Psychoanalysis ushered in this century. Will its influence on developmental psychopathologyend in the next? The paper explores some critical obstacles in the way of psychodynamicresearch, including the fragmentation of psychoanalytic theory, the relative independence oftheory from its clinical and empirical base, the predominance of inductive scientific logic, thepolymorphous use of terms, the privacy of clinical data, the dominance of the reconstructioniststance, and the isolation of psychoanalysis from psychology and neurobiology. Notwithstandingthese limitations, core psychoanalytic precepts are not only consistent with some of the mostimportant advances of the last decade but may also be helpful in elaborating these newdiscoveries in the next century. Psychoanalysis is centered on the notion that complex,conflicting, unconscious representations of mental states constitute a key facet of normal andabnormal development. This notion retains its power, and deserves a prominent position amongthe major frames of reference to guide developmental science in the next century.