In this book, the author discusses on "eternal debate" between those who see asexual attachment as the earliest bond and those who see infantile sexuality as primary. Eight major contributors to psychoanalytic child studies set forth the current state of thinking in both camps.

Including papers by Peter Fonagy and Jean Laplanche. The idea for this book arose in a debate stimulated by the new proposals of Widlocher on an ongoing issue for theoretical and clinical psychoanalysis.