Transdisciplinary Discussion Research Articles

Moving Towards Ethical-Practical Recommendations for Alzheimer's Disease Prediction: Addressing Interindividual, Interprofessional, and Societal Aspects.

Biomarkers for predicting Alzheimer's disease (AD) are advancing and their implementation in various healthcare systems is imminent. There is a need for ethical standards addressing information needs, socio-ethical concerns, and expectations of healthy and at-risk persons. We present an ethical approach that integrates different existing ethical frameworks and discussion of our empirical, cross-cultural findings in a multi-layered perspective by addressing three levels. The micro-level focuses on the communication between counseling professionals, persons at risk or in an early stage of dementia, and family members. The meso-level addresses interprofessional cooperation and exchange as a key element for best person-centered care. The macro-level considers public health promotion, the media, and public-funded research. This approach allows to address key ethical concepts including beneficence, non-maleficence, autonomy, informational self-determination, empowerment, and justice. Our contribution specifically examines the ethical challenges associated with AD prediction by means of biomarkers, based on insights from a German-Israeli comparison, and promotes a transdisciplinary discussion across different healthcare contexts. We propose a reflection on three levels to go beyond the clinical counseling context and to consider the rapidly evolving field of biomarkers in the coming years. Our ethical-practical recommendations should not be considered final, but rather procedural and will require continuous adaptation regarding culturally varying practices, new algorithms, meta-analyses, and re-evaluation of established recommendations.

Scrotoschisis in Newborn: A Rare Congenital Anomaly

Scrotoschisis is a congenital anomaly characterized by a scrotal wall defect and testicular extrusion. Despite the fact that the aetiology is yet unknown, a few possible mechanisms have been found. Although it is a rare disorder, a small number of cases have been reported. A full-term infant was born through normal vaginal delivery, and examination showed that the infant had right scrotoschisis. The exposed and swollen right testis was wrapped, and antibiotics were administered intravenously. Before any further intervention, a multidisciplinary meeting and family counselling were held. The right hemiscrotal defect measured 4 x 2 cm intraoperatively, and the right testis was swollen. Orchidopexy was performed successfully, and the epithelial fissure was closed. The infant was discharged in good condition on the fifth day of life. A clinical assessment of testicular function is necessary and will be scheduled during follow-up. This case of unilateral scrotoschisis illustrates the necessity of prompt multidisciplinary evaluation and parental counselling for optimal outcomes associated with this uncommon finding. Transdisciplinary discussion and family support are essential for care optimization.

How healthy is the built environment? Challenges and paradigms for measuring urban health

ABSTRACT Health evidence and health data are not widely used to shape healthier cities through urban planning. Indeed research has not produced an extensive standardised assessment able to engage the transdisciplinary nature of the relationship between population health and urban settings. This paper aims to introduce and review how the built environment and its relation to population health are assessed in the literature, identifying methodological shortcomings and research potential to be addressed jointly. First, the article outlines the gap between the plural nature of urban health and sectorial assessments as a lack in blending multiple bio-medical fields to guide planning, when on the other hand, extensive urban health studies often lack appropriate measures. It is preferable to investigate the built environment combined with population health investigation outlined in space and time. Second, to integrate health measurements, considerations of the spatio-temporal context to embed health in the built environment study are presented. Indeed, the searches for prospective approaches at adequate smaller scales deepen the residence history and heterogeneity in the spatial extension of individual space behaviour and urban features. The authors intend to promote a transdisciplinary discussion upon a broad diagnosis of the healthiness of the built environment to better inform decision-makers.

Assembling a global health image: Ethical and pragmatic tensions through the lenses of photographers.

Recently, global health has been confronting its visual culture, historically modulated by colonialism, racism and abusive representation. There have been international calls to promote ethicality of visual practices. However, despite this focus on the history and the institutional use of global health images, little is known about how in practice contemporary images are created in communities, and how consent to be in photographs is obtained. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 29 global health photographers about the ethical and practical challenges they experience in creating global health images, and thematically analysed the findings. The following themes were identified: (1) global health photography is undergoing a marketing transformation and images are being increasingly moderated; (2) photographers routinely negotiate stereotypical and abusive tropes purposefully sought by organisations; (3) local scenes are modified, enhanced and staged to achieve a desired marketing effect; (4) 'empowerment' is becoming an increasingly prominent dehumanising visual trope; (5) consent to be photographed can be jeopardised by power imbalances, illiteracy, fears and trust; (6) organisations sometimes problematically recycle images. This research has identified practical and ethical issues experienced by global health photographers, suggesting that the production cycle of global health images can be easily abused. The detected themes raise questions of responsibility and accountability, and require further transdisciplinary discussion, especially if promoting ethical photojournalism is the goal for 21st century global health.

A Brave New World: AI as a Nascent Regime?

This transdisciplinary discussion draws parallels between Aldous Huxley's dystopian vision in his novel 'Brave New World' and the current era dominated by Large Language Models (LLM) and Generative Artificial Intelligence, scrutinizing its significant implications and potential effects. It explores how AI can influence human behavior, reshape societal norms, and potentially lead to the homogenization of linguistic expression. Highlighting the risks of unregulated AI-driven tools, the discussion stresses their potential to standardize and diminish the richness of human language, creativity, and authentic expression. The transformative potential of AI across various domains is recognized, with a strong emphasis on ethical considerations, democratic governance, and preserving core human values. Using 'Brave New World' as a literary framework, it advocates for a transdisciplinary dialogue to critically evaluate AI's impact on social ethos, logos, and pathos. The discussion underscores a global collective responsibility to utilize AI to enrich shared human experiences without compromising the nuances that define our identity and autonomy. It addresses the consequences of uniformity and stability, the role of technology and consumerism, emotional experiences, deep relationships, personal growth, and the threat of totalitarian control, with AI emerging as a nascent regime powered by opaque algorithms implemented by transnational, global companies. Serving as both a reflection on humanity's role in an automated age and a call to action, it advocates for a technological deployment that enhances, rather than diminishes, our inherent humanity.

Engineered materials: micro-nanostructure, properties and applications

This special issue presents scientific results related to recent developments on the link between functionality and structure in micro- and nano-structured materials. The main singularity of our collection is that we proposed to bring together the know-how of several disciplines (physics, mechanics and chemistry) for a trans-disciplinary discussion on the multi-scaled properties of nanostructured systems. We put together different communities for a better understanding of the relations between elaboration-structure and properties in bulk nanostructured materials. Particular attention has been paid to the parameters which seem to govern the macroscopic physical properties of these structures: the size of the grains and the interaction between these grains, but also the influence and the nature of the size of the crystallites constituting these grains as well as their confinement by different designed nanostructures. The main idea of this collection is to open the debate on possible reliable strategies for characterizing the microstructures and link them to the performance of the nanostructured materials. As reported in the contributions presented in this collection, this latter point is essential for improving the physical functionalities of new nanostructures.

Mental State Attribution to Robots: A Systematic Review of Conceptions, Methods, and Findings

The topic of mental state attribution to robots has been approached by researchers from a variety of disciplines, including psychology, neuroscience, computer science, and philosophy. As a consequence, the empirical studies that have been conducted so far exhibit considerable diversity in terms of how the phenomenon is described and how it is approached from a theoretical and methodological standpoint. This literature review addresses the need for a shared scientific understanding of mental state attribution to robots by systematically and comprehensively collating conceptions, methods, and findings from 155 empirical studies across multiple disciplines. The findings of the review include that: (1) the terminology used to describe mental state attribution to robots is diverse but largely homogenous in usage; (2) the tendency to attribute mental states to robots is determined by factors such as the age and motivation of the human as well as the behavior, appearance, and identity of the robot; (3) there is acomputer < robot < humanpattern in the tendency to attribute mental states that appears to be moderated by the presence of socially interactive behavior; (4) there are conflicting findings in the empirical literature that stem from different sources of evidence, including self-report and non-verbal behavioral or neurological data. The review contributes toward more cumulative research on the topic and opens up for a transdisciplinary discussion about the nature of the phenomenon and what types of research methods are appropriate for investigation.

Media, interactive audiences, and the virtual. Next generation narratives

New Techno Humanities targets the creative aspect of the humanities still to be fully recognized in the established classification and methodology of disciplines. This article embraces the practical extension of the latest scientific and technological methods that are starting to emerge within what is increasingly being called the Fourth Industrial Revolution. As a launching pad for this special edition of this new journal, our article maps a forum for transdisciplinary discussion and in-depth analysis on the nature and development of humanities, as well as the latter‘s interface with other disciplines, as they are being shaped by new technologies, new analytical languages, new software and new creative and analytical participatory paradigms. This article provides an overview of the volume as a whole.

Emancipatory Methodologies: Knowledge Production and (Re)existence of the Misak People in Colombia

Indigenous communities such as the Misak people in Colombia continue to struggle against the consequences of colonization and violence, but at the same time, they propose emancipatory methodologies of knowledge production. These practices towards epistemic justice are crucial to assure the (re)existence of indigenous peoples and their wisdom in Abya Yala. In this vein, our article sheds light on research methodologies rooted in Misak cosmogonies and processes to validate ancestral knowledge production. Through ethnographic and participatory action research in the indigenous reserve of Shura Manéla in the Colombian Cauca Department, we got insight into the spiral of persistent existence (espiral de pervivencia) and the law of origin of the Misak people. On this basis, we describe the Latá-Latá methodology reinvented by the community to recover their ancestral knowledge, and the Pachakiwa social cartography applied to depict their territorial relations. Moreover, we explain how collective validation processes work in practice. This serves to open up a transdisciplinary discussion on the potentials and the limitations of such vernacular research methodologies. We observe that healing from the trauma of colonization and inferiorization is a key driver of indigenous research processes. Therefore, developing further emancipatory methodologies based on equal subject-subject relations is an urgent task in the field of decoloniality. Learning from communities like the Misak is an invitation to become aware of the pluriversal complexity, listen to silenced sagacity, and find methods to pursue epistemic equality.

Why Do We Harm the Environment or Our Personal Health despite Better Knowledge? The Knowledge Action Gap in Healthy and Climate-Friendly Behavior

Non-communicable diseases, such as hypertension, diabetes, or depression, result from an interplay of physiological, genetic, behavioral, and environmental aspects. Together with climate change, they are arguably among the most significant challenges mankind faces in the 21st century. Additionally, the bidirectional influences of climate change and health on each other are undisputed. Behavioral changes could curb both climate change and the spread of non-communicable diseases. Much effort has been put into information campaigns in both fields, but success has been limited. In the following, the knowledge action gap is compared and analyzed in healthy and climate-friendly behavior from a practical point of view and the supporting theoretical models are highlighted. The analysis shows that self-efficacy plays an essential role in both areas of research for effecting behavioral changes. The models of ‘Planned Behavior’ and ‘Stages of Change’ seems helpful and can be applied and adapted to explain behavioral changes in health and climate changes settings. We compared two previously unrelated research fields to uncover new avenues for further study and stimulate fruitful transdisciplinary discussion. Future directions on how behavioral medicine and climate change research can learn from each other are discussed.

Towards neural Earth system modelling by integrating artificial intelligence in Earth system science

We outline a perspective of an entirely new research branch in Earth and climate sciences, where deep neural networks and Earth system models are dismantled as individual methodological approaches and reassembled as learning, self-validating, and interpretable Earth system model-network hybrids. Following this path, we coin the term "Neural Earth System Modelling" (NESYM) and highlight the necessity of a transdisciplinary discussion platform, bringing together Earth and climate scientists, big data analysts, and AI experts. We examine the concurrent potential and pitfalls of Neural Earth System Modelling and discuss the open question whether artificial intelligence will not only infuse Earth system modelling, but ultimately render them obsolete.

Experts’ Perception of the Key Drivers of Land-Use/Land-Cover Changes in Serbia from 1990 to 2012

Negative trends in land use and land cover changes (LULCCs) are embodied in environmental, economic and social problems, keeping entire societies away from sustainable development goals (SDGs). This recognition incites a need for securing comprehensive and transdiciplinary knowledge on the complex interplay between LULCCs and their drivers. It should inform land use policy makers and produce adequate sustainable social responses. However, fragmentation in both academic and governmental arenas is an important impediment to the needed application of sustainability to land use policy. With this regard, the study offers a transdisciplinary, bottom-up and reproducible framework for understanding key drivers of LULCCs at the national/regional level where sustainable land use policies should be defined. Its main component is the repeated measure ANOVA of the experts’ survey data. The analysis allows aggregation of experts’ different disciplinary, professional and experiential perceptions and produces comparable results. It is tested in Serbia in three sub-periods during post-socialism. Main results confirm that LULCCs and drivers are complexly intertwined and need to be analysed within a comprehensive and transdisciplinary framework. Furthermore, the study should enable the transdisciplinary discussion, learning and knowledge coproduction that are required to inform land use policy makers about the needed trans-sectoral coproduction of policy responses towards SDGs.

Uma discussão entre a arte e o design da informação a partir da configuração do livro-objeto: O diário de Anne Frank

Esse estudo traz uma discussão a respeito de fazeres fronteiriços entre a arte e o design, por meio do processo de configuração do livro ‘O diário de Anne Frank’. Utilizam-se princípios teóricos e metodológicos voltados ao design da informação, conceitos e caracterizações sobre livro-objeto/livro de artista, em vista da materialização de um artefato. O percurso metodológico empregue é orientado por uma abordagem focada no design e elementos das artes, abarcando ainda, de modo exploratório, investigação sobre recursos gráficos experimentais, dentre eles, conceituações, processos gráficos, tipografia e uso de materiais, trazendo assim, uma solução pelo viés do diálogo entre a configuração do texto literário e o produto gráfico artístico, potencializando ao leitor uma interação de cunho experimental, no que tange às relações táteis e visuais, a partir da exploração de seus elementos.

Study on the state of the art of the “guiding image” – The rescue of a river's memory in favor of an urban river restoration project

The progressive transdisciplinary discussion and the preference for an ecological restoration of degraded water courses over rigid engineering solutions currently influence the urban water management and the construction of a guiding reference image is indispensable for its realization. This review article discusses how this set of goals has been approached, in different fields of knowledge, derived from the term “guiding image”. As part of the technical literature about river restoration, the concept commonly alludes to the rescue of the memory of a river, even if the restoration of the original conditions is not part of the final project goal. This work is part of a larger research on the development of an adequate methodology to leverage the river restoration design, in which natural and urban demands coexist in a resilient state, while the river, as a natural element, has been lost and does not exist in collective memory. The various factors that make up the goals of a project of such complexity made up the questions from which this work was developed. As a result, a systematic literature review was carried out with the support of the free scientific search platform “Google Scholar”. Among the results, nine international theses, two books and seven journal articles were found. The research showed the similarities in the discussions and practices around the world, as well as the continuity of the concepts integrated to the reference image in the restoration project with ecological objectives.

Broadening Sight at the Board Level: Perspectives from Error Management Research

A major insight of research into organizational error is that there is a critical period between “hoping for better” and “too little too late”. Engaging in the active management of unfolding organizational errors before they evolve into crises (Pearson & Mitroff, 1993) becomes a strategic concern in itself – one that challenges classic approaches (Edmondson & Verdin, 2018; Giolito & Verdin, 2018). Recent research suggests that the management of organizational errors (e.g. Frese & Keith, 2015; Goodman et al., 2011; Lei, Naveh, & Novikov, 2016) is increasingly a responsibility for top executives, particularly in turbulent contexts where organizations devote increasing time and resources to experimentation. In this session, we turn to the responsibility of corporate boards in strategic error management, defined as the actions taken by organizational actors and that aim to disconnect these errors from strategic failure (Goodman et al., 2011; Hofmann & Frese, 2011; Giolito & Verdin, 2018). Many aspects of strategic failure can only be addressed and corrected by engaging in actions to minimize negative and maximize positive outcomes of the errors as they occur (Frese & Keith, 2015; Hofmann & Frese, 2011a). We assert that it is a core function for organizational actors to engage in and oversee these corrective actions, and that aspects of leadership, governance, and culture play an integral role in the capacity of an organization to respond to errors and avoid crises. Revisiting some of the basic insights of error management, this panel will explore the explicit responsibilities of the board in detecting, recognizing, and dealing with errors in organizations, especially those that affect their long-term success and viability. We will focus on how and when error management takes place and should take place at board level, and what interactive role stakeholders and institutions play in attenuating or magnifying the effects of the board’s behaviors and actions. We look to explore two parallel obligations at board level, both 1) the board’s responsibility for oversight of the error management capability of the organization, and 2) the responsibility for error management of the board’s own activities and functioning. Key questions addressed in this panel will revolve around: What should be the board’s effective functioning related to error management, as distinct from ad hoc crisis management capabilities, risk and compliance, and other frameworks and practices? What role does strategic error management play at the board level with respect to enhancing sustainability, both of the firm itself and of its environment – or even with respect to “planetary boundaries” (Whiteman, Walker & Perego, 2013)? How can error management practice improve the board’s capabilities to offset an organization’s slow drift towards obsolescence or failure? How can we restructure board and governance systems to better “see” the bigger picture, both in terms of major failure and in terms of opportunities missed? How can error management – or a “strategy as learning” perspective (Edmondson & Verdin, 2017, 2018) – help boards catch and address unwanted deviations from strategic goals? Our panel of highly experienced scholars represents several major research streams, as well as organizational and governance practice, with the aim of fostering a rich trans-disciplinary discussion. We plan to reserve ample room for dialogue with the audience, of which practitioners and consultants will hopefully form a significant part.

BDSM as a Playful Learning Site for Qualitative Complexity

Through an autoethnographic and transdisciplinary discussion of BDSM practice, the article articulates BDSM as a performative playful space with high potential for experiential learning, where conventional ways of sensing, feeling, thinking, valuing and acting, and social rules and hierarchies are rendered uncertain, negotiable and full of possibilities. BDSM can foster a sensibility to qualitative complexity through a heightened corporeal, sensual, emotional and (aesth)et(h)ic experience. It trains a potent sagacity that may be further mobilized in social learning processes, eventually helping us navigate beyond today’s unsustainable times.

Editor's Foreword

The dedicatee of this volume, Kurt Eisen (1958–2019), first appeared on the EOR's masthead in 2004, upon his assumption of the book review editorship. Kurt served in that capacity until 2015, and as a board member in 2016 and 2017. The next year, he began his all-too-brief tenure as general editor. After I became editor in 2019, Kurt returned to the board and became an invaluable advisor, supporter, inspiration, and friend. (“Mensch” is the word that Steven Bloom uses in the tribute that appears elsewhere in this volume.) From personal experience, I know the benefits that Kurt's impeccable sense of sound and cadence could confer on a needy sentence: he heard prose, and wrote it, like the discerning lover of music that he was. I learned from him that an editor's criticisms can be indulgent without cost to their utility, although I still don't know whether his description of me as “the master of the comically inapt metaphor” was meant to signal indulgence or exasperation. What I do know is that the man who said this was radically decent and vast of heart and mind. Long ago, John Dryden hit the right note: “Farewell too little and too lately known ….” Goodbye, Kurt. And thank you.This issue marks debuts as well as departures. Brice Ezell, a doctoral candidate at the University of Texas at Austin, kicks off his career as a publishing scholar with an argument for the Wyeth family in Jon Robin Baitz's Other Desert Cities as a “mediatized” neoliberal version of O'Neill's Tyrones. Joel Minor appears in the EOR for the first time with an informational piece on the newly opened Harley Hammerman Collection on Eugene O'Neill at Washington University. In a Lost & Found entry, Daniel Wetmore—another newcomer to the EOR—debuts as a poet. His subject is drawn from family history: his great-grandfather's confrontation with a drunken Eugene O'Neill who, probably in summer 1912, lurched up the Wetmore driveway in New London, hoping to visit with the old man's daughter. A rare photograph captures Portia Wetmore and Eugene O'Neill at the beach around that time.Two other Lost & Found entries publish work by O'Neill's Provincetown Player comrade James Light, both for the first time. “The Parade of Masks,” discovered by Robert Dowling while he was researching his 2014 biography of O'Neill, discusses O'Neill's interest in masks and “physical masks” from the Players' production of Strindberg's Spook Sonata through Strange Interlude. Dowling's introduction focuses on Light's illumination (if I may) of O'Neill's yearning to write novels. David Clare ably introduces Light's notes on the Provincetown Players' production of The Hairy Ape, compiled for the English theatre impresario Harold Marsh Harwood. Reading this piece alongside Ronald Wainscott's Staging O'Neill (1988) and Jackson Bryer and Robert Dowling's edition of The Contemporary Reviews (2014) should suggest some exciting topics for research.For this issue, the Practitioners' Colloquium moves from the stage to the classroom. Theatre professor Beth Wynstra joined four of her colleagues from Babson College for a transdisciplinary discussion of Beyond the Horizon. Wynstra's transcription is jovial as well as instructive. Ever wonder how much in today's money Andy Mayo makes in Argentina? Short answer: a “crap-ton,” as my teenage daughter might put it.Elsewhere, an old book by Doris Falk gets a fresh look from Bess Rowen; David Palmer reviews Thierry Dubost's new monograph on O'Neill; Patrick Chura handles Max Shulman and J. Chris Westgate's edited collection on Progressive Era drama; and William Davies King, Jo Morello, Laura Shea, and yours truly review productions from hither and yon.I'll sign off by noting two oddities from the fall 2019 theatre and television seasons. In Larissa FastHorse's The Thanksgiving Play, which ran at eight American theatres last fall, a high school drama teacher's decision to stage The Iceman Cometh with a cast of fifteen-year-olds prompts 300 parents to demand her dismissal. In season 3, episode 3 of The Magnificent Mrs. Maisel, Sophie Lennon (Jane Lynch) recalls an orgy at which an evidently nonplussed O'Neill repeatedly proclaimed his enthusiasm for … Strindberg. As another Nobel laureate beloved of the current editor and his predecessor once wrote, “I'd tell you what it means, if I just didn't have to try so hard.”

Petroleum Genesis as a Problem of Transdisciplinary Research

The problem of petroleum genesis is fundamental for natural science. Scientific discussion on the problem of petroleum genesis originated with the science of theModern time and continues to this day. Physicists, chemists, biologists, geologists, geophysicists and cosmologists take part in the discussion. The problem attracts the attention of philosophers on science in many aspects. The author believes that it is necessary to conduct research of a transdisciplinary type that combines natural science and philosophical knowledge. Transdisciplinary research allows conceptually combine different scales of vision, different languages and standards of justification for specific sciences. The prerequisite for a transdisciplinary approach on the part of natural scientists can be the synergetic setting of theoretical constructions. V.I. Vernadsky’s concept of biosphere and noosphere, which is included in the scientific picture of the world, can serve as philosophical and conceptual basis. Transdisciplinary discussion on the petroleum genesis involve the analysis of philosophical, socio-psychological and concrete scientific aspects. The author carries out the logical and methodological analysis of the hypothesis of D.I. Mendeleev. The author comes to the conclusion that the philosophical type of argumentation prevails. The basis for a new dialogue should be the subject- subject-object relationship. The principles of the philosophy of complexity can be used when discussing the problems of geoecology and specific environmental research areas.

Colonial histories, museum collections, FabLabs and community engagement: flows of practices, cultures and people – A roundtable

This roundtable explores how issues of the local and the global register and are negotiated in the disciplines of art history and design with regard to two projects: Suits and Saris by Amy Jane Barnes (Art History) and La Campana Community FabLab by Nicole Lotz (Design). It seeks to probe what such a transdisciplinary discussion might entail and what the differences and similarities in our approaches might be. The discussion aimed at enriching our practice by stepping out of familiar frames of professional reference and becoming familiar with perspectives and discourses from the related but also disciplinarily distant fields of art history and design respectively, which, moreover, at the Open University are embedded in the humanities and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) and therefore inhabit distinctly different vocational worlds.

Psychanalyse et développements psychiques : le temps à l’épreuve du désir infantile

ContextThe keen observation of emotional and behavioural exchanges between a young child and its parents is part of a long tradition initiated by psychoanalysts such as Anna Freud and Melanie Klein. Considering that these interactions are underpinned by parents’ and children's conscious and unconscious fantasies, clinical observations are compatible with psychoanalysis's theoretical elaboration of psychic functioning. This helps to complete the understanding of complex situations taking place at birth and during early childhood. Moreover, a standardised observation of the interactions between the baby and its family, inspired by development psychology, accounts for the baby's or young child's difficulties in regulating its behaviour, and its sensory, attention, motor, or emotional physiological processes, while considering the contextual aspects. The 0–5 classification, of which a French translation is underway, offers a simple photograph of the present moment, always open to modifications and evolution (Miri Keren, 2018). ObjectivesWith this new knowledge of different orientations, we will explore the necessary dialogue between the developmental approaches and the psychoanalytic study of children and parents, considering their compatibilities and their limits. MethodsThe concepts of containing, the psychic skin, “objeu” (the dynamic of presence/absence during play), and attachment – situated on the border of observation and metapsychological elaboration – are examined in this article. They account for the psychic functioning of the child in relation to others and have proved their relevance in the context of normal situations and in psychopathology. ResultsModels in child psychoanalysis have been developed from both a reconstructive perspective and observation. Such contextual, inventive working constructs allow one to think and elaborate the clinical field of the beginnings of psychic life through heuristic fictions. A better knowledge of the child's developmental context, in terms of emotional and tonic-motor regulations, enriches the data collected during consultations. ConclusionsThe transdisciplinary discussion of development alongside individual and family psychoanalytical clinical practice is necessary because, beyond generating innovative concepts, it also prevents conceptual sclerosis. To remain vital and capable of understanding any human activity, a method should adapt itself to the object studied and not the other way around, for example, by considering the subjectivity of the researcher and the clinician as a resource and not as source of errors.