Critical Theories of Psychological Development

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxiv

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2. An Introduction to Critical Developmental Psychology

   • John M. Broughton

   Pages 1-30

3. The Rationalization of Infancy

   • Adrienne E. Harris

   Pages 31-59

4. The Difficulty of Being a Child in French-Speaking Countries

   • J. Jacques Vonèche

   Pages 61-86

5. No Laughing Matter

   • Valerie Walkerdine

   Pages 87-125

6. The Illusion of Maturation in an Age of Decline

   • Richard Lichtman

   Pages 127-148

7. Critical Psychology and the Development of Motivation as Historical Process

   • Ed Elbers

   Pages 149-175

8. Psychoanalysis and Ideology

   • David Ingleby

   Pages 177-210

9. The Decline of the Oedipus Complex

   • Jessica Benjamin

   Pages 211-244

10. Piaget, Adorno, and Dialectical Operations

    • Susan Buck-Morss

    Pages 245-274

11. The Development of the Self

    • Rainer Döbert, Jürgen Habermas, Gertrud Nunner-Winkler

    Pages 275-301

12. Postscript

    • John M. Broughton

    Pages 303-306

13. Back Matter

    Pages 307-313

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Something instructive occurred in the process of entitling the present collection. Both editor and publisher sought a simple and succinct rubric for the various pieces of work. But they rapidly and reluctantly reached the consensus that, by either intellectual or marketing criteria, the inser­ tion of the adjective "psychological" to qualify the noun "development" was a communicative necessity. Much to the chagrin of the develop­ mental psychologist, the term development still connotes-to the world at large as well as the general community of publishers, librarians, and computer archivists-the modernization of nation states. Inside and outside the university, I find that, when asked, "What are you in­ terested in?" I am not at liberty to reply, "The concept of development," without being absorbed immediately into a discussion of Third World studies. The approach of the present volume should be taken as an exhortation to psychologists to take the genealogy of "development'' seriously. The history of the discipline is not so different from the histo­ ry of the word and, as we shall discover, the concern with developmen­ tal progress cannot easily be separated from the urge for dominion. This volume presents a selection from the recent critical scholarship on psychological development. The emphasis is on rethinking the field of developmental psychology at the level of theory.

• Adorno
• Motivation
• Oedipus Complex
• Self
• Theodor W. Adorno
• child
• complex
• computer
• election
• freedom
• marketing
• media
• psychoanalysis
• psychology
• state

• Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, USA

  John M. Broughton

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