Introduction

Abstract

On March 29–April 1, 1979, the Center for Psychosocial Studies held a conference in Chicago on “New Approaches to the Self” in which all the authors in this volume participated. Over the years the Center has acted as a communications link and coordination point for interdisciplinary discussions and research. Several years ago, we discovered that there was a renewed interest among psychoanalysts, anthropologist, and developmental psychologists in the investigation of the self, and the reason for this groundswell of activity was the discovery of the importance of problems of meaning and interpretation in each discipline. Since investigators in each of these disciplines were relatively ignorant of developments in the other approaches, we felt that a conference would be a timely catalyst. Each of the authors gave a presentation at the conference, and it is a mark of the success of the interdisciplinary effort that almost all the papers were extensively revised in response to the discussions.