This book aims to move psychoanalytic theory away from its origins in Freud's theory, towards a model which gives priority to cognition and memory. This, Antonio Imbasciati argues, will make possible a successful and productive integration of psychoanalysis with other areas of psychology.
Subjects covered include:

- The mind as an information-processing system
- Constructing the system: from fetus to baby, child, and finally adult
- The caregiver relationship as a decoding system for information processing
- The paranoid-schizoid metabolism of information
- Memory of functions and memory traces of affects
- Internal information generated by the system
- The depressive position and learning to know
- Reparation and thought

This thoughtful and thorough account of cognitive development provides a conceptual framework that succeeds in making some of the more complex areas of psychoanalytic theory more intelligible.
Constructing a Mind will be of great interest to psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and cognitive psychologists, especially those with an interest in neuropsychology and neonatal development.

Contents:
Introduction. The Mind. An Explanatory Theory for Psychoanalysis. The Mind as an Information-processing System. The Engram: Afferences. Mental Operations and Internal Objects. Levels of Protomental Operations. The Paranoid-schizoid Metabolism. Affects as Cognitive Operations. Corporeity and Modes of Thought. The Depressive Position and Learning to Know. Reparation and Thought.