Judith Kestenberg by Robert Prince, Ph.D., Series Editor It was my privilege to know Dr. Judith Kestenberg. She represented my ideal of the psychoanalyst. Warm and supremely generous, she unobtrusively knew everything. Here I do not exaggerate. Her ability to understand a person and what was going on between people was astonishing. To watch her watch an infant or toddler, or to watch her figure out an issue, was awe inspiring. And then she knew what to do! Simply stated, her recommendations, specific and clearly articulated, based on profound understanding and acute observation, worked. Dr. Kestenberg maintained a deep commitment to psychoanalysis and pursued her many research projects with as much vigor and boundless energy in her eighties as she had at the beginning of her career. Although she was strong and forceful in her point of view, she, more than anyone I have ever known, was committed to new learning. She avidly pursued developments in knowledge and every infant she met inspired her curiosity. Dr. Kestenberg considered herself to be a Freudian. She was a supervising and training analyst for adults and children at New York University Psychoanalytic Institute and in truth conceived of Freudianism and psychoanalysis as synonymous. However, through her focus on the body and its rhythms and patterns, her innovative approach to infant observations, her recasting of the psychosexual developmental sequence, and her approach to the impact of early traumata, she was truly radical. Her thinking and studies stepped well "outside the box' of what many considered traditional psychoanalysis, yet in her eyes, psychoanalysis could be enriched with knowledge from many nonanalytic domains. Though I doubt she would have agreed with the analogy, perhaps Kestenberg, in her willingness to extend psychoanalysis to meet the breath of her own perceptions, bears similarity to Melanie Klein, another self defined orthodox Freudian, who took the Freudian body as far as it would go and found herself someplace else. Kestenberg's thinking about drive and instinct took her to the study and deciphering of movement and from there to a profound contribution to our understanding object relations. The choice of a sample of Kestenberg's work for this turning point series recognizes both its importance and the fact that both she and her work, despite Margaret Mahler's description: Dr. Kesteberg's research has placed psychoanalytic observation in a truly new key…. It will probably take some time for work of the kind (she) has done to be adequately understood, learned appreciated and finally integrated. But I am convinced that the day will come when (her) "new key" will be adopted. Her alphabet and grammar will be learned and will be more generally appreciated and utilized. More importantly, her interpretations of the kind of body language that she is gifted enough to decipher, to communicate, and to apply in analytic treatment will, I think, become a source for enriched understanding of psychoanalytic theory and practice. (Mahler,1971) have been relatively under-recognized. There are several reasons for this. Although her work arose from a Freudian paradigm, it emphasized the non-verbal, did not easily blend with contemporaneous Freudian thinking and thus suffered from under appreciation. In addition, she pioneered direct infant observation at a time when it was controversial to privilege psychoanalytic data from anywhere but the psychoanalytic situation. Finally, her work is extremely difficult to master. The Kestenberg Movement Profile, derived from the choreographic notation of Rudolf Laban requires a set of cognitive talents that are not congenial to most analysts. She chose to operationalize drive theory just as it fell out of favor using a methodology that does not interest its remaining adherents. Her specificity and attention to detail makes demands that are difficult to meet. However the effort. will be rewarded by the appreciation of an entirely new integration of varied dimensions of psychoanalysis. K. Mark Sossin is ideally suited to provide a guide through a selection of Judith Kestenberg's work. He is Associate Professor of Psychology as well as Co-Director of the Parent-Infant Toddler Nursery at Pace University. He is a member of the New York Freudian Society teaching in their Infant-Parent Psychotherapy Track, and is on the Faculty of both the adult and child and adolescent train programs at the Derner Institute for Advanced Psychological Studies, Adelphi University. Formerly on the editorial board of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis, he is on the editorial board of the Journal of Infant, Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy. Dr. Kestenberg was his mentor. He worked under her direction as Senior Psychologist at Child Development Research : The Center for Parents and Children which she founded with Arnhilt Buelte. He collaborated in research with her from 1976 until her death in 1998. He has written extensively, and a detailed presentation of the Kestenberg Movement Profile can be found in his co-authored book, The Meaning of Movement (Amighi, et.al., 1999) He is working on a historical retrospective of study of Judith Kestenberg and her contributions. He is currently Vice-President of Child Development Research and practices clinical psychology and psychoanalysis in New Hyde Park, N.Y. References: Amighi, J., Loman, S., Lewis, P. & Sossin, K. M. (1999). The meaning of movement: Developmental and clinical perspectives of the Kestenberg Movement Profile. Amsterdam, Gordon & Breach. Mahler, M. Discusion, New York Psychoanalytic Society Meeting, 2-23,1971 We have joined up with Amazon.com to provide you with the convenience of ordering books online. In the pages to come you can order specific books that we cite in our courses, or you may browse Amazon.com.