Stern's contributions: revisions and theoretical-clinical implications for psychoanalysis

Curiosity about the subjective experience of the child is the starting point of Daniel Stern's work, whose work is part of the broad strand of infant research. He has built a theory of development, based on the existence in the young child of early social, emotional and cognitive abilities, i.e. innate and subject to maturation; abilities that allow him to have an active relationship with the environment. The importance of Stern's research lies in the fact that on observational and experimental data he formulated hypotheses on the development of the "sense of the Self" which have had a "revolutionary" importance in psychoanalysis, both theoretical and methodological, opening up new perspectives and building a bridge between psychoanalysis and experimental research. The revisitation of the image of the child that is described in his or her competent and active being, subject in interaction with other subjects, has led psychoanalysis towards a theory of the subject and a technique of intervention more consistent with the interactive nature of the human being.