Praise for Sylvia Brody's



The Component Instincts

"Freud reminded us that theory was good but did not prevent reality from happening. Sylvia Brody once more advances analytic understanding by maintaining relentless discipline in studying lives as they actually unfold. This new rich and readable account of several lives studied across decades exposes and explores essential aspects of mental functioning now too often neglected."



-Warren S. Poland, M.D.

"With clarity, and drawing on observational evidence, Brody brings mother-infant interaction and its impact on subsequent development to the center stage of psychoanalytic theory."



-Peter Blos, Jr., M.D.

"This is a book not to be missed by anyone who works with children. It provides an incisive history of infancy research and a longitudinal study of development from birth to age 18."



-Arlene Kramer Richards, Ed.D

Sylvia Brody, Ph.D., a distinguished psychoanalyst and developmental researcher, came to prominence with her books documenting her observational, clinical, and theoretical studies on maternal behavior and child development. Among her contributions are Patterns of Mothering (1956), Anxiety and Ego Formation in Infancy (1970), Mothers, Fathers, and Children: Explorations in the Formation of Character in the First Seven Years (1978), and Evolution of Character (1992), a follow-up study of the sample at eighteen years, as well as some thirty papers about infancy and early childhood. This body of work has served to demonstrate vividly the significance of the child’s earliest experiences on their emerging character structure and ego and superego functioning. In 2002, Dr. Brody published The Development of Anorexia Nervosa; and in 2007 a revised edition of the same book was released.