Comment Contents Lamb on Cushman 80 Pomichalek on Cushman 81 Denner on Howard and Cushman . . 81 Cushman Replies 82 An Objectivist in Social Constructionist Clothing Sharon Lamb Department of Human Development, Bryn Mawr College Cushman's (March 1991) critique of Daniel Stern's (1985) The Interpersonal World of the Human Infant: A View From Psychoanalysis and Developmental Psy- chology from a social-constructionist per- spective provides wonderful and persuasive arguments regarding the ways Stem is in- fluenced by Western constructions of the self. A close reading of Cushman, however, suggests that his choice of targets for such a critique is misguided and that he might turn that social-constructionist lens to more important and fundamental sources rather than examine a theory that is ad- mittedly speculative. Cushman (1991) criticized Stern (1985) for claiming that his theory grows out of the data, when, according to Cush- man, the theory extrapolates grandly from the data. In this particular criticism of Stern, Cushman himself seems to be par- ticipating in the very objectivist, experi- mental discourse of which he is critical. The essence of scientific debate is arguing about interpretations of "facts"; however, instead of arguing over interpretations, shouldn't one be asking why the data Stern presented are "facts"? After the social- constructionist questions of Kagan (1989), Scarr (1985), and Hare-Mustin & Marecek (1990), for example, Cushman might also ask why are these data, the primary "data," made available to Stern. Why were these experiments conceived, and why were they funded? Why were these the particular methods used, and why were these particular questions asked? Stern is, after all, extrapolating from current em- pirical work in the field of developmental psychology and not primarily from his own work. Thus, Cushman would find the answers to these questions, not in any un- thinking agenda of Stern's, but first, in the research program around mother-child attachment and, more important, in the field of developmental psychology. Rather than take on the field of de- velopmental psychology or the far-reach- ing work on attachment, Cushman (1991) played it safe and joined mainstream sci- entific enterprise to claim that Stern (1985) read too much into his data. By pointing to Stern's "gigantic leap" (p. 210) and to Stern's inference of "larger inter- pretations" (p. 210) from the data, Cush- man implies that if only Stern presented the data independent of interpretation we would be free of the political discourse that underlies them. Although I don't think Cushman believes this, by criticizing Stern on his interpretation of data, he implies this. Why is Cushman (1991) criticizing Stern's (1985) explicit narrative rather than the implicit one of the field? I think because it is easier to do so, in that it does not challenge the cultural foundations of scientific psychology. Also, it is easier to criticize a theorist working within the psy- choanalytic framework. It puts an author on the same side as the objectivist, social- science practitioners. In defense of psychoanalytic theory, which has been examined as perhaps one of the most persistent and dogmatic theo- retical frameworks, it must be argued that the theory, more than any other psycho- logical theory, has been forced to reflect upon itself from a social-constructionist viewpoint. It has had to deal with the his- torical and contextual specificity of the theory in terms of the now-stock criticism that Freud's view was bound by his place in 19th-century Vienna (e.g., Gay, 1988; Masson, 1984). It also has embraced nar- rative as a primary unit of analysis. The products of psychoanalytic work are con- sidered by some to be primarily narra- tives—individual narratives that are co- constructed by analyst and patient, both of whom are embedded in and constrained by a theoretical and cultural context (Spence, 1982,1987). Psychoanalysts have been the first to deny the existence of "facts" with regard to the building of per- sonal-cultural narrative within psycho- analytic work. In so doing they are closer to social-constructionist perspectives than to objectivist, empirical psychology. Finally, and ironically, Stern's pop- ularity may not be due only to his por- trayal of the infant in a way that reflects our hopes and views of our own "selves," thus preserving the cultural status quo. His work may also be popular because it makes positivist, social science discpurse acces- sible to people who have been denied ac- cess to this discourse because of their status or training in the scientific and academic community. His narrative allows those who cannot and do not work their way through the language of Developmental Psychology and Child Development access to the same scientific "facts" as those who can and do work their way through these journals. If Cushman believes that groups who have power, privilege, and social ac- cess to these journals are getting a "better" narrative, or even no narrative, of infant development—"just the facts"—he is mistaken. Stern (1985) did not, for the most part, "collect the ahistorical, decon- textualized data that he values and believes exist" (Cushman, 1991, p. 217), he merely offered an interpretation, albeit completely grounded in Western conceptions of the self, but still an interpretation of the ahis- torical, decontextualized data that Cush- man also appears to value and certainly believes exists. REFERENCES Cushman, P. (1991). Ideology obscured: Political uses of the self in Daniel Stern's infant. American Psychologist, 46, 206-219. Gay, P. (1988). Freud: A life for our time. New York: Norton. Hare-Mustin, R. T., & Marecek, J. (1990). Making a difference: Psychology and the con- struction of gender. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Kagan, J. (1989). Unstable ideas. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Masson, J. M. (1984). The assault on truth: Freud's suppression of the seduction theory. New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux. 80 January 1992 • American Psychologist This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.