two dedicated chapters, highlighting the critical nature of this phase)
• Latency
• Preadolescence
• Early and mid-adolescence
• The still-controversial phase of emerging adulthood

The authors emphasize that an understanding of development is a building block of clinical thinking, and that every patient encounter demands familiarity with developmental concepts. The book’s multisystem approach showcases the complexity and diversity of human development, making it an essential resource for anyone working with children and adolescents.

Vivid clinical vignettes and online video illustrations reinforce key characteristics at each phase of normal development, making the child at different stages recognizable and memorable.

Published by American Psychiatric Publishing in 2013, Normal Child and Adolescent Development: A Psychodynamic Primer is a twenty-first-century text that will be welcomed by students and practitioners in psychiatry, psychology, and psychoanalysis as a valuable resource.

Language: English

ISBN: 9781585624362, 9781585629961