Aug 10, 2011

CIPS member, Jane Van Buren is a psychoanalyst in full time private practice in Los Angeles, California and atraining and supervising analyst at the Psychoanalytic Centre of California (PCC). She has written widely on the themes of women and children, culture and psychoanalysis. Her co- author, Shelley Alhanati, is a psychoanalyst in northern California, and is a Supervising Analyst and faculty member of the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California. She has lectured and written widely on various topics in psychoanalytic theory as well as on fetal, infant, and child developmental research. Their book, Primitive Mental States,examines how particular capacities including those for symbolizing, fantasizing, dreaming, experiencing and finding meanings in those experiences, can be taken for granted. In the book, international contributors were brought together to consider a radical evolution in contemporary psychoanalytic theory developed from a combination of ultrasound studies, infant analysis, and observation of mothers and babies. These findings demonstrate how much mental life exists even before birth. Topics covered in the book include: prenatal imprints on the mind and body, difficult to treat patients, non-verbal, non-symbolic, disembodied states of being and early relational and attachment trauma. The book is filled with original data and extensive clinical discussions from some of the biggest names in the field.

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