THE PSYCHOANALYSIS OF CHILDREN OTHER BOOKS BY MELANIE KLEIN

125326

CONTRIBUTIONS TO PSYCHO-ANALYSIS

With Paula Heiwann, Susan Isaacs and Joan Riviere

DEVELOPMENTS IN PSYCHO-ANALYSIS

With Joan Riviere

LOVE, HATE AND REPARATION

ENVY AND GRATITUDE

With Paula Heimann and R* E. Money-Kyrle NEW DIRECTIONS IN PSYCHO-ANALYSIS

THE PSYCHOANALYSIS

OF CHILDREN

MELANIE KLEIN

AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION BT ALIX STRACHEY

GROVE PRESS, INC. /NEW YORK

Originally published by the Hog-arth Press and TheInstituteofPsycho-AnalysisasNo.22, inthe

FIRST EVERGREEN EDITION 1960

Library o Congress Catalog” Card Number: 60-11091

MANUFACTURED IN THE XJNITED STATES OF AMERICA

TO THE MEMORY OF KARL ABRAHAM

IN GRATITUDE AND ADMI RATION

‘SOMETIMES we may feel dismayed in face of the mass of phenomena which meets us in the wide field of human

mentality, from the play of children and other typical pro-

ducts of the early activity of phantasy, through the first development of the child’s interests and talents, up to the

most highly valued achievements of mature human beings and the most extreme individual differentiations. But then we must remember that Freud has given us in the practice and theory of Psycho-Analysis an instrument with which

to investigate this wide subject and to open up the road to infantile sexuality, that inexhaustible source of life.’

ABRAHAM, Selected Papers^ p, 406.

Preface to the First Edition

book is based on the observations I have been aSble to make in the course of my psycho-analytic

THI w

vote the first part of it to a description of the technique I have elaborated and the second to a statement of the theo- retical conclusions to which my practical work has gradu- ally brought me, and which now seem in their turn well fitted to assist the technique I employ. But in the course of writingthisbook ataskwhichhasextendedoverseveral years the second part has outgrown its limits. In addi- tion to my experience of Child Analysis, the observa- tions I have made in analysing adults have led me to apply

my views concerning the earliest developmental stages of the child to the psychology of the adult as well, and I have

come to certain conclusions which I shall bring forward in

these pages as a contribution to the general psycho-analytic theory of the earliest stages of the development of the in-

dividual.

That contribution is in every respect based on the body

of knowledge transmitted to us by Freud. It was by apply- ing his findings that I gained access to the minds of small children and could analyse and cure them. In doing this, moreover, I was able to make those direct observations of

early developmental processes which have led me to my present theoretic conclusions. Those conclusions contain a

full confirmation of the knowledge Freud has gained from the analysis of adults, and are an endeavour to extend that knowledge in one or two directions.

If this endeavour should in any way be successful) and

ork with children. was to de- Myoriginal plan

8 THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN

if this book should really add a few more stones to the

growing edifice of psycho-ar alytic knowledge, my first thanks would be due to Freud himself, who has not only raised that edifice and placed it on foundations that will allow of its further elaboration, but who has always directed our attention to those points where the new work should

properly be added.

I should next like to mention the part which my two

teachers, Dr. Sdndor Ferenczi and Dr. Karl Abraham,

have played in furthering my psycho-analytic work. Fer- enczi was the first to make me acquainted with Psycho- Analysis. He also made me understand its real essence and meaning. His strong and direct feeling for the unconscious and for symbolism, and the remarkable rapport he had with the minds of children, have had a lasting influence on me

in my understanding of the psychology of the small child.

He also pointed out to me my aptitude for Child Analysis, in whose advancement he took a great personal interest,

and encouraged me to devote myself to this field of psycho-

analytic therapy, then still very little explored. He further- more did all he could to help me along this path, and gave

me much support in my first efforts. It is to him that I owe

the beginnings of my work as an analyst.

In Dr. Karl Abraham I had the great good fortune to

find a -second teacher with the faculty of inspiring his pupils to put out their best energies in the service of Psycho-Analysis. In Abraham’s opinion the progress of

Psycho-Analysis depended upon each individual analyst upon the value of his work, the quality of his character and the level of his scientific attainments. These high standards have been before my mind, when, in this book on Psycho- Analysis, I have tried to repay some part of the great debt I owe to that science. Abraham fully grasped the great practical and theoretic possibilities of Child Analysis. At

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

9 the First Conference of German Psycho-Analysts at Wiirz- burg in 1 924, in summing up a report I had read upon an

obsessional neurosis in a child, he declared in words that

I shall never forget: ‘The future of Psycho-Analysis lies in Play Analysis’. My study of the mind of the small child brought certain facts before me which seemed strange at first sight. But the confidence in my work which Abraham

expressed encouraged me to go forward on my way. My theoretic conclusions are a natural development of his own

discoveries, as I hope this book will show.

In the last few years my work has received the most

whole-hearted support from Dr. Ernest Jones. At a time when Child Analysis was still in its first stages, he foresaw the part it would play in the future. It was at his invitation that I gave my first course of lectures in London in 1925

as a guest of the British Psycho-Analytical Society; and these lectures have given rise to the first part of my present

book. (A second course of lectures, entitled ‘Adult Psych-

ology viewed in the light of Child Analysis’, given in London in 1927, forms the basis of the second part.) The

deep conviction with which Dr. Jones has made himself an advocate of Child Analysis has opened the way for this field of work in England. He himself has made important

contributions to the problem of early anxiety-situations, the significance of the aggressive tendencies for the sense

of guilt, and the earliest stages of the sexual development of woman. The results of his studies are in close touch with my own in all essential points.

I should like in this place to thank my other English

fellow-workers for the sympathetic understanding and cordial support they have given to my work. My friend Miss M. N. Searl, whose views agree with mine and who

works along the same lines as myself, has done lasting

This report forms the basis of Chapter III. of this book.

IO THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN

service towards the advancement of Child Analysis in Eng- land, both from a practical and a theoretical point of view, and towards the training of child analysts. My thanks are also due to Mrs. James Strachey for her very able transla- tion of the book, and to her and Mr. Strachey for the great assistance which their stimulating hints and suggestions have given me in its composition. My thanks are next due to Dr. Edward Glover for the warm and unfailing interest he has shown in my work, and for the way in which he has assisted me by his sympathetic criticism. He has been of special service in pointing out the respects in which my conclusions agree with the already existing and accepted

theories of Psycho-Analysis. I also owe a deep debt of gratitude to my friend Mrs. Joan Riviere, who has given such active support to my work and has always been ready to help me in every way.

Last but not least, let me very heartily thank my

daughter, Dr. Melitta Schmideberg, for the devoted and

valuable help which she has given me in the preparation of this book.

LONDON, July 1932.

MELANIE KLEIN

Preface to the Third Edition

the years which have elapsed since this book first INappeared, I have arrived at further conclusions

mainly relating to the first year of infancy and these have led to an elaboration of certain essential hypotheses

here presented. The purpose cf this Preface is to give some idea of the nature of these modifications. The hypotheses I have in mind in this connection are as follows: In the first few months of life infants pass through states of persecutory anxiety which are bound up with the ‘phase of maximal sadism*; the young infant also

experiences feelings of guilt about his destructive

impulses and phantasies which are directed against his primary object his mother, first of all her breast. These

feelings of guilt give rise to the tendency to make repara- tion to the injured object.

In endeavouring to fill in the picture of this period in greater detail, I found that certain shifts of emphasis and

time relations were inevitable. Thus I have come to differentiate between two main phases in the first six to eight months of life, and I described them as the ‘para-

noid position* and the ‘depressive position*. (The term

‘position* was chosen because though the phenomena “involved occur in the first place during early stages of

development theyarenotconfinedtothesestagesbut

represent specific groupings of anxieties and defences

which appear and re-appear during the first years of

childhood.)

The paranoid position is the stage when destructive

impulses and persecutory anxieties predominate and extends from birth until about three, four, or even five

months of life. This necessitates an alteration in dating the phase of maximal sadism but does not involve a ii

12 THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN

change of view regarding the close interaction between sadism and persecutory anxiety at their height.

The depressive position, which follows on this stage

and is bound up with important steps in ego develop- ment, is established about the middle of the first year of

life. At this stage sadistic impulses and phantasies, as well as persecutory anxiety, diminish in power. The

infant introjects the object as a whole, and simultaneously he becomes in some measure able to synthesise the

various aspects of the object as well as his emotions towards it. Love and hatred come closer together in his mind, and this leads to anxiety lest the object, internal

and external, be harmed or destroyed. Depressive feelings and guilt give rise to the urge to preserve or revive the

loved object and thus to make reparation for destructive

impulses and phantasies.

The concept of the depressive position not only

entails an alteration in dating early phases of develop- ment; it also adds to our knowledge of the emotional life of young infants and therefore vitally influences our

understanding of the whole development of the child.

This concept also throws new light on the early stages of the CEdipus complex. I still believe that these begin

roughly in the middle of the first year. But since I no longer hold that at this period sadism is at its height, I

place a different emphasis on the beginning of the emotional and sexual relation to both parents. Therefore,

while in some passages (see Chapter VIII) I suggested that the CEdipus complex starts under the dominance of

sadism and hatred, I would now say that the infant turns to the second object, the father, with feelings both of love

and of hatred. (In Chapters IX, X and XII, however, these issues were considered from another angle, and there I

came close to the view I now hold.) I see in the depressive feelings derived from the fear of losing the loved mother as an external and internal object an important impetus towards early CEdipus desires. This means that

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION 1 3

I now correlate the early stages of the CEdipus complex

with the depressive position.

There are also in this book a number of statements

which, in keeping with my work over the last sixteen

years, I might wish to reformulate. Such reformulation, however, would not entail any essential alteration in the

conclusions here put forward. For this book as it stands

represents fundamentally the views I hold today. More- over, the more recent development of my work derives

organically from the hypotheses here presented: e.g.y

processes of introjection and projection operating from the beginning of life; internalised objects from which in

the course of years the super-ego in all its aspects develops; the relation to external and internal objects

interacting from earliest infancy and vitally influencing

boththesuper-egodevelopmentandobjectrelations; the early onset of the CEdipus complex; infantile anxieties of

a psychotic nature providing the fixation points for the

which I first evolved in 1922 and 1923 and which I presented in this book still stands in all essentials; it has been elaborated but not altered by the further development of my work.

psychoses. Furthermore, play technique

LONDON, May 1948.

M.K.

TRANSLATOR’S NOTE

book, under the title of Die Psychoanalyse des

Kindts, has just (1932) been published in Vienna

THIS In the Internationaler

by Psychoanalytischer Vcrlag* the translation of certain chapters of it I am indebted to Miss I. Grant Duff, Mr. Adrian Stephen and my husband for the use of their draft renderings of an earlier version of the original. The Index is based upon the one made by Dr. Melitta Schmideberg for the German edition.

Particulars of all works referred to in the footnotes will be found under their authors’ names in the bibliography at the end of the volume.

A. S.

INTRODUCTION

…..,

CONTENTS

…. PAGE 7

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION . . .

1 1

14 17

23 40 65

94 122

TRANSLATOR’S NOTE

…..

PART I

THE TECHNIQUE OF CHILD ANALYSIS

CHAP. I.

IV. THE TECHNIQUE OF ANALYSIS IN THE LATENCY

…… .. III. AN OBSESSIONAL NEUROSIS IN A Six-YEAR-OLD GIRL

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF CHILD

ANALYSIS

II. THE TECHNIQUE OF EARLY ANALYSIS

PERIOD

V. THE TECHNIQUE OF ANALYSIS IN PUBERTY

. . . . . ,.

VI. NEUROSIS IN CHILDREN

VII. THE SEXUAL ACTIVITIES OF CHILDREN

PART II

.142 .164

EARLY ANXIETY-SITUATIONS AND THEIR EFFECT ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD

VIII. EARLY STAGES OF THE OEDIPUS CONFLICT AND OF

SUPER-EGO FORMATION

….

179

IX. THE RELATIONS BETWEEN OBSESSIONAL NEUROSIS

AND THE EARLY STAGES OF THE SUPER-EGO . 210

. “. .

1 6 THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CHAP.

X. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF EARLY ANXIETY-SITUATIONS

PAQ.

245

LIST OF PATIENTS

…..

INDEX

IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE EGO

XL THE EFFECTS OF EARLY ANXIETY-SITUATIONS ON

THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE GIRL . 268

XIL THE EFFECTS OF EARLY ANXIETY-SITUATIONS ON

326 APPENDIX. THE SCOPE AND LIMITS OF CHILD ANALYSIS 369

THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE BOY

375

.381

389

LIST OF BOOKS AND PAPERS REFERRED TO

……..

INTRODUCTION

beginnings of Child Analysis go back more

than two

to the time when Freud himself

THE

analysis of a child was of great theoretic importance in two respects. Its success in the case of a child of under five showed that psycho-analytic methods could be applied to small children; and, perhaps more important still, it was able fully to demonstrate, by direct contact with the child, the hitherto much-questioned existence of those infantile

instinctual tendencies which Freud had discovered in the adult. In addition, the results obtained from it held out the hope that further analyses of small children would give us

a deeper and more accurate knowledge of their psychology than analysis of adults had done, and would thus be able

to make important and fundamental additions to the theory of Psycho-Analysis. But this hope remained unrealized for a long time. For many years Child Analysis continued to

be a relatively unexplored region in the domain of Psycho- Analysis, both as a science and a therapy. Although several

decades,

carried out his analysis of ‘Little Hans’. This first

Dr. H. 2 in have since Hug-Hellmuth especial,

analysts,

undertaken analyses of children, no fixed rules as regards

its technique or application have been evolved. This is doubtless the reason why the great practical and theoretical

possibilities of Child Analysis have not yet been generally

1 of a Phobia in a Five-Year-Old ‘Analysis

Boy (1909).

Zur Technik der Kinderanalyse’ (1921).

17 B

1 8 THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN

appreciated, and why those fundamental principles and aspects of Psycho-Analysis which have long since been adopted in the case of adults have still to be laid down and

proved where children are concerned.

It is only within the last twelve or thirteen years that

more considerable work has been done in the field of Child Analysis. This has, in the main, followed two lines of de- velopment onerepresentedbyAnnaFreudandtheother

by myself.

Anna Freud has been led by her findings in regard to

the ego of the child to modify the classical technique, and has worked out her method of analysing children in the

latency period quite independently of my procedure. The theoretic conclusions she has come to are at variance with

mine in certain fundamental respects. In her opinion chil-

drendonot a 1 sothata develop transference-neurosis,

fundamental condition for analytical treatment is absent. Moreover, she thinks that a method similar to the one

employed for adults should not be applied to children, because their infantile ego-ideal is still too weak.2

1 ‘Unlike the adult, the child is not prepared to produce a new edition, as it

were, of its love-relationships$ the reason being that, to continue the metaphor, the original edition is not yet out of print. Its first objects, its parents, are still its love-objects in real life and not merely in imagination, as is the case with grown-up neurotics.* And again: ‘The child has no need to exchange him* (the analyst) ‘with its parents without more adoj for the analyst does not offer it all those advantages in comparison with its original objects which the adult patient gains who exchanges phantasy-objects for a real person* (Einftihrung in die fechnik der Kinderanalyse^ 1927, S. 56 and 58).

* The reasons she adduces are: *the weakness of the child*s ego-ideal, the de- pendence of its requirements, and hence of its neurosis, upon the external world, its inability to control the instincts that have been liberated within it and the consequent necessity the analyst is under of keeping it under his educational guidance’ (S. 82). Again: *In children, the negative tendencies they direct to- wards the analyst, illuminating as they so often are in many ways, are essentially

inconvenient, and we must reduce them and weaken them as as

speedily possible.

It is in their positive relation to the analyst that truly valuable work will always

be done’

(S. 51).

INTRODUCTION

These views differ from mine. My observations have taught me that children can quite well produce a trans- ference-neurosis, and that a transference-situation arises

just as in the case of grown-up persons, so long as we em- ploy a method which is the equivalent of Adult Analysis, i.e. which avoids all educational measures and which fully

analyses the negative impulses directed towards the analyst. They have also taught me that in children of every age it is

very hard even for deep analysis to mitigate the severity of the super-ego. Moreover, in so far as it does so with-

out having recourse to any educational influence, analysis not only does not weaken the child’s ego, but actually

strengthens it.

It would be an interesting task, no doubt, to compare

these two lines of procedure in detail and with reference to the experimental data and to evaluate them from a theo- retical point of view. But I must content myself in these pages with giving an account of my technique and of the theoretical conclusions which it has enabled me to come to. Relatively so little is known at present about the analysis of children that our first task must be to throw light on the problems of Child Analysis from various angles and to gather together the results so far obtained.

PART I

THE TECHNIQUE OF CHILD ANALYSIS

CHAPTER I

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF CHILD ANALYSIS

children

not only experience sexual impulses and anxiety, but under- go great disillusionments. Along with the belief in the

asexuality of the child has perished the belief in the ‘Para- dise of Childhood*. Analysis of adults and direct observa- tion of children have led us to these conclusions, and they are confirmed and amplified by the analysis of small children.

First let us, with the help of examples, form a picture of the mind of the young child as these early analyses re- vealit. MypatientRita,whoatthebeginningofhertreat-

ment was two and three-quarter years old, had a preference for her mother till the end of her first year. After that she

showed a markedly greater fondness for her father, to- gether with a good deal of jealousy of her mother. For instance, when she was fifteen months old she used re- peatedly to express a desire to be left alone in the room with her father and to sit on his knee and look at books with him. At the age of eighteen months her attitude changed once more and her mother was re-installed as the favourite. At the same time she began to suffer from night terrors and fear of animals. She grew more and more

1 Thischapterisanexpandedversionofmypaper,’ThePsychologicalPrin- ciples of Infant Analysis” (1926).

findings of Psycho-Analysis have led to the creation of a new Child Psychology. They have

THE us that even in their earliest taught years

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

strongly fixated upon her mother and developed an intense dislike of her father. At the beginning of her third year she became increasingly ambivalent and difficult to man-

age, until at last, at the age of two and three-quarters, she was brought to me to be analysed. At that time she had a very marked obsessional neurosis. She exhibited obsessive

ceremonials and alternated between an exaggerated ‘good-

ness’, accompanied by feelings of remorse, and an uncon- 7

trollable ‘naughtiness . She had attacks of parathymia

which showed all the signs of melancholic depression ; and

in addition she suffered from severe anxiety, an extensive

inhibition in play, a total inability to tolerate any kind of

frustration, and an excessive plaintiveness of disposition.

These difficulties made the child almost impossible to

1 manage.

Rita’s case clearly showed that the favor nocturnus which appeared at the age of eighteen months was a neurotic elaboration of her Oedipus conflict. Her attacks of anxiety and rage, which turned out to be a repetition of her night

* Rita had shared her parents* bedroom until she was nearly two, and in her analysis she showed the consequences of having witnessed the primal scene. When she was two years old her brother was bom, and this event led to the outbreak of her neurosis in its full force. Her analysis lasted for eighty-three sessions and was left unfinished3 as her parents went to live abroad. In all important points it resulted in a quite considerable improvement. The child’s anxiety was lessened and her obsessive ceremonials disappeared. Her depressive symptoms, together with her inability to tolerate frustrations, were a good deal moderated. At the same time as analysis lessened her ambivalence towards her mother and improved her relations to her father and brother, it reduced the difficulties of her

of the results of her analysis some years after its termination. I found then that she had entered upon the latency period in a satisfactory manner, and that her

intellectual and characteroiog/cil development were satisfactory. Nevertheless, when I saw her again I got the impression that it would have been advisable to hare continued her analysis somewhat farther. Her whole character and nature showed unmistakable traces of an obsessional disposition. It must be remarked, however, that her mother suffered from a severe obsessional neurosis and had had an ambivalent relation towards the child from tbe first. One result of the changes for the better which analysis had effected in Rita was that her mother’s attitude to^^axds her had also greatly improved; but even so it was a severe handicap in the child’s development. There is no doubt that if her analysis had been

carried through to the end and her obsessional traits still farther cleared up, she would have enjoyed yet greater immunity from the neurotic and neurosis- inducmg environment in which she lived. Seven years after the end of her treatment I heard from her mother that she was developing satisfactorily.

upbringing to a normal level. I was able to convince myself at first hand of the lasting nature

I PSYCHOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF CHILD ANALYSIS 2

terrors, and her other difficulties as well, were very closely connected with strong feelings of guilt arising from that

early conflict. Wewillnowconsiderthecontentandthecausesofthese

early feelings of guilt by reference to another case. Trude,

three and

in her analysis that it was night-time and that we were both asleep. She then used to come softly over to me from the opposite corner of the room (which was supposed to be her own bedroom) and threaten me in various ways, such as that she was going to stab me in the throat, throw me out of the window, burn me up, take me to the police, etc. She would want to tie up my hands and feet, or she would lift up the rug on the sofa and say she was doing *Po Kaki Kuki\Thisitturnedout,meantthatshewanted to look inside her mother’s bottom for the ‘Kakis* (faeces), which signified children to her. On another occasion she wanted to hit me in the stomach and declared that she was

aged

three-quarters,

taking out my ‘A-as’ (stool) and was making me poor. She then seized the cushions, which had repeatedly figured as children, and crouched down with them behind the

sofa. There she exhibited every sign of fear, covered her- self up, sucked her fingers and wetted herself. She used to repeat this whole process whenever she had made an attack on me. It corresponded in every detail with the way she had behaved in bed when, at a time when she was not yet two, she had been overtaken by very severe night terrors. At that time, too, she had run into her parents* bedroom again and again at night without being able to say what it was she wanted. Analysis showed that her wetting and dirty- ing herself were attacks upon her parents copulating with each other, and in this way removed the symptoms. Trude had wanted to rob her pregnant mother of her children, to kill her and to take her place in coitus with her father.3

1 In Chapter VIII. I shall give fuller reasons for assuming that in these emotionstheOedipusconflict,orearlystagesofit,werealreadyfindingutterance.

* Here, as elsewhere, the age given denotes the age at which the child started

analysis.

3 Her sister had been born when she was two years old.

2 used to repeatedly pretend

26 THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

It was those impulses of hatred and aggression which, in her second year, had given rise to an unduly strong fixation upon her mother and to a sense of guilt which

expressed itself, among other things, in her night terrors. Thus we see that the child’s early anxiety and feelings

clearly exhibiting

she used to manage to hurt herself in some way almost

every time before she came for her analytic hour. It turned outthattheobjectsagainstwhichshehadhurtherself a

table, a cupboard, a fireplace, etc. signified, in accord- ance with primitive and infantile processes of identification, her mother or her father, who were punishing her.2

The play of children enables us to draw clear inferences astotheoriginofthissenseofguiltatanearlyage. Re- turning to our first case, we find that in her second year Rita was conspicuous for the remorse she used to feel for every small wrongdoing, and for her over-sensitiveness to reproach. For instance, she once burst into tears because her father uttered a laughing threat against a bear in her

1 Inthe whichthis isbased The

paper upon chapter ( Psychological Principle!

of Infant Analysis’, 1926) I had already put forward the view that impulses of hatred and aggression are the deepest cause and foundation of feelings of guilt; and since then I have brought fresh evidence in support of that opinion in a number of other writings. In my paper ‘The Importance of Symbol-Formation in the Development of the Ego*, read at the Oxford Congress in 1929, I was able to give a more extended formulation of it. I said: *It is only in the later stages of the Oedipus conflict that the defence against the libidinal impulses makes its appearance; in the earlier stages it is against the accompanying de- structive impulses that the defence is directed*. This statement agrees in some points, I think, with the conclusions Freud has reached in his recent book Civilization and its Discontents (1929), in which he says: ‘So then it is, after all, only the aggression which is changed into guilt, by being suppressed and made over to the super-ego. I am convinced that very many processes will admit of much simpler and clearer explanation if we restrict the findings of psycho- analysis in respect of the origin of the sense of guilt to the aggressive instincts* (p. 131). And on the next page: ‘One is now inclined to suggest the following statement as a possible formulation: when an instinctual trend undergoes re- pression, its libidinal elements are transformed into symptoms and its aggressive components into a sense of guilt*.

* A certain plaintiveness of disposition and a tendency to fall down or get hurt, things so common in small children in especial, are, according to my ex- perience, effects of the sense of guilt.

I PSYCHOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF CHILD ANALYSIS 27

picture-book. Her fear of her father’s displeasure was enoughtomakeheridentifyherselfwiththebear. The

inhibition in play from which she suffered also proceeded from her sense of guilt. When she was only two and a quarter years old and used to play with her doll a game which gave her little pleasure she would repeatedly de- clare that she was not its mother. Analysis showed that she

was not permitted to be its mother, because, among other things, it stood for her brother whom she had wanted to

steal from her mother during the latter’s pregnancy. The

prohibition, however, did not proceed from her real mother, but from an introjected one who treated her with far more

sternness and cruelty than the real one had ever done. Another symptom which Rita developed at the age of two was an obsessional one, a bed-time ritual which took up a lot of time. The main point of it was that she had to be tightly tucked up in the bed-clothes, otherwise a ‘mouse or a Butzen* would get in through the window and bite off her own ^Eutzen^^ Her doll had to be tucked up too, and this double ceremonial became more and more

elaborate and long-drawn-out and was performed with

every sign of that compulsive attitude which pervaded her whole mind. On one occasion during her analytic hour she

put a toy elephant next to her doll’s bed so as to prevent it from getting up and going into her parents’ bedroom

and ‘doing something to them or taking something away from them’. The elephant was taking over the role of her

internalized parents whose prohibitive influence she felt ever since, between the age of one and a quarter and two, she had wished to take her mother’s place with her father, rob her of the child inside her, and injure and castrate both parents. The meaning of the ceremonial now became clear: being tucked up in bed was to prevent her from

getting up and carrying out her aggressive wishes against

her parents. Since, however, she expected to be punished

1 Rita’scastrationcomplexwasmanifestedinawholeseriesofsymptomsand

also in her characterological development. Her play, too, clearly snowed the strength of her identification with her father and her fear arising from her castrationcomplex offailinginthemasculinerole.

28 THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

for those wishes by a similar attack on herself by her parents, being tucked up also served as a defence against such attacks. The attacks were to be made, for instance, by the ‘Butzen (her father’s penis), which would injure her genitals and bite off her own ‘Butzen as a punishment for wanting to castrate him. In these games she used to pun- ish her doll and then give way to an outburst of rage and fear, thus showing that she was playing both parts herself

that of the powers which inflicted punishment and that of the punished child itself.

It is clear also that this anxiety refers not only to the

child’s real parents but also, and more especially, to its

excessively stern introjected parents. What we meet with

here to what we call the in adults.1 corresponds super-ego

The typical signs of the Oedipus complex, which are most pronounced when it has reached its maximum strength and

which immediately precede its decline, are themselves only the final stage of a process which has been going on for

years. Early analysis shows that the Oedipus conflict sets in as early as the second half of the first year of life and

that at the same time the child begins to modify it and to

build up its super-ego.

Finding, then, as we do, that even quite young children

are under the weight of feelings of guilt, we have at least

one very good ground of approach for their analysis. And yet many conditions for their successful treatment seem to

be absent. Their relation to reality is a weak one; there is apparently no inducement for them to undergo the trials ofananalysis,sincetheydonotasarulefeelill; andlastly, and most important of all, they cannot as yet give, or can- not give in a sufficient degree, those associations of speech which are the principal instrument of an analytic treatment of adults.

Let us take this last objection first. It was the very dif- ferences between the infantile mind and the grown-up one that showed me, in the first instance, the way to get at the

called a. super-ego. The reasons for this view will be given in Chapter VIII.

In the writer’s opinion the child’s earliest identifications should already be

PSYCHOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF CHILD ANALYSIS 1<)

associations of the child and to understand its unconscious.

These special characteristics of the child’s psychology have

furnished the basis of the technique of Pky Analysis which

I have been able to work out. The child expresses its phan-

tasies, its wishes and its actual experiences in a symbolic

way through play and games. In doing so it makes use of the same archaic and phylogenetic mode of expression, the

same language, as it were, that we are familiar with in

dreams; and we can only fully understand this language if we approach it in the way Freud has taught us to ap-

proach the language of dreams. Symbolism is only a part of it. If we wish to understand the child’s play correctly

in relation to its whole behaviour during the analytic hour we must not be content to pick out the meaning of the

separate symbols, striking as they often are, but must take into consideration all the mechanisms and methods of re-

presentation employed by the dream-work, never losing sight of the relation of each factor to the situation as a

whole. Analysis of children has shown again and again how

many different meanings a single toy or a single bit of play

can have, and that we can only completely comprehend their meaning when we know their further connections

and the general analytic situation in which they are set. Rita’s doll, for instance, would sometimes stand for a penis, sometimes a child she had stolen from her mother and sometimes her own self. Full analytic results can only be obtained if we bring these play-elements into their true relation with the child’s sense of guilt by interpreting them down to the smallest detail. The whole kaleidoscopic pic-

ture, often to all appearances quite meaningless, which childrenpresenttousinasingleanalytichour thecon-

tent of their games, the way in which they play, the means they use (for sometimes they will assign the various roles to their toys, sometimes to themselves) and the motives

behindachangeofgame why,letussay,theywillstop playing with water and start cutting out in paper or draw-

ing allthesethingsareseentohavemethodinthemand will yield up their meaning if we interpret them as we do

3<D

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

dreams. Very often children will express in their play the

same thing that they have just been telling us in a dream, or will bring associations to a dream in the play which suc- ceeds it. For play is the child’s most important medium of expression. If we make use of this play technique we soon find that the child brings as many associations to the separ- ate elements of its play as adults do to the separate elements of their dreams. These separate play-elements are indica- tions to the trained observer; and as it plays, the child talks as well, and says all sorts of things which have the value of genuine associations.

It is surprising how children will sometimes accept the

interpretation put forward with facility and even with marked pleasure. The reason undoubtedly is that in cer-

tain strata of their mind communication between the con- scious and the unconscious is as yet comparatively easy, so that the way back to the unconscious is much simpler

to find. Interpretation often has rapid effects, even when it does not appear to have been taken in consciously. Such

effects show themselves in the way in which they enable the child to resume a game it has broken off in consequence

of the emergence of an inhibition, and to change and ex-

pand it, bringing deeper layers of the mind to view in it. And as anxiety is thus resolved and pleasure in play re-

stored, analytic contact, too, becomes securely established once more. Interpretation increases the child’s pleasure

in play by rendering unnecessary the expenditure of energy it has been making in order to maintain repres-

sion. On the other hand, we sometimes encounter resist-

ances which are very hard to overcome. This most usually

means that we have come up against the child’s anxiety

and sense of guilt belonging to deeper layers of its mind.

The archaic and symbolic forms of representation which the child employs are associated with another primitive mechanism. In its play it acts instead of speaks. Action,

which is more primitive than thought or words, forms the

* chiefpartofitsbehaviour.Inhis HistoryofanInfantile

PSYCHOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF CHILD ANALYSIS 3!

Neurosis’, Freud writes on p. 475: *An analysis which is conducted upon a neurotic child itself must, as a matter of

course^ appear to be more trustworthy, but it cannot be veryrichinmaterial; toomanywordsandthoughtshave

to be lent to the child, and even so the deepest strata may turn out to be impenetrable to consciousness’. If we

approach the child-patient with the technique of adult analysis it is quite certain that we shall not penetrate to

thosedeepestlevels; andyetitisupondoingthisthat,for the child no less than for the adult, the success and value

of analysis depends’. But if we take into consideration the ways in which the child’s psychology differs from that of the adult the fact that its unconscious is as yet in close contact with its conscious and that its most primitive im-

pulses are at work alongside of highly complicated mental processes and if we can correctly grasp the child’s mode

of thought and expression, then all these drawbacks and

disadvantages vanish and we find that we may expect to make as deep and as extensive an analysis of the child as of the adult. More so, in fact. For the child can actually recover and present to us in a direct way certain experi- ences and fixations which the adult can often only produce

In a paper read before the Salzburg Congress in 1924,* I put forward the view that behind every form of play-

activity lies a process of discharge of masturbatory phan- tasies, operating in the form of a continuous impulse to

play; that this process, acting as a repetition-compulsion, constitutes a fundamental mechanism in children’s play

and in all their subsequent sublimations; and that in- hibitions in play and work spring from an unduly strong

repression of those phantasies and, with them, of the whole imaginative life of the child. The child’s sexual

1 The reason why, in the writer’s opinion, Early Analysis offers one of the most fruitful fields for psycho-analytic therapy, is precisely because the child has the ability to represent its unconscious in a direct way, and thus not only to experience a far-reaching emotional abreaction but actually to live through

the original situation in its analysis, so that with the help of interpretation its fixations can to a considerable extent be resolved. * Not published.

as reconstructions.

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

with me she went abroad with her mother for six months. Then her analysis was resumed. The only occasion on which she said anything of all the things she had seen and done during her travels was some time later when she told me this dream : She and her mother were back in Italy inacertainrestaurantsheknewy andthewaitressdidn’tgive her any raspberry syrup because there wasn’t any left. The

ently unimportant daily events and had repeatedly alluded to small details out of her first analytic hour six months

earlier, the only way in which she showed the slightest interest in her travels was in this allusion, arising out of the analytic situation, to the frustration she had suffered

in infancy.

^. Neurotic children do not tolerate reality well, because

they cannot tolerate frustrations. They seek to protect

themselves from reality by denying it. But what is most

important and decisive for their future adaptability to

reality is the greater or less ease with which they tolerate

those frustrations which arise out of the Oedipus situation.

Even in quite small children, therefore, a too emphatic

rejection of reality (often disguised under an apparent docility and adaptability) is an indication of neurosis and

only differs from the adult neurotic’s flight from reality in its form of expression. For this reason one of the results of early analysis should be to enable the child to adapt itself to reality. If this has been successfully done the child’s educational difficulties will be lessened, for it will have become able to tolerate the frustrations entailed by

reality.

1 The dream was a It to be based death- punishment-dream. proved upon

wishes derived from her oral frustration and her Oedipus situation and directed against her sister and mother, together with the sense of guilt resulting from those wishes. My analysis of very young children’s dreams in general has shown me that in them, no less than in play, there are always present not only wishes but counter-tendencies coming from the super-ego, and that even in the simplest wish-dreams the sense of guilt is operative in a latent way.

of this dream

that she had not got over her displeasure at the with- drawal of the mother’s breast and her envy of her younger sister. Whereas she. had reported to me all sorts of appar-

interpretation

showed, among

other 1 things,

I PSYCHOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF CHILD ANALYSIS 35

We have now seen, I think, that in child analysis our angle of approach has to be somewhat different from what it is in the analysis of adults. Taking the shortest cut pos- sible through the ego, we apply ourselves in the first instance to the child’s unconscious and from there gradually get into touch with its ego as well. Analysis does much to strengthen the child’s as yet feeble ego and help it to develop, by

lessening the excessive weight of the super-ego, which presses on it far more severely than it does on the ego of

1 full-grown persons.

I have spoken of the rapid effect that interpretation has upon children and how this is observable in a great num-

ber of ways, such as the expansion of their play, the strengthening of their transference and decrease of their

anxiety, etc. Nevertheless, they do not seem to -deal with and work over such interpretations in consciousness for

some time. This task, I found, was accomplished later on, and was bound up with the development of their ego and

the growth of their adaptation to reality, with which it

kept pace. The process of sexual enlightenment follows the same course. For a long time analysis does no more

than bring out material connected with sexual theories and

birth-phantasies. It only brings knowledge gradually by removing the unconscious resistances which work against

it. Full sexual enlightenment, therefore, like a full adapta-

tion to reality, is one of the consequences of a completed analysis. Without it no analysis can be said to have reached

a successful termination.

In the same way as the mode of expression is different

in the child, so is the analytic situation as a whole. And yet in both child and adult the main principles of analysis are the same. Consistent interpretation, steady resolution of

1 Unlike the grown-up patient, the child cannot, after its recovery, alter the circumstances of its life. But analysis will have helped it very greatly if it has enabled it to get on better and to feel more cheerful in its actual environment. Furthermore, the removal of its own neurosis often has the effect of improving the behaviour of its milieu. It has been my experience that the mother -will react in a much less neurotic way as soon as analysis has begun to effect favourable changes in her child.

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

the resistances, constant reference back of the transference, whether positive or negative, to earlier situations these establish and maintain a correct analytic situation with the child no less than with the adult. A necessary condition for this achievement is that the analyst should refrain, as he does with adult patients, from exerting any kind of non-analytic and educational influence upon the child. He should deal with its transference on lines identical with his management of it in grown-up cases. He will then see the child’s symptoms and difficulties become drawn in to

the analytic situation in exactly the same way. Its former symptoms, or the difficulties and ‘naughtiness* which cor-

respond to them, will come out anew. It will, for instance, begin to wet its bed once more; or, in certain situations which repeat an earlier one, it will, even if it is three or four years old, start talking like a small child of one or

two.

Seeing that children take in and digest their new know-

ledge mostly in an unconscious way, they will not be called upon on the strength of it to change their whole point of view in regard to their parents all at once. The alteration will be at first rather one of feeling. Knowledge dealt with in

this gradual way has always, as far as my experience goes, been a great relief to the child and has greatly improved

its relations towards its parents, so that it has become more socially adaptable and easier to bring up. The de-

mands of its super-ego having been moderated by analysis,

its ego, now less oppressed and consequently stronger, is able to carry them out more easily.

As analysis continues, children grow able to some ex- tent to substitute for the processes of repression those of critical rejection. This is especially clearly seen when in a later stage of their analysis they become so detached from the sadistic impulses which once governed them, and to

whose interpretation they opposed the strongest resist- ances, that they sometimes make fun of them. I have heard quite small children joke about the idea that they once really wanted to eat their Mummy up or cut her into

I PSYCHOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF CHILD ANALYSIS 37

1 The decrease of the sense of which accom- guilt

pieces.

panies these changes also enables sadistic desires which

were before entirely repressed to undergo sublimation. This comes out in the removal of inhibitions both in play

and work and the appearance of a number of fresh in- terests and activities.

In this chapter I have taken as my point of departure

my technique of Early Analysis, because it underlies the analytic methods I adopt with children of all ages. For in

so far as the mental characteristics of the quite small child often still persist quite strongly in older ones, I have found it necessary to use the same technique for them as well. On the other hand, of course, the ego of the older child

is more fully developed, so that that technique has to undergo some modification when it is applied to children

in the latency period and at puberty. This subject will receive fuller attention later on and I shall therefore only

dwell on it very briefly here. Whether such a modified

technique will more nearly approximate to Early Analysis

or to Adult Analysis depends not only upon the age of the child but upon the special character of the case.

Speaking generally, I am guided in my choice of ana- lytic method for all periods of childhood by the following

chief considerations. Children and young people suffer from a more acute degree of anxiety than do adults, and therefore we must gain access to their anxiety and to their unconscious sense of guilt and establish the analytic situa- tion as rapidly as possible. In small children this anxiety usually finds an outlet in anxiety attacks; during the latency period it more often takes the form of distrust and

reserve, while in the intensely emotional age of puberty it once more leads to acute liberation of anxiety which now,

however, in conformity with the child’s more developed 1 This observation, that when their super-ego becomes less harsh children develop a sense of humour, is, I think, in full agreement with Freud’s theory of the nature of humour, which, according to him, is the effect of a friendly

super-ego. In concluding his paper on *Humour* (1928) he says: ‘Finally, if the super-ego does try to comfort the ego by humour and to protect it from suffering, this does not conflict with its derivation from the parental institu- tion’.

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

ego, frequently finds expression in obstinate and violent resistances which may easily cause the analysis to be broken off. My experience is that the way to resolve some of this anxiety quickly in children of all ages is immedi-

ately and systematically to deal with the negative trans- ference. In order to gain the necessary access to the child’s

phantasies and unconscious we must turn our attention to those methods of indirect symbolic representation which

it employs at every age. Once the child’s imagination has become more free as a consequence of its lessened anxiety,

we have not only gained access to its unconscious but have also set in motion in an ever greater degree the means at its command for 1 its And this

representing phantasies.

holds good even in those cases where we have to start

from material which appears to be completely devoid of

imagination.

In conclusion I should like to sum up briefly what has

been said in this chapter. The more primitive nature of the child’s mind makes it necessary to find an analytic

technique that shall be more especially adapted to it, and this we find in Play Analysis. By means of Play Analysis

we gain access to the child’s most deeply repressed experi- ences and fixations and are thus able to exert a radical in-

fluence on its development. The difference between our methods of analysis and those of Adult Analysis, how-

ever, is purely one of technique and not of principle. The analysis of the transference-situation and of the re-

sistance, the removal of infantile amnesias and of the effects of repression, as well as the uncovering of the

1Ifwedothisweshallsucceedinmakingspeech asfarasthechildpossesses that faculty an instrument of its analysis. Even in quite small children the reason why we have to do without verbal associations for long periods of their analysis is not only because they cannot speak with ease but because the acute anxiety they suffer from only permits them to employ a less direct form of representation. Since the primary archaic mode of representation by means of toys and of action is an essential medium of expression for the child, we can certainly never carry out a thorough analysis of a child by means of speech alone. Nevertheless, I believe that no analysis of a child, whatever its age, can be

said to be really terminated until the child has employed its powers of speech in

analysis to its full capacity. For language constitutes one of the points of contact between the individual and the external world.

PSYCHOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF CHILD ANALYSIS 39

primal scene all these things Play Analysis does. It there- fore not only conforms to the same standards of psycho- analytic method as do adult analyses, but also leads to the same results. The only difference is that it suits its mode of procedure to the mind of the child.

CHAPTER II

THE TECHNIQUE OF EARLY ANALYSIS

the first chapter of this book I have tried to show, on the one hand, what special psychological mechan-

have led me to develop my method of Play Analysis.

On a low table in my analytic room there are laid out a

numberofsmalltoysofaprimitivekind littlewoodenmen

and women, carts, carriages, motor-cars, trains, animals, bricks and houses, as well as paper, scissors and pencils. Even a child that is usually inhibited in its play will at least glance at the toys or touch them, and will soon give me a first glimpse into its complexive life by the way in which it begins to play with them or lays them aside, or by its general attitude towards them.

In order to get a clear idea of the principles of play technique let us turn to an actual case. Peter, aged three

and three-quarters, was very difficult to manage. He was strongly fixated upon his mother and very ambivalent. He

was unable to tolerate frustrations, was totally inhibited

in play and gave the impression of being an extremely timid, plaintive and unboyish child. At times his behaviour

would be aggressive and overbearing, and he got on badly with other children, especially with his younger brother, His analysis was intended to be chiefly a prophylactic

isms we find IN

in the small child as distinct from the adult when we come to analyse it, and, on the other, what parallels exist between the two, and I have explained that it is at once these differences and these similarities which necessitate a special technique and which

operative

CH. II

THE TECHNIQUE OF EARLY ANALYSIS 4!

measure, since there had been several cases of severe neurosis in the family. But in the course of it I found that he was suffering from such a serious neurosis himself and from such a degree of inhibition- that he would almost certainly not have been able to meet the demands of school life and would, sooner or later, have fallen ill. 1

At the very beginning of his first hour Peter took the toy carriages and cars and put them first one behind the other and then side by side, and alternated this arrange- ment several times. He also took a horse and carriage and bumped it into another, so that the horses’ feet knocked together, and said: Tve got a new little brother called Fritz*. I asked him what the carriages were doing. He answered: ‘That’s not nice*, and stopped bumping them together at once, but started again quite soon. Then he knocked two toy horses together in the same way. Upon

whichIsaid: ‘Lookhere,thehorsesaretwopeoplebump- ing together*. At first he said: ‘No, that’s not nice’, but

then, *Yes, that’s two people bumping together’, and added: ‘The horses have bumped together too, and now

they’re going to sleep’. Then he covered them up with bricks and said: ‘Now they’re quite dead; I’ve buried them’. In his second hour lie at once arranged the cars and carts in the same two ways as before in Indian file and abreast; and at the same time he once again knocked

two carriages together, and then two engines. He next put two swings side by side and, showing me the inner part that hung down and swung, said: ‘Look how it

dangles and bumps*. I then proceeded to interpret, and,

1 I may add that at the end of his analysis, which took up 278 sessions, his difficulties had disappeared and there was an extensive change for the better in his whole character and disposition. He had lost not only his morbid fears but his general timidity and had become a happy and lively child. He had overcome his inhibition in play and had begun to get on well with other children, in par- ticular with his little brother. His development since has been excellent. Accord- ing to the latest accounts of him, six years after the end of his analysis, he was doing well at school, was full of interest in things, learned well, and was good at games. He was easy to manage and able to meet all the social requirements of his age. It is, moreover, worth noting that both during his analysis and in the next few years he had to undergo unnaturally great strains on account of various upheavals in his family life.

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

pointing to the ‘dangling’ swings, the engines, the car- riages and the horses, explained that in each case they

were two people his Daddy and Mummy bumping

their word for 1 He ‘thingummies’ (his genitals) together.

objected, saying: ‘No, that isn’t nice’, but went on knock- l

ingthecartstogether,andsaid: That’showtheybumped

their thingummies together’. Immediately afterwards he spoke about his little brother again. As we have seen, in

his first hour, too, his knocking together of the two car- riages and horses had been followed by his remarking that he had got a new little brother. So I continued my inter-

pretation and said: ‘You thought to yourself that Daddy

and Mummy bumped their thingummies together and that made your little brother Fritz be born’. He now took

another small cart and made all three collide together. I

explained: ‘That’s your own thingummy. You wanted to

bump it with Daddy’s and Mummy’s thingummies too.* He thereupon added a fourth cart and said: ‘That’s Fritz’.

He next took two of the smaller carts and put each on to an engine. He pointed to a carriage and horse and said: ‘That’s Daddy*, and to another and said: ‘That’s Mummy’. He pointed once more to the first carriage and horse and said: ‘That’s me’, and to the second one and said: ‘That’s me too’, thus illustrating his identification with both par- ents in coitus. After this he repeatedly hit the two small carts together and told me how he and his little brother

let two chickens into their bedroom to keep them quiet, but that they had knocked about together and spat in there. He and Fritz, he added, were not rude gutter boys and did not spit. When I told him that the chickens were his and Fritz’s thingummies bumping into one another

and spitting that is, masturbating he agreed with me after a little resistance.

I can only refer briefly here to the way in which the child’s phantasies as set forth in his play became more and more

I always find out beforehand from the child’s mother what special words the child uses for the genitals, excremental processes, etc., and adopt them in speaking to it. For purposes of clearness, however, I shall not reproduce these special words in my reports on further cases.

THE TECHNIQUE OF EARLY ANALYSIS

free under the influence of continual interpretation; how

the scope of his play gradually widened; and how certain details in it were repeated over and over again until they

were made clear by interpretation, and then gave place to fresh details. Just as associations to dream-elements lead

to the uncovering of the latent content of the dream, so do

the elements of children’s play, which correspond to those

associations, afford a view of its latent meaning. And play

analysis, no less than adult analysis, by systematically treating the actual situation as a transference-situation and

establishing its connection with the originally experienced or imagined one, gives them the possibility of completely

living out and working through that original situation in phantasy. In doing this, and in uncovering their infantile

experiences and the original causes of their sexual develop- ment, it resolves fixations and corrects errors of develop-

ment that have disturbed their whole line of growth. The next extract I shall give from Peter’s case is in- tended to show that the interpretations made in the first hours were substantiated by further analysis. One day, a few weeks later, when one of the toy men happened to fall over, Peter flew into a rage. Immediately afterwards he asked me how a toy motor was made and why it could stand up. He next showed me a toy deer fall over, and then said he wanted to urinate. In the lavatory he said to me: ‘I’mdoingnumberone Ihavegotathingummy’.When he was back in the room again he took a toy man, whom he called a boy, who was sitting in a little house, which he called the lavatory, and stood him in such a way that a dog which he placed beside him ‘shouldn’t see him and bite him*. But he placed a toy woman so that she could see him, and said: ”Only his Daddy mustn’t see him’. Thus it was evident that he identified the dog, which was in general an object of great fear to him, with his father and the defaecating boy with himself.1 After this he kept on

1 In Chapter I. I have given my reasons for the view that with children, no less than with adults, the analytic situation can only be established and maintained so long as a purely analytic attitude is maintained towards the patient. But in dealing with children certain modifications of this principle become necessary,

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

playing with the motor-car whose construction he had already admired, and made it move along. Suddenly he

asked angrily: ‘Whenever is it going to stop?’ Next he said that some of the toy men he had been using must not ride in it, knocked them over, and set them up again with their backs to the car, next to which he once more put a whole row of cars and carriages, side by side this time. He then suddenly expressed a desire to pass stool, but contented himself with asking the sitting toy man (the defaecating boy) whether he had finished. He again turned to the motor-car and began to alternate incessantly be- tween admiration and rage at its continaal movement, wanting to pass stool and asking the ‘boy* if he had done.

In the analytic hour just described, Peter had been de- picting the following things : the toy man, the deer, etc., which kept on falling down, represented his own penis and its inferiority in comparison to his father’s erect member. His going to make water immediately after was done to prove the contrary to himself and to me. The

without, however, in any way departing from its essentials. For instance, if a very small patient wants to go to the lavatory, and is still unused to doing so alone at home, it is my practice to go with him. But I do the least possible for him and wait outside the door untS he has finished, being careful then, as on all other occasions, to preserve the attitude of friendly reserve which seems as necessary for the establishment and maintenance of the analytic situation in child analysis as it is in the analysis of adults. It is also essential to subject to analytic interpretation the gratification afforded to the patient by the analysis itself and the deeper motives that underlie his desire for such a, gratification, and to bring them into line with the associations or play which immediately precede or follow them. In the case of Peter, for instance, after having made water and

said:Tmdoingnumberone Ihavegotathingummy*,hewentontoplay the game with the boy on the lavatory seat. Instructive as his remark was in itself, the details of the game which followed it were of still greater interest. These were that the father-substitute (the dog) was not to see the boy in the lavatory, but the woman <was to see him; and from them we learn the causes of Peter’s desire to urinate immediately before and his wish that I should be present while he did it. In the same way I always analyse very thoroughly the reasons why a child assigns this or that role to me in its games of make-believe, or

requires this or that bit of help for itself or its dolls or animals. To what an extent we can establish the analytic situation in treating children can be seen, for instance, from the fact that it is the exception for even the youngest ones to carry out exhibitionist actions in reality, and that even during periods of the strongest positive transference it very seldom happens that a child will climb on to my lap or kiss and hug me. Incontinence is also a rare event in the analytic hour, even with very small children.

n THE TECHNIQUE OF EARLY ANALYSIS

motor-car which would not stop moving and which aroused both his admiration and anger was his father’s penis that was performing coitus all the time. After feeling admira- tion for it he became enraged and wanted to defaecate. This was a repetition of his passing stool at the time

when he had witnessed the primal scene. He had done this so as to disturb his parents while they were copulating and, in imagination, to harm them with his excrements*

We must now try to get a rough idea of the general significance of Peter’s first analytic hours in the light of these later interpretations. In putting the motor-cars end

on together during his very first session, he was making reference to his father’s powerful penis; in putting them

side by side he was symbolizing the frequent repetition of coitus that is, his father’s potency and he did this

again later by means of the car that kept on moving. The

rage he had felt at witnessing his parents’ coitus was al-

ready expressed in his first hour by his wanting the two

horses who were going to sleep to be ‘dead and buried’,

and in the affect which accompanied that wish. That these

pictures of the primal scene with which he began his

analysis were referable to actual repressed experiences of his infancy was proved by his parents’ own account to me.

According to this, the child had only shared their bedroom

during one period, when he was eighteen months old and

they were away on their summer holidays. During that

period he had become especially hard to manage. He had

slept badly and had begun to be dirty again, although he had become almost clean in his habits several months be-

fore. It appeared that though the railings of his cot did not prevent him from seeing his parents have sexual inter-

course, they made it more difficult, and this was symbol- ized by the toy men who were knocked over and then

placed with their backs to the row of vehicles. The falling over of the toys also represented his own feelings of im- potence. It appeared that before that summer holiday he used to play with his toys exceedingly well, but after it he could do nothing with them except break them. As early

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

as in his first analytic hour he illustrated the connection be- tween the destruction of his toys and his observations of

coitus. Once, when he had put the motor-cars, which sym-

bolized his father’s penis, in a row side by side and had

made them run along, he lost his temper and threw them

all about the room, saying: *We always smash our Christ-

mas presents straight away; we don’t want any*. Smashing his toys thus stood in his unconscious for smashing his

father’s genitals. This pleasure in destruction and inhibi-

tion in play, which he brought into his analysis, were

gradually overcome and disappeared together with his other difficulties during the course of it.

In uncovering bit by bit the primal scene I was able to gain access to Peter’s very strong passive homosexual atti- tude. After having depicted his parents’ coitus he had phantasies of coitus between three people. They aroused severe anxiety in him and were followed by other phan- tasies in which he was being copulated with by his father. These were portrayed in a game in which the toy dog or motor-car or engine all signifying his father climbed on to a cart or a man, which stood for himself. In this pro- cess the cart would be injured or the man would have something bitten off; and then Peter would show much

fear of, or great aggressiveness towards, the toy which re- presented his father.

I shall now proceed to discuss some of the more im-

portant aspects of my technique in the light of the above extracts from an actual analysis. As soon as the small patient

has given me some sort of insight into his complexes

whether through his games or his drawings or phantasies, or merely by his general behaviour I consider that inter-

pretation can and should begin. This does not run counter to the well-tried rule that the analyst should wait till the transference is there before he begins interpreting, be- cause with children the transference takes place immedi- ately, and the analyst will often be given evidence straight away of its positive nature. But should the child show shy- ness, anxiety or even only a certain distrust, such behaviour

THE TECHNIQUE OF EARLY ANALYSIS 47

is to be read as a sign of a negative transference, and this makes it still more imperative that interpretation should

begin as soon as possible. For interpretation reduces the

patient’s negative transference by taking the negative affects involved back to their original objects and situation.

1 whowasa

felt a resistance she at once wanted to leave the room, and

I had to make an interpretation immediately so as to resolve this resistance. As soon as I had explained to her

the cause of her resistance always carrying it back to its

original object and situation it was resolved, and she would become friendly and trustful again and continue her game, supplying in its various details a confirmation of the

interpretation I had just given.

In another instance I was able to see with impressive

clearness the necessity of rapid interpretation. This was in the case of Trude, who, it will be remembered, came to me

for a single hour when she was three and a quarter years

For when instance,

Rita,

very

ambivalent

child,

old,

2 and then had to have her treatment

postponed owing

to external circumstances. This child was very neurotic and

unusually strongly fixated upon her mother. She came into

my room full of anxiety and ill-will, and I was obliged to

analyse her in a low voice with the door open. But soon she had given me an idea of the nature of her complexes. She insisted upon the flowers in a vase being removed; she threw a little toy man out of a cart into which she had previously put him and heaped abuse on him; she wanted a certain* man with a high hat that figured in a picture- book she had brought with her to be taken out of it; and she declared that the cushions in the room had been thrown into disorder by a dog. My immediate interpretation of these utterances in the sense that she desired to do away with her father’s 3 because it was havoc with

penis, playing

See Chapter I. Ibid.

3 Trude’suncommonlystrongcastrationcomplexplayedaveryconspicuous part and dominated the picture for some time in her analysis. From beneath that

complex analysis brought to light a further anxiety which proved a more funda- mentalone thatofbeingattackedbyhermother,robbedofthecontentsofher

body and her children and severely injured internally. (See Chapter I.)

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

her mother (as represented by the vase, the cart, the picture- book and the cushion), at once diminished her anxiety and she left me in a much more friendly mood than she had come, and said at home that she would like to come back to me. When, six months later, I was able to resume this little girl’s analysis once more, it appeared that she had

remembered the events of her single hour of analysis and that my interpretations had effected a certain amount of

positive transference, or rather, some lessening of the negative transference in hen

Another fundamental principle of play technique is that the interpretation must be carried down to a sufficient depth to reach the mental layer which is being activ- ated. For instance, in his second hour, Peter, after having pushed the cars along, laid a toy man on a bench, which he called a bed, and then threw him down and said that he was dead and done for. He next did the same thing with two

little men, choosing for the purpose two toys that were already damaged. At that time, in conformity with the cur-

rent material, the interpretation I gave him was that the first toy man was his father, whom he wanted to throw out of his mother’s bed and kill, and that the second man was himselftowhomhisfatherwoulddothesame.1 Later when I was bringing to light the primal scene in all its de- tails, Peter recurred in various forms to the theme of the

two broken men ; but it now appeared that it was deter- mined by the anxiety he had felt, in connection with the primal scene, in regard to his mother as the castrator. In his phantasy she had taken his father’s penis inside herself and had not given it back; and she thus became an object of anxiety for the boy, because in his imagination she now carried his father’s terrifying penis ( = his father) inside

herself.

Here is another example taken from the same case. In

1 I may mention that this interpretation like all interpretations of death- wishes in the analyses of children aroused very violent resistances in Peter. But he brought a confirmation of it in his next hour when he suddenly asked: ‘And if / were a Daddy and someone wanted to throw me down behind the bed and make me dead and done for, what would / think of ii?’

on,

THE TECHNIQUE OF EARLY ANALYSIS

Peter’s second hour my interpretation of the material he had brought had been that he and his brother practised mutual masturbation. Seven months later, when he was four years and four months old, he told me a long dream, rich in associative material, from which the following is an extract. ‘There were two figs in a pig-sty and in his bed too. They ate together in the pig-sty. There were also two boys in his ted in a boat; but they were quite big^ like Uncle G (a grown-up brother of his mother’s) and E (an older girl friend whom he thought almost grown-up).’ Most of the associations I got for this dream were verbal ones. They showed that the pigs represented himself and his

brother and that their eating meant mutualfellatio. But they

also stood for his parents copulating together. It turned out that his sexual relations with his brother were based on an

identification with his mother and father, in which Peter took the role of each in turn. After I had interpreted this material Peter started his next hour by playing games round the basin and taps. He put two pencils on a sponge and said: ‘ThisistheboatthatFritz*(hisyoungerbrother)’and I got in’. He then put on a deep voice as he often did when his super-ego came into action and shouted at the two pencils: ‘You’re not to go about together all the time

and do disgusting things’. This scolding on the part of his super-ego at his brother and himself was also aimed at

his parents (as represented by his Uncle G and his grown-up friend E )* and set free in him affects of

the same kind as he had felt towards them when he had witnessed the primal scene. These were the affects which he had already given vent to as early as in his second hour, when he wanted the horses that had bumped together to be dead and buried. And yet, after seven months, the analysis of that material was still in progress. It is clear,

then, that my first deep-going interpretations had in no

1 He had selected two long pencils out of a collection of all sizes, thus once more expressing- the fact, already elicited by his associations on the day before, that the two culprits the pigs were not only himself and his brother but his parents too, and that in his mutual masturbation he was identifying himself and his brother with them.

O THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

way hindered the elucidation of the connections between

that experience and the child’s whole sexual development (and in particular of the way in which it determined the

course of his relations with his brother), nor prevented a working through of the material involved.

I have brought forward the above examples in order to

support my view, based on empiric observation, that the

analyst should not be afraid of making a deep interpretation even at the start ofthe analysis, since the material belong- ing to the deep layers of the mind will come back again later and be worked through. As I have said before, the function

of deep-going interpretation is simply to open the door to the unconscious, to diminish the anxiety that has been

stirred up and thus to prepare the way for analytic work.

In these pages emphasis has repeatedly been laid upon

the child’s capacity for making a spontaneous transfer- ence. This is to some extent due, I think, to the much more

acute anxiety which it feels in comparison with the adult

and consequently its greater degree of apprehension. One

of the greatest, if not the greatest psychological task which the child has to achieve, and which takes up the larger

part of its mental energy, is the mastering of anxiety. Its unconscious is therefore primarily interested in objects

from the point of view of whether they allay anxiety or excite it; and according as they do the one or the other it will have a positive or a negative transference towards them. In small children with a great deal of such appre- hension the negative transference is often at once expressed as undisguised fear, whereas in older ones, especially those in the latency period, it more often takes the form of mistrust or reserve or simply dislike. In its struggle against its fear of the objects that are closest to it the child has a tendency to attach that fear to more distant objects

(since displacement is one way of dealing with anxiety) and to see in them an embodiment of its ‘bad’ father or

‘bad’ mother. For this reason the really neurotic child, in whom the feeling of being under a constant threat of

n THE TECHNIQUE OF EARLY ANALYSIS

danger predominates the child who is always on the look-out for its ‘bad’ mother or father will react to every

stranger with anxiety.

We must never lose sight of the presence of this appre-

hension in small children and also, to some degree, in

older ones. Even if they begin by exhibiting a positive attitude in analysis, we must be prepared to come upon

anegativetransferenceverysoon assoon,thatis,asany

complexive material makes its appearance. Immediately the analyst detects signs of that negative transference he

should ensure the continuance of analytic work and estab- lish the analytic situation by relating it to himself, at the

same time referring it back, by means of interpretation, to its original objects and situations, and in this way resolve

a certain quantity of anxiety. His interpretation should intervene at some point of urgency in the unconscious

material and so open a way to the child’s unconscious mind. Where that point is will be shown by the multi-

plicity and frequent repetition, often in varied forms, of

representations of the same *play thought’ (in Peter’s case, for instance, we had in his first analytical hour the alter-

nating arrangement of vehicles, and the continual knock-

ing together of the toy horses, carriages, engines, etc.) and also by the intensity of feeling attached to such repre-

sentations, for this is a measure of the affect belonging to their content. If the analyst overlooks urgent material of this kind, the child will usually break off its game and exhibit strong resistance or even open anxiety and not

infrequently show a desire to run away. Thus by making

a timely interpretation that is, by interpreting the material as soon as it permits of it the analyst can cut

short the child’s anxiety, or rather scale it down, in those cases too where the analysis has started with a positive transference. Where a negative transference is uppermost from the first, or where anxiety or resist-

ances begin to appear at once, we have already seen the absolute necessity of giving interpretations as soon as possible.

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

It follows from what has been said that not only a

timely interpretation but a deep-going one is essential. If we have an eye to the full urgency of the material pre-

sented, we find ourselves obliged to trace not only the representational content but also the anxiety and sense of guilt associated with it right down to that layer of the mind which is being activated. But if we model our-

selves on the principles of adult analysis and proceed first of all to get into contact with the superficial strata of

the mind those which are nearest to the ego and to

reality we shall fail in our object of establishing the

analytical situation and reducing anxiety in the child. Repeated experience has convinced me of this. The same

is true of the mere translation of symbols, of interpreta-

tions which only deal with the symbolic representation of the material and do not concern themselves with the

anxiety and sense of guilt that are associated with it. An interpretation which does not descend to those depths which are being activated by the material and the anxiety concerned, which does not, that is, attack the place where the strongest latent resistance is and endeavour in the first place to reduce anxiety where it is most violent and most in evidence, will have no effect whatever on the child, or will only serve to arouse stronger resistances in it with- out being able to resolve them again. But, as I have already tried to make clear in my extracts from Peter’s analysis,

in thus penetrating directly to those deep strata of the mind we shall not by any means completely resolve the anxiety contained there, nor in any way restrict the work still to be done in the upper strata, where the child’s ego and relations to reality have to be analysed. This establishment of the child’s relations to reality and this

strengthening of its ego take place only very gradu-

ally and are a result, not a pre-condition, of analytic work.

So far we have been concerned in the main with discuss-

ing and illustrating the conduct of an early analysis of the average kind. I should now like to consider certain less usual

THE TECHNIQUE OF EARLY ANALYSIS

difficulties which I have met with and which have obliged metoadoptspecialtechnicalmethods.ThecaseofTrude,1 who exhibited so much anxiety at her very first coming,

had already pointed to the fact that in such patients

prompt interpretation was the only means of lessening

anxiety and setting the analysis in motion. The case of

2 four and a was still more instructive Ruth, aged quarter,

in this connection. She was one of those children whose ambivalence shows itself in an over-strong fixation upon the mother and certain other women on the one hand, and a violent dislike of another set of women, usually

strangers, on the other. Already at a very early age, for instance, she had not been able to get used to a new nurse-

maid; nor could she make friends at all easily with other children. She not only suffered from a great deal of un-

disguised anxiety which often led to anxiety-attacks and from various other neurotic symptoms, but was of a very

timid disposition in general. In her first analytic session she absolutely refused to be left alone with me. I there-

fore decided to get her elder sister 3 to sit in the room with her. My intention was to obtain a positive transference from her in the hope of being able eventually to work alone with her; but all my attempts, such as simply playing with her, encouraging her to talk, etc., were in vain. In playing with her toys she would turn only to her sister (although the latter effaced herself as much as possible) and would ignore me completely. The sister herself told me that my efforts were hopeless and that I had no chance of gaining the child’s confidence even if I were to spend weeks on end with her instead of single hours. I therefore found myself forced to take other measures measures

which once more gave striking proof of the efficacy of

Ibid.

See Chapter I.

3 Actually her stepsister. She was about twenty years Ruth’s senior, and a very intelligent girl who had herself been analysed. I have had another case in which I was obliged to reconcile myself to having a third person present. In both cases the arrangement was carried out under exceptionally favourable circum- stances; but I may say that, for a number of reasons, I should never recommend such a procedure except in the last resort.

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

interpretation in reducing the patient’s anxiety and nega- tive transference. One day while Ruth was once again

devoting her attention exclusively to her sister, she drew a picture of a glass tumbler with some small round balls inside and a kind of lid on top. I asked her what the lid was for, but she would not answer me. On her sister re- peating the question, she said it was *to prevent the balls from rolling out’. Before this she had gone through her sister’s bag and then shut it tightly ‘so that nothing should fall out of it’. She had done the same with the purse inside the bag so as to keep the coins safely shut up. Furthermore, the material she was now bringing me had been quite

hours. 1 I now made a venture, I told Ruth that the balls in the tumbler, the bits of money in the purse and the contents of the bag all meant children in her Mummy’s inside, and that she wanted to keep them safely shut up so as not to have any more brothers and

sisters. The effect of my interpretation was astonishing. For the first time Ruth turned her attention to me and

I saw that analysis was steadily diminishing her negative transference in favour of a positive one, I decided to go

on having her sister in the room. After three weeks the latter suddenly fell ill and I found myself faced with the

alternative of stopping the analysis or risking an anxiety- attack. With her parents’ consent I took the second

course. The nurse handed the little girl over to me outside my room and went away in spite of her tears and screams.

In this very painful situation I again began by trying to

soothe the child in a non-analytical, motherly way, as any ordinary person would. I tried to comfort her and cheer

1 In this analysis the child’s desire to rob her mother’s body, and her con-

sequent feelings of anxiety and guilt, dominated the picture from the very be- ginning. The outbreak of her neurosis, moreover, had followed upon her mother’s pregnancy and the birth of her younger sister.

* As has a&eady been said, interpretation has the effect of changing the char- acter of the child’s play and enabling the representation of its material to become clearer.

clear even in her

less 2 Never- constrained, way.

in a

theless, it was still not possible for her to be alone with me, as she reacted to that situation with anxiety-attacks. Since

began

play

different,

n THE TECHNIQUE OF EARLY ANALYSIS

her up and make her play with me, but in vain. She did just manage to follow me into my room, but once there I could do nothing with her. She went quite white and

screamed and showed all the signs of a severe attack of

anxiety. Meanwhile I sat down at the toy-table and began

to- 1 all the while what I was play by myself, describing

doing to the terrified child, who was now sitting in a corner. Following a sudden inspiration, I took as the subject of my game the material which she herself had produced in the previous hour. At the end of it she had played round the wash-basin and had fed her dolls and given them huge jugfuls of milk, etc. I now did the same kind of thing. I put a doll to sleep and told Ruth I was going to give it something to eat and asked her what it should be. She interrupted her screams to answer ‘milk’, and I noticed that she made a movement towards her mouth with her two fingers (which she had a habit of

sucking before going to sleep) but quickly took them away. I asked her whether she wanted to suck them and

she said: *Yes, but really and truly*. I understood that she wanted to reconstitute the situation as it happened at home every evening, so I laid her down on the sofa and,

at her request, put a rug over her. Thereupon she began to suck her fingers. She was still very pale and her eyes

were shut, but she was visibly calmer and had stopped crying. Meanwhile I went on playing with the dolls, repeating her game of the hour before. As I was putting a wet sponge beside one of them, as she had done, she burst out crying again and screamed, ‘No, she mustn’t have the big sponge, that’s not for children, that’s for grown-ups P (I may remark that in her two previous ses- sions she had brought up a lot of material concerning her

1 In especially difficult cases I use this technical device to get the analysis started. I have found that when children show their latent anxiety by being entirely inaccessible it often helps if I throw out a stimulus-word, as it were, by beginning to play myself. I apply this method within the narrowest possible limits. For instance, I may build some seats out of bricks and set some little figures near them. One child will call them a school and continue the game upon that basis; another will look upon them as a theatre and make the figures act accordingly, and so on.

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

envy of her mother.) I now interpreted this material in connection with her protest against the big sponge (which

represented her father’s penis). I showed her in every detail how she envied and hated her mother because the

latter had incorporated her father’s penis during coitus, and how she wanted to steal his penis and the children out of her mother’s inside and kill her mother. I explained to her that this was why she was frightened and believed that she had killed her mother or would be deserted by her. I was careful all the while to begin by applying my

interpretations to the doll showing her as I played with it that it was afraid and screaming and telling her the

reason and then to carry them over from it to herself. In this way I established the analytical situation in its entirety. While I was doing this Ruth grew much

quieter, opened her eyes and let me bring the table on which I was playing to the sofa and continue my game

and my interpretations close beside her. Presently she sat up and watched my play with growing interest, and even began to take part in it herself. When the hour was over and the nurse came to fetch the child away, she was amazed to find her happy and cheerful and to see her say

good-bye to me in a friendly and even affectionate way. At the beginning of her next hour, when her nurse again left her, she showed some anxiety it is true, but she did not have a regular anxiety-attack nor burst into tears. She immediately took refuge on the sofa and lay on it as she had done the day before, with her eyes shut and sucking her fingers. I was able to sit down beside her and continue my game of the previous hour straight away. The whole sequence of events of the day before was recapitulated, but in a shortened and mitigated form. And after a few sessions of this kind matters had progressed so far that the little girl only showed faint traces of an anxiety-attack at the beginning of her hour.

Analysis of Ruth’s anxiety-attacks brought out the fact

that they were a repetition offavor nocturnus^ from which

See Chapter I.

n THE TECHNIQUE OF EARLY ANALYSIS

she had suffered very severely at the age of two. At that time her mother had been pregnant, and the little girl’s wish to steal the new baby out of her mother’s body and to hurt and kill her herself had brought on a strong sense of guilt in the child, in consequence of which she had become too strongly fixated upon her mother. Saying

good-night before she went to sleep meant saying good- bye for ever. For, as a result of her desires to rob and kill

her mother, she was afraid of being abandoned by her for ever * or of never seeing her alive again, or of finding, in place of the kind and tender mother who was saying good-night to her, a ‘bad’ mother who would attack her in the night. These were the reasons, too, why she was afraid of being left by herself. Being left alone with me meant being abandoned by her ‘good’ mother; and her whole terror of the ‘punishing’ mother was now trans- ferred to me. By analysing this situation and bringing it

to light I succeeded, as we have seen, in dispelling her anxiety-attacks and in making it possible for normal

analytic

work to be 2 begun.

The technique which I employed in analysing Ruth’s anxiety-attacks proved very effective in another case. Dur-

1 Inherpaper,’TheGenesisofAgoraphobia'(1928),HeleneDeutschpoints out that fear of the mother’s death, based upon various hostile wishes against her, is one of the commonest forms of infantile neurosis and is closely connected with a fear of being separated from her and with home-sickness.

a Ruth*streatmentwasnotterminated,forherfamilyhadtoreturntotheir home abroad. Her neurosis, in consequence, was not completely removed. But in the 190 sessions she had I was able to effect the following improvements which, since I last heard of her, two years after the termination of her analysis, have been maintained: her anxiety was greatly lessened, and also, more particularly, the various forms of timidity from which she suffered. As a result of this she got on better with other children and with grown-up people and was able to adapt herself entirely to the requirements of her home and school life. Her fixation upon her mother was diminished and her attitude to her father improved. There was also a very decided change for the better in her relations to her brother and

sisters. Her whole development, especially in respect of educability, social adaptation and capacity for sublimation, has since been a favourable one.

3 her mother fell ill and had to to a go

Trude’s

nursing-home. This made an interval in her analysis which came just when the little girl’s sadistic phantasies of attack

ing

analysis

See Chapter I.

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

upon her mother dominated the picture. I have already

described in what detail this child of three and three-

quarters used to act out these scenes of aggression before

me, and how, overcome by the anxiety which followed

upon them, she used to hide herself with the cushions be-

hind the sofa. But this never led to an actual anxiety-attack.

When she came back after the interval caused by her

mother’s illness, however, she did have definite anxiety-

attacks for several days in succession. The attacks only

brought out her reaction to her aggressive impulses, i.e. the fear she felt on account of them. During these attacks

Trude, like Ruth, would assume a particular position the position she used to get into at night when she began to

have anxiety. She would creep into a corner, tightly clasp- ing to her the cushions which she often called her children,

and would there suck her fingers and wet herself. Here again interpretation of her anxiety led to the cessation of

her

anxiety-attacks.

Myownsubsequentexperiences,aswellasthoseofMiss M. N. Searl and other child analysts, have borne out the

usefulness of these technical measures in other cases also. In the years of work which have elapsed since the treatment of these two cases it has become quite clear to me that the

essential prerequisite for conducting an early analysis

and, indeed, a deep-going analysis of older children is

certainty in grasping the material presented. A correct and

rapid estimation of the significance of that material, both as regards the light it throws on the structure of the case

and its relation to the patient’s affective state at the mo-

ment, and above all a quick perception of the latent anxiety

1 Trude’s neurosis showed itself in severe night-terrors, in anxiety during the

daytime when she was left alone, in bed-wetting, general timidity, an over- strong fixation on her mother and dislike of her father, great jealousy of her

brothers and sisters and in various difficulties in her upbringing. Her analysis, which comprised eighty-two hours, resulted in a cessation of bed-wetting and a

great diminution of anxiety and timidity in various respects, and in a very favour- able change in her relations to her parents and to her brothers and sisters. She had also suffered from colds which proved in analysis to be of psychological origin to a great extent, and these, too, decreased in frequency and strength. In spite of this improvement her neurosis was not yet fully resolved when, for external reasons, her analysis had to come to an end.

THE TECHNIQUE OF EARLY ANALYSIS

and sense of guilt it contains these are the primary con-

ditions for giving a right interpretation, i.e. an interpreta- tion which will come at the right time and will penetrate

to that level of the mind which is being activated by

anxiety. The occurrence of anxiety-attacks in analysis can be reduced to a minimum if this technique is consistently

adhered to. Should anxiety-attacks occur at the beginning oftreatment,however asmayhappenwithneuroticchil- dren who are subject to such attacks in ordinary life a faithful and systematic employment of this method will

usually succeed in quickly reducing them to such propor- tions that it becomes possible to conduct a normal analysis

of the young patient. The results obtained from analysing anxiety-attacks are also, I think, evidence of the general

validity of some of the principles underlying play tech- nique. It will be remembered that in Trude’s case, al-

though the material was accompanied by intense anxiety, I was able to analyse it to begin with without the occur-

rence of a regular anxiety-attack, because I could make continuous and deep-going interpretations in the first in- stance and could thus let the anxiety come out in small doses, as it were, and gradually diminish it. Trude’s ana- lysis had then to be interrupted at an unfavourable time and in difficult circumstances, as her mother fell ill and had to go away. When she came back to me her anxiety had accumulated to such an extent that she did have genu-

ine anxiety-attacks. After a few analytic sessions, however,

they entirely ceased and once more gave place to a piece-

meal emergence of anxiety.

I should like to add a few remarks of a theoretic nature

in connection with these anxiety-attacks. I have spoken of them as a repetition ofpavor nocturnus\ and I have referred

to the position taken up by the patient during such attacks, or rather in the attempt to master them, and pointed out

that it was a repetition of the child’s anxiety-situation in bed at night. But I have also mentioned a specific early

anxiety-situation which seemed to me to underlie both pavor nocturnus and anxiety-attacks. My observation of the

60 THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH,

cases of Trude, Ruth and Rita, together with the know- ledge I have gained in the last few years, have led me to

recognize the existence of an anxiety, or anxiety-situation, which is specific for girls and the equivalent of the castra-

tion anxiety felt by boys. This anxiety-situation culminates in the girl’s idea of having her body destroyed, its con- tents abolished, the children taken out of it, etc., by her mother. This subject will be treated more fully in the second part of this volume. I should merely like to draw the reader’s attention here to certain points of agreement between the data I have been able to collect from my early analyses and one or two statements that Freud has mean- while made in his book Hemmung Symptom und Angst (1926). In it he states that the counterpart in the small girl of the boy’s castration fear is her fear of loss of love. The material I have brought forward from my analyses of small girls shows the existence of such a fear of being left alone or deserted by her mother very clearly. But that fear, I think, goes back still further. It is based upon the

child’s impulses of aggression against her mother and her

desires, springing from the early stages of her Oedipus con- flict, to kill her and steal from her. These impulses lead

not only to anxiety or to a fear of being attacked by her mother, but to a fear that her mother will abandon her or die.

Let us now return to a consideration of technical ques-

tions. The/0rw in which interpretation is given is another

thing of great importance. It should be modelled on the

concrete in which children think and 1 it way speak. Peter,

1 In his ‘Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria* (1905) Freud says: It is possible for a man to talk to girls and women upon sexual matters of every

kind without doing them harm and without bringing suspicion upon himself, so long as, in the first place, he adopts a particular way of doing it, and, in the secondplace,canmakethemfeelconvincedthatitisunavoidable.. . . Thebest way of speaking about such things is to be dry and direct; and that is at the same time the method furthest removed from the prurience with which the same subjects are handled in “society”, . . . J^appelle un chat un chat.’ This attitude is, mutatis mutandis, the one I adopt in analysing children. I talk of sexual matters in the simple words best suited to their way of thought.

It must further be remembered that children are still for the most part under the dominion of the unconscious, whose language, as dreams and play show, is

n THE TECHNIQUE OF EARLY ANALYSIS 61

willberemembered,pointedtotheswingandsaid: ‘Look how it dangles and bumps’. And so when I answered:

‘That’s how Daddy’s and Mummy’s thingummies bumped

together’, he took it in without the slightest difficulty. To take another instance: Rita (aged two and three-quarters)

toldmethatthedollshaddisturbedherinhersleep; they kept on saying to Hans, the underground train man (a

‘

male doll on wheels) :

On another occasion she put a triangular brick on one side and said: ‘That’s a little woman’; she then took a ‘little hammer’, as she called another long-shaped brick, and hit the brick-box with it exactly in a place where it was only stuck together with paper, so that she made a hole in it. She said: ‘When the hammer hit hard, the little woman

was so frightened’. Running the underground train and hitting with the hammer stood for coitus between her

parents, which she had witnessed till she was nearly two

years old. My interpretation, ‘Your Daddy hit hard like that inside your Mummy with his little hammer, and you

were so frightened’, fitted in exactly with her way of think-

ing and speaking.

In describing my methods of analysis I have often

spoken of the small toys which are put at the children’s

disposal. I should like to explain briefly why these toys afford such valuable assistance in the technique of Play

Analysis. Their smallness, their number and their great

variety give the child a very wide range of representational play, while their very simplicity enables them to be put to

the most varied uses. Thus toys like these are well suited

for the expression of phantasies and experiences in all kinds of ways and in great detail. The child’s various ‘play

thoughts’, and the affects associated with them (which we partly infer from the subject-matter of its games, partly

concrete and pictorial. As we have occasion to see over and over again, children have a quite different attitude from adults to words. They assess them above all

according to their imaginative qualities to the pictures and phantasies they evoke. If we want to gain access to the child’s unconscious in analysis (which, of course, we have to do via the ego and through speech), we shall only- succeed if we avoid circumlocution and use plain words.

Just go on driving your train along’.

62 THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

observe directly), are presented side by side and within a

small space, so that we get a good oversight of the general connections and dynamics of the mental processes that are

being put before us, and also, since spatial contiguity often stands for temporal contiguity, of the time-order of the

child’s various phantasies and experiences.

It may be thought from what has been said that all we

have to do in order to analyse a child is to put toys in front of it, and that it will then immediately begin to play with them in an uninhibited and easy fashion. That is not at all

what happens. Inhibition in play is, as I have repeatedly pointed out, very frequently met with to a greater or lesser degree in children and is an extremely common neurotic symptom. But it is precisely in such cases, where all other

attempts to get into contact with the patient fail, that toys are so very useful as a means of starting analysis. It rarely happens that a child, however inhibited in its play, will not

at least look at the toys or pick up one or other of them and

do something with it. Even though it will soon stop play- ing asTrudedid yetweshallhavegotsomeideaofits unconscious on which to base our analytic work from hav- ing noticed what sort of game it has started, at what point its resistance has set in, how it has behaved in connection with that resistance, what chance remark it may have dropped at the time, and so on. The reader has already seen how it is possible for analysis, with the help of inter- pretation, to make the child’s play more and more free and

its representational content increasingly rich and fruitful, and gradually to effect a reduction of its inhibition in play.

Toys are not the only requisites for a pky analysis. There has to be a quantity of illustrative material in the

room. The most important of these is a wash-basin with running water. This is usually not much used until a fairly late stage in the analysis, but it then becomes of great im- portance. A child will go through a whole phase of its analysis playing round the wash-basin (where are also pro-

vided a sponge, a glass tumbler, one or two small vessels, some spoons and paper). These games with water afford us

THE TECHNIQUE OF EARLY ANALYSIS 63

a deep insight into the fundamental pre-genital fixations of

the 1 and are also a means of its sexual child, illustrating

theories, giving us a knowledge of the relation between its

sadistic phantasies and its reaction-formations and showing

the direct connection between its pre-genital and genital 2

impulses.

In many analyses drawing or cutting out play a large part. In others especially with girls the child’s time is

mostly spent in making clothes and finery for itself, its dolls or its toy animals, or in decking itself with ribbons and other ornaments. Each child has within easy reach paper, coloured pencils, knives, scissors, needles and thread and bits

of wood and string. Very frequently children bring their own toys with them. Nor does the mere enumeration of the

actual articles at hand exhaust the possibilities. We gain a great deal of light from the various uses to which the child willputeachoneofthem3 orthewayinwhichitwillchange from one game to another. All the ordinary furniture of the room as well, such as chairs, cushions, etc., are pressed into the service of its activities. In fact, the furniture of the child analyst’s room has to be specially selected for this

purpose. The phantasies and imaginative games which de-

velop out of ordinary play with toys are of great signifi- cance. In its games of make-believe the child acts out in its

own person what in another, usually an earlier, stage of its analysis it shows by means of its toys. In these games the

analyst is usually assigned one or more roles, and my prac- tice is to get the child itself to describe those roles to me

in as great detail as possible.

Some children show a general preference for games of make-believe, others for the more indirect form of repre-

sentation by means of playthings. Typical games of pre- tence are playing at mother and child, at being at school, 1 Cf. the case of Ruth (p. 53). It was in playing at the wash-basin that she

brought out most fully her unsatisfied oral desires.

1 Thesegameswithwaterhaveaveryinterestingcounterpartinplayingwith fire. Very often a child will first play with water and then go and burn paper and matches in the fire, or *uice ‘versa. The connection between wetting and burning comes out clearly in such behaviour, as well as the great importance of urethral sadism. (See Chapter VIII.)

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH. n

building or furnishing a house (with the help of chairs, pieces of furniture, cushions, etc.), going abroad, travelling in the train, going to the theatre, seeing the doctor, being in an office, keeping shop, etc. The value of such games of pretence from an analytic point of view lies in their direct

method of representation, and consequently in the greater wealth of verbal associations they furnish. For, as has

already been said in the first chapter, one of the necessary conditions of a successfully terminated treatment is that the child, however young, should make use of language in analysis to the full extent of its capacity.

No mere description, I feel, can do justice to the colour, life and complexity which fill the hours of play analysis,

but I hope I have said enough to give the reader some idea of the accuracy and reliability of the results which we are able to attain by this means.

CHAPTER III

AN OBSESSIONAL NEUROSIS IN A SIX-YEAR- OLD GIRL 1

the last chapter we have dealt with the underlying

principles of the technique of Early Analysis. In the

IN one we shall that with the present compare technique

technique of analysis in the latency period, using a case- history as an illustration. This case-history will also give us

an opportunity of discussing certain questions of general and theoretical importance in the first place, and in the

second of describing the methods used in the analysis of obsessional neurosis in children a technique which, I may say, was evolved in the course of treating this un-

usually difficult and interesting case.

Erna, a child of six, had a number of severe symptoms.

She suffered from sleeplessness, which was caused partly by

anxiety (in particular by a fear of robbers and burglars) and partly by a series of obsessional activities. These consisted

in lying on her face and banging her head on the pillow, in making a rocking movement, during which she sat or lay on her back, in obsessional thumb-sucking and in ex- cessive masturbation. All these obsessional activities, which prevented her from sleeping at night, were carried on in the day-time as well. This was especially the case

with masturbation, which she practised even in the pre- sence of strangers, and, for instance, almost continuously at her kindergarten. She suffered from severe depres-

1 This chapter is based on a paper read by me at Wiirzburg in October 1924, at the First Conference of German Psycho-Analysts.

65 E

66 THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

sions, which she would describe by saying: ‘There’s some- thing I don’t like about life’. In her relations to her mother she was over-affectionate, but would at times veer round to a hostile attitude. She completely dominated her mother, left her no freedom of movement and plagued her con- tinually with her love and hatred. As her mother put it: ‘She swallows me up*. The child might, too, be fairly de- scribed as ineducable. Obsessive brooding and a curiously unchildlike nature were depicted in the suffering look upon the little girl’s face. Besides this she made an impression

of being unusually precocious sexually. A symptom which first became obvious during the analysis was that she had

a very severe inhibition in learning. She was sent to school a few months after her analysis began, and it was soon evident that she was incapable of learning and could adapt herself neither to school nor to her school-fellows. The fact that she herself felt that she was ill at the very beginning ofhertreatmentshebeggedmetohelpher wasofgreat assistance to me in analysing hen

Erna began her play by taking a small carriage which stood on the little table among the other toys and pushing

it towards me. She declared that slie had come to fetch me. But she put a toy woman in the carriage instead and added a toy man. The two loved and kissed one another and drove up and down all the time. Next a toy man in another car- riage collided with them, ran over them and killed them and then roasted and ate them up. Another time the fight had a different end and the attacking toy man was thrown down; butthewomanhelpedhimandcomfortedhim.She got a divorce from her first husband and married the new one. This third person was given the most various parts to

play in Erna’s games. For instance, the original man and his wife were in a house which they were defending against

a burglar; the third person was the burglar, and slipped in. The house burnt down, the man and woman burst and the

third person was the only one left. Then again the third person was a brother who came on a visit; but while em- bracingthewomanhebithernoseoff. Thislittleman,the

in OBSESSIONAL NEUROSIS IN A SIX-YEAR-OLD GIRL

third person, was Erna herself. In a series of similar games she represented her wish to oust her father from his posi- tion with her mother. On the other hand, in many other games she showed her direct Oedipus wish to get rid of her mother and to win her father. Thus she made a toy teacher give the children violin lessons by knocking his head1 against the violin, or stand on his head as he was reading out of a book. She then made him throw down book or violin as the case might be and dance with his girl pupil. The two next kissed and embraced each other. At this point Erna asked me all at once if I would allow a marriage between teacher and pupil. Another time a teacher and a

mistress represented by a toy man and woman were giving the children lessons in manners, teaching them how to bow and curtsey, etc. At first the children were obedient and polite (just as Erna herself always did her best to be

good and behave nicely), then suddenly they attacked the teacher and mistress, trampled them underfoot and killed

and roasted them. They had now become devils, and gloated over the torments of their victims. But all at once the teacher and mistress were in heaven and the former devils had turned into angels, who, according to Erna’s account, knew nothing about ever having been devils in- deed ‘they never were devils’. God the Father, the former

teacher, began kissing and embracing the woman passion-

ately, the angels worshipped them and all was well again

though before long things were sure to go wrong again one way or another.

Erna used very often to play at being mother. I was the

child, and one of my greatest faults was thumb-sucking. The first thing which I was supposed to put into my mouth

was an engine. She had already much admired its gilded

lamps, saying, ‘They’re so lovely, all red and burning’, and at the same time putting them into her mouth and

1 Compareherobsessionalsymptomofbangingherheadonthepillow.Here is another game which shows clearly that to Erna’s unconscious the head had the meaning of a penis: a toy man wanted to get into a car and stuck his head into the window, whereupon the car said to him, ‘Better come right inside!* The car stood for her mother inviting her father to have coitus with her.

68 THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

sucking them. They stood to her for her mother’s breast and her father’s penis. These games were invariably fol-

lowed by outbreaks of rage, envy and aggression against her mother, to be succeeded by remorse and by attempts

to make amends and placate her. In playing with bricks, for instance, she would divide them between us so that she had more bricks than I; then she would make up for this by taking fewer herself, but would nevertheless always manage to keep more in the end. If I had to build with my bricks it was only so that she might prove how much more beautiful her building was than mine or so that she might knock mine down, apparently by accident. She would sometimes make a toy man be judge and decide that her house was better than mine. From the details of the

game it was apparent that she was giving expression to a long-standing rivalry with her mother in this business about our respective houses. In a later part of her analysis she brought out her rivalry in a direct form.

Besides playing these games she also began cutting out

paper and making paper patterns. She told me once that it was ‘hash’ she was making and that blood was coming

outofthepaper; uponwhichshegaveashudderandsaid she felt bad all at once. On one occasion she talked about ‘eye-salad’, and on another she said that she was cutting ‘fringes’ in my nose. She was here repeating the wish to bite off my nose which she had expressed in her very first hour. (And indeed she made a number of attempts to carry out her wish.) By this means she also showed her identity with the ‘third person’, the toy man who broke in and set fire to the house, etc., and who bit off noses. In her analysis, as in that of other children, cutting out paper proved to be

very variously determined. It gave outlet to sadistic and cannibalistic impulses and represented the destruction of her parents’ genitals or her mother’s whole body. At the same time, however, it expressed her reactive impulses as well, because in the thing cut out a pretty mat, let us say whathadbeendestroyedwasre-created.

From cutting out paper Erna went on to playing with

in OBSESSIONAL NEUROSIS IN A SIX-YEAR-OLD GIRL

water, A small piece of paper floating in the basin was a captain whose ship had gone down. He was able to save himself because so Erna declared he had something ‘long and golden’ which held him up in the water. She then tore off his head and announced: ‘His head’s gone; now he’s drowned*. These games with water led deep into the analysis of her oral-sadistic, urethral-sadistic and anal-

sadistic phantasies. Thus, for instance, she played at being a washerwoman, and used some pieces of paper to repre- sent a child’s dirty linen. I was the child and had to dirty

my underclothes over and over again. (Incidentally, Erna

brought her cophrophilic and cannibalistic impulses clearly

to view by chewing up the pieces of paper, which repre- sented excrements and children as well as dirty linen.) As

a washerwoman Erna also had many opportunities of pun-

ishing and humiliating the child, and played the part of the cruel mother. But since she also identified herself with the

child, she was gratifying her masochistic wishes as well. She would often pretend that the mother made the father punish the child and beat it on the bottom. This punish- ment was recommended by Erna, in her role of washer- woman, as a means of curing the child of its love of dirt. Once, instead of the father, a magician came along. He hit the child on the anus and then on the head with a stick, and as he did so a yellowish fluid poured out of the magic wand. On another occasion the child a quite little one this time

was given a powder to take, which was ‘red and white’ mixed together. This treatment made it quite clean, and it was suddenly able to talk, and became as clever as its

mother.1 The stood for the magician

penis,

and

hitting

with the stick meant coitus. The fluid and the powder re-

presented urine, faeces, semen and blood, all of which,

according to Erna’s phantasies, her mother put inside

herself in copulation through her mouth, anus and

genitals.

Another time Erna suddenly changed herself from a

1 These phantasies relate to the penis in its ‘good* and curative aspect. ID Chapters XI. and XII. we shall deal with this point more fully.

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

washerwoman into a fishwife and began to cry her wares.

In the course of this game she turned on the water-tap

(which she used also to call the ‘whipped cream tap’) after

wrappingsomepaperroundit. Whenthepaperwassoaked

through and fell into the basin she tore it up and offered

it for sale as fish. The compulsive greed with which Erna

drank from the water-tap during this game and chewed up

the imaginary fish pointed very clearly to the oral envy which she had felt during the primal scene and in her

primal phantasies. This envy had affected the development of her character very deeply, and was also a central feature

amongst them some ‘KokelfisK or, as she suddenly called

them, “Kakelfisfi? While she was cutting these up she had a sudden wish to defaecate, and this showed that the fish

were equivalent to faeces, while cutting them up was equated with the act of defaecation. As the fishwife, Erna

cheated me in all sorts of ways. She took large quantities of money from me and gave me no fish in return. I was

helpless against her, because she was assisted by a police- man; and together they Vurled’ 3 the money, which also stood for fish, she had got from me. This policeman re- presented her father with whom she copulated and who was her ally against her mother. I had to look on while she Vurled’ the money, or fish, with the policeman, and then I had to try to get possession of it by stealth. In fact, I had to pretend to do what she herself had wanted to do to her mother when she had witnessed her mother and father having sexual intercourse. These sadistic impulses and phantasies were at the bottom of her severe anxiety in

regard to her mother. She repeatedly expressed fear of a ‘robber woman’ who would ‘take out everything inside

her’.

1 We shall discuss later on the connection between Erna’s observations of her parents* sexual intercourse and her own neurosis.

of her neurosis. 1 The

of the fish with her father’s penis, as well as with faeces and children, was very obvious in her associations. Erna had a variety of fish for sale and

*Kakt *faeces* in nursery German.

* An invented word the German word for resembling

whipping

cream.

equation

in OBSESSIONAL NEUROSIS IN A SIX-YEAR-OLD GIRL 7 1

The symbolic meaning of the theatre and performances of all kinds, as signifying coitus between the parents, came

1 The numerous formances in which she was an actress or a dancer, admired by all the spectators, showed the immense admiration an admiration mixed with envy which she had for her mother. Often, too, in identification with her mother, she

pretended to be a queen before whom everyone bowed down. In all these representations it was always the child who got the worst of it. Everything which Erna did in the roleofhermother thetendernesssheshowedtoherhus- band, the way in which she dressed herself up and allowed herselftobeadmired hadonechiefpurpose,whichwasto arouse the child’s envy and to wound its feelings. Thus, for

instance, when she, as queen, had celebrated her marriage with the king, she lay down on the sofa and wanted me, as the king, to lie down beside her. As I refused to do this I had to sit on a little chair by her side instead and hit the sofa with my fist. This she called ‘churning’, and it meant copulating. Immediately after this she announced that a childwascreepingoutofher,andsherepresentedthescene

in a quite realistic way, writhing about and groaning. Her imaginary child then shared its parents’ bedroom and had to

be a spectator of sexual intercourse between them. If it in-

terrupted it was beaten, and the mother kept on complain- ing of it to the father. If she, as the mother, put the child to bed it was only in order to get rid of it and to be able to get back to the father all the sooner. The child was incessantly being maltreated and tormented. It was given gruel to eat that was so nasty as to make it sick, while at the same time its mother and father were enjoying mar- vellous foods made of whipped cream or a special milk

prepared by Dr. Whippo or Whippour a name com- **

pounded from whipping’ and pouring out’. This special food, which was eaten only by the father and mother, was

1 Inmypaper, InfantAnalysis*(1923),Ihaveconsideredingreaterdetailthe

universal symbolic significance of the theatre, performances, productions, etc., as representing intercourse between the parents. I may also refer to Rank, *Das

Schauspiel im Hamlet* (1919).

out in Erna’s very clearly

analysis.

per-

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

used in endless variations to represent the exchange of sub- stances during coition. Erna’s phantasies that in coition her mother incorporated her father’s penis and semen and her father incorporated her mother’s breasts and milk formed the basis of her hatred and envy against her two parents.

In one of Erna’s games a ‘performance* was given by a priest. He turned on the water-tap, and his partner, a woman dancer, drank from it. The child, called Cinderella, was only allowed to look on and had to remain absolutely motionless. A sudden tremendous outbreak of anger on Erna’s part at this point showed with what feelings of

hatred her phantasies were accompanied and how badly she had succeeded in dealing with those feelings. Her whole relationship to her mother had been distorted by

them. Every educational measure, every act of nursery dis- cipline, every unavoidable frustration, was felt by her as a purely sadistic act on the part of her mother, done with a

view to humiliating and ill-treating her.

Nevertheless, in her make-believe of being a mother

Erna did show affection to her imaginary child so long as it was still only a baby. Then she would nurse and wash it and be tender to it, and even forgive it when it was dirty. This was because, in her view, she herself had only been treated lovingly as long as she was an infant in arms. To her older ‘child’ she would be most cruel, and would let it be tortured by devils in a variety of ways and in the end be killed.1 That the child was also the mother turned

into a child, however, was made clear by the following phantasy. Erna played at being a child that had dirtied

itself, and I, as the mother, had to scold her, whereupon

Where, as in this case, the child’s fury against its object is really excessive, the fundamental situation is that the super-ego has turned against the id. The ego escapes from this intolerable situation by means of a projection. It presents the object as an enemy m order that the id can destroy it in a sadistic way with the consent of the super-ego. If the ego can effect an alliance between the super- ego and the id by this means, it can for the time being send out the sadism of the super-ego that was directed against the id into the external world. In this way the primary sadistic impulses which are directed against the object are increased by the hatred originally directed against the id. (Cf. Chapter VIII. and also my paper, Tersonification m

the

Play

Children*, 1929.)

Ill OBSESSIONAL NEUROSIS IN A SIX-YEAR-OLD GIRL

she became insolent, and out of defiance dirtied herself more and more. In order to annoy the mother still further she vomited up the bad food I had given her. The father was then called in by the mother, but he took the child’s side. Next the mother was seized with an illness called

‘God has spoken to her’; then the child in turn got an 5

illness called Mother’s agitation and died of it, and the mother was killed by the father as a punishment. The child then came to life again and was married to the father, who kept on praising it at the expense of the mother. The mother was then brought to life again too, but, as a pun- ishment, was turned into a child by the father with the help of his magic wand; and now she in turn had to suffer all the scorn and ill-treatment to which the child had been subjected before. In her numerous phantasies of this kind about a mother and a child Erna was repeating what she felt her own experiences had been, while on the other hand she was also expressing the sadistic things she would like to do to her mother if the child-mother relationship were

reversed.

Erna’s mental life was dominated by anal-sadistic phan-

tasies. At a later stage of her analysis, starting, once more, from games connected with water, she produced phantasies in which faeces ‘baked on’ to dirty clothes were cooked

and eaten. Again, she played that she was sitting in the

lavatory and eating what she produced there, or that we were handing it to one another to eat. Her phantasies about our continually dirtying each other with urine and faeces came out more and more clearly in the course of the ana- lysis. In one game she demonstrated that her mother had dirtied herself over and over again and that everything in the room had been turned into faeces through her mother’s fault. Her mother was accordingly thrown into prison and starved there. She herself then had the job of cleaning up after her mother, and in that connection called herself ‘Mrs. Dirt Parade’ that is, a person parading with dirt. Through her love of tidiness she won the admiration and recognition of her father, who set her high above her mother

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

and married her. She did his cooking for him. The drinks and food which they gave one another were once more urine and faeces, but this time a good kind instead of a harmful one. The above will serve as an example of the numer- ous and extravagant anal-sadistic phantasies which became conscious in the course of her analysis.

Erna, who was an only child, was much occupied in her imagination with the arrival of brothers and sisters. Her

phantasies in this context deserve special attention, since,

so far as my observations show, they have a general applica- tion. Judging from them and from those of other chil-

dren similarly situated, it would appear that an only child suffers to a far greater extent than other children from the anxiety it feels in regard to the brother or sister whom it is forever expecting, and from the feelings of guilt it has towards them on account of its unconscious impulses of

aggression against them in their imaginary existence inside its mother’s body, because it has no opportunity of develop-

ing a positive relation to them in reality. This fact often makes it more difficult for an only child to adapt itself to society. For a long time Erna used to have attacks of rage

and anxiety at the beginning and end of her analytic hour with me, and these were in part occasioned by her meeting

the child who came to me for treatment immediately before or after her and who stood to her for the brother or sister

she desired meant a child of her own. This wish, however, was soon disturbed by severe feelings of guilt, because it would have meant that she had stolen the child from her mother. (2) Their existence would have reassured her that the attacks she had made in her phantasy on the children

1 As Erna had no brothers or sisters in real life, her unconscious fear and jealousy of them which played such an important part in her mental life were only revealed and lived through in the analysis. This is once more an example of the importance of the transference-situation in child analyses.

whose arrival she was 1 On the other always awaiting.

hand, although she got on badly with other children, she felt a great need for their society at times. Her occasional wish for a brother or sister was, I found, determined by a number of motives, (i) The brothers and sisters which

Ill OBSESSIONAL NEUROSIS IN A SIX-YEAR-OLD GIRL

which she supposed to be inside her mother had damaged neither them nor her mother, and that consequently the interior of her own body was unharmed. (3) They would afford her the sexual gratification which her father and mother had denied her; and, most important of all, (4) they would be her confederates, not only in sexual doings,

but in enterprises against her terrifying parents. They and she together would kill her mother and capture her

father’s penis.

But these phantasies of Erna’s would quickly be fol-

lowed by feelings of hatred against her imaginary brothers and sisters for they were, ultimately, only substitutes forherfatherandmother andbyveryseverefeelings of guilt on account of the destructive acts she and they

had committed against her parents in her phantasies. And she would usually end by having an attack of de-

pression.

These phantasies, too, had their share in making it impos-

sible for Erna to get on to good terms with other children. She shrank from them because she identified them with her imaginary brothers and sisters, so that on the one hand she regarded them as accomplices in her attacks upon her parents, and on the other she feared them as enemies because of her own aggressive impulses towards those brothers and sisters.

Erna’s case throws light on another factor which seems

to me to be of general importance. In the first chapter I drew attention to the peculiar relationship that children

have to reality. I pointed out that failure in making a cor-

rect adaptation to reality could, in analysis, be recognized in the play of quite small children, and that it was necessary

in analysis gradually to bring even the youngest child into complete touch with reality. With Erna, even after a good deal of analysis had been done, I had not succeeded

1 In my paper, ‘Early Stages of the Oedipus Conflict* (1928), I have pointed out that children, in their sexual relations with one another, especially if they

are brothers and sisters, have phantasies of being- in league together against their parents and often experience a diminution of their anxiety and sense of guilt from this belief. For a further discussion of this point see Chapter XII.

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

in obtaining any detailed information about her real life.

I got plenty of material regarding her extravagant sadistic impulses against her mother, but I never heard the least

complaint or criticism from her about her real mother and

what she actually did. Although Erna got to recognize that herphantasiesweredirectedagainstherownmother a

fact which she had denied at an earlier stage of analysis and although it became clearer and clearer that she copied her mother in an exaggerated and invidious manner, yet it was difficult to establish the connection between her phan- tasies and reality. All my efforts to draw her actual life more fully into the analysis remained ineffective, until I had made definite progress in analysing her deepest reasons for want- ing to cut herself off from reality. Erna’s relationship to

reality proved to be largely a facade, and this to a far greater extent than her behaviour would have led one to expect.

The truth was that she was trying by every means to main- tain a dream world in existence and to protect it from

reality.

1 For

instance,

she used to

imagine

that the

toy

carriages and coachmen were in her service, that they came

at her command and brought her everything she wished,

that the toy women were her servants, and so on. Even while these phantasies were in progress she would often be seized with rage and depression. She would then go to the lavatory and there phantasy aloud while she defaecated. When she came out of the lavatory she would fling herself on to the sofa and begin to suck her thumb passionately, to masturbate and to pick her nose. I succeeded in getting her to tell me the phantasies which accompanied this de-

faecation, thumb-sucking, masturbation and nose-picking. By means of these physical satisfactions and the phantasies

bound up with them she was endeavouring forcibly to con- tinue the same day-dreaming situation which she had been

keeping up in her game. The depression, anger and anxiety which seized her during her play were due to a

disturbance of her phantasies by some incursion of reality.

1 Many children make only an apparent return to reality when their games are interrupted. Actually they are still occupied with their phantasies.

in OBSESSIONAL NEUROSIS IN A SIX-YEAR-OLD GIRL

She remembered, too, how greatly she was put out if any- one came near her bed in the morning while she was thumb-

sucking or masturbating. The reason for this was not only that she was afraid of being caught, but that she wanted

to ward off reality. A pseudologia^ which appeared during her analysis and grew to fantastic proportions, served the

purpose of re-shaping to her desires a reality which was intolerable to her. This extraordinary cutting-off of reality

to which end she also employed megalomanic phan- tasies had one cause, I found, in her excessive fear of her

parents, especially her mother. It was in order to lessen this fear that Erna was driven to imagine herself as a powerful and harsh mistress over her mother, and this led to a great intensification of her sadism.

Erna’s phantasies of being cruelly persecuted by her mother began to show their paranoid character more dis-

tinctly. As I have already said, she looked upon every step taken in her education and upbringing, even down to the

least details of her clothing, as an act of persecution on the part of her mother. Not only so, but everything else that her mother did the way she behaved towards her father, thethingsshedidforherownamusement,andsoon were felt by Erna as a persecution of herself. Moreover, she felt herself continually spied upon. One cause of her excessive fixation upon her mother was the compulsion she was

under of continually keeping watch over her. Analysis showed that Erna felt responsible for every illness that her

mother had, and expected a corresponding punishment be- cause of her own aggressive phantasies. The action of an

over-severe and cruel super-ego in her was apparent in

many of the details of her games and phantasies, as they perpetually alternated between the severe, punishing mother and the hating child. It needed a very deep-going analysis to elucidate these phantasies, which were identical with what, in adult paranoiacs, are known as delusions. The experience I have gained since I first wrote down this case-history has led me to the view that the peculiar char- acter of Erna’s anxiety, of her phantasies and of her rela-

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH. tion to reality, is typical of those cases in which strong

paranoic traits are active.

At this point I must draw attention to Erna’s homo-

sexual tendencies, which had been excessively strong from early childhood onwards. After a great amount of her

hatred of her father, arising out of the Oedipus situation,

had been analysed, those tendencies, though undoubtedly diminished, were still very strong and seemed at first in-

capable of being resolved any further. It was only after obstinate and lengthy resistances had been broken down that the real character and full strength of her persecution phantasies and their relation to her homosexuality came to light. Anal love desires now emerged much clearer in their

positive form, alternately with her phantasies of persecution.

Erna once more played at being a shopwoman (and that what she sold was faeces was obvious from the fact that right

at the beginning of the game she had to interrupt it in order to go and defaecate). I was a customer and had to prefer her to all other shopkeepers and think her wares particularly good. Then she was the customer and loved me, and in this

way she represented an anal love relationship between her mother and herself. These anal phantasies were soon in-

terrupted by fits of depression an4 hatred which she chiefly directed against me but which were actually aimed at her

mother. In this connection Erna produced phantasies of a flea which was ‘black and yellow mixed* and which she herself at once recognized as a bit of faeces dangerous, poisoned faeces, it turned out. This flea, she said, came out of my anus and forced its way into hers and injured her. 2

In Erna’s case I was able to ascertain beyond doubt the

* In his ‘Short Study of the Development of the Libido* (1924) Abraham

says: ‘Both van Ophuijsen’ (in his paper ‘On the Origin of the Feeling of Persecution*, 1920) *and Starcke’ (in his paper, ‘The Reversal of the Libido- Sign in Delusions of Persecution*, 1919) ‘discovered during the course of their psycho-analytic practice that in paranoia the “persecutor” can be traced back to the patient’s unconscious image of the faeces in his intestines which he identi- fies with the penis of the “persecutor**, i.e. the person of his own sex whom he originally loved. Thus in paranoia the patient represents his persecutor by a part of his body, and believes that he is carrying it within himself. He would like to get rid of that foreign body but cannot.*

Fuller consideration is given to this subject in the second part of this volume.

in OBSESSIONAL NEUROSIS IN A SIX-YEAR-OLD GIRL

presence of phenomena familiar to us as underlying de- lusions of persecution, i.e. a transformation of love for the

parent of the same sex into hatred, and an unusual promin- ence of the mechanism of projection. Further analysis, however, revealed the fact that beneath Erna’s homosexual

attitude, at an even deeper level, lay an extraordinarily

intense feeling of hatred against her mother, derived

from her early Oedipus situation and her oral sadism.

This hatred had as its result an excessive anxiety which,

in its turn, was a determining factor in every detail of her

phantasies of persecution. We now came to a fresh lot of

sadistic phantasies which in the intensity of their sadism

exceeded anything which I had as yet come across in

Erna’s analysis. This was the most difficult part of the

work and taxed Erna’s willingness to co-operate in it to

the utmost, since it was accompanied by extreme anxiety.

Her oral envy of the genital and oral gratifications which

she supposed her parents to be enjoying during intercourse proved to be the deepest foundation of her hatred. She

gave expression to that hatred over and over again in

countless phantasies directed against her parents united in

copulation. In these phantasies she attacked them, and

especially her mother, by means of her excrements, among other things; and what most deeply underlay her fear of

my faeces (the flea), which she thought of as being pushed into her, were phantasies of herself destroying her mother’s

inside with her own dangerous and poisoned faeces.1

After these sadistic phantasies and impulses belonging

to a very early stage of development had been further analysed, Erna’s homosexual fixation upon her mother was

lessened and her heterosexual impulses grew stronger.

1 As I have later found in the course of my analytic work, the child’s fears of poisoned and dangerous excrement increase its fixation at the pre-genital levels by being a constant incentive to it to convince itself that those excrements

bothitsownandthoseofitsobjects arenotdangerousbut’good*things

(cf. Chapter VIII. of this volume). This is why Erna pretended that we were giving one another ‘good* anal presents and loved one another. But the states of depression which followed upon these games of supposed love showed that at bottom she was terrified and believed that we that is, her mother and she

were persecuting and poisoning each other.

😯 THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

Up till now the essential determinant of her phantasies had been her attitude of hatred and love towards her mother. Her father had figured chiefly as a mere instru- ment for coitus ; he seemed to derive his whole importance

from the mother-daughter relationship. In her imagina- tion every sign of affection her mother showed her father,

and indeed her whole relationship to him, had served no other purpose than to defraud her, Erna, make her jeal- ous and set her father against her. In the same way, in those phantasies in which she deprived her mother of her father and married him, all the stress had been laid on her hatred of her mother and her wish to mortify her. If in games of this type Erna was affectionate to her husband, it would soon appear that the tenderness was only a pre- tence, designed to hurt her rival’s feelings. At the same time as she made these important steps in her analysis she also moved forward in her relations to him and

began to entertain genuine feelings for him of a posi- tive nature. Now that the situation was not governed

so completely by hate and fear, the direct Oedipus rela- tionship could establish itself. At the same time Erna’s fixation upon her mother was lessened and her relation- ship to her, which had hitherto been so ambivalent, was improved. This alteration in the girl’s attitude to both her

parents was based upon great changes in her phantasy-life. Her sadism was diminished, and her phantasies of perse- cution were far fewer in number and less in intensity.

Important changes, too, occurred in her relationship to reality, and these made themselves felt, among other things, in an increased infiltration of reality into her phantasies.

In this period of her analysis, after having represented her ideas of persecution in play, Erna would often say

with astonishment: ‘But Mother can’t really have meant to do that? She’s very fond of me really’ But as her con- tact with reality became stronger and her unconscious hatred of her mother more conscious, she began to criti- cize her as a real person with ever greater openness. At the same time her relations with her improved, and hand

in OBSESSIONAL NEUROSIS IN A SIX-YEAR-OLD GIRL 8 1

in hand with this improvement there appeared genuinely motherly and tender feelings in her attitude towards her

imaginary child. On one occasion, after having been very cruel to it, she asked in a deeply moved voice: ‘Should I really have treated my children like that?* Thus the analy- sis of her ideas of persecution and the diminution of her

, anxiety had succeeded not only in strengthening her heterosexual position but in improving her relations to

her mother and in enabling her to have more maternal feelings herself. I should like to say here that in my

opinion the satisfactory regulation of these fundamental attitudes, which determine the child’s later choice of a love-

object and the whole course of its future life, is one of the criteria of a successful child analysis.

Erna’s neurosis had appeared very early in her life. Be- fore she was quite a year old she showed marked signs of

illness. (Mentally, she was an unusually precocious child, it may be remarked.) From that time on her difficulties

increased continually, so that by the time she was between two and three years old her upbringing had become an

insoluble problem, her character was already abnormal, and she was suffering from a definite obsessional neurosis. Yet it was not until she was about four years old that the unusual nature of her masturbatory habits and thumb-

sucking was recognized. It will be seen, then, that this six-year-old child’s obsessional neurosis was already a chronic one. Pictures of her at the age of about three show her with the same neurotic, worried look upon her face that she had when she was six,

I should like to impress upon the reader the unusual severity of the case. The obsessional symptoms, which

amongst other things deprived the child almost entirely of sleep, the depressions and other signs of illness, and the abnormal development of her character, were only a

weak reflection of the entirely abnormal, extravagant and uncurbed instinctual life which lay behind them. The future prospects of an obsessional neurosis which, like this one, had for years been of a progressive character could

82 THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

not be described as other than decidedly^gloomy. It may safely be asserted that the only remedy in a case of this

kind was a timely treatment by psycho-analysis.

We shall now enter into the structure of the case in

greater detail. Erna’s training in habits of cleanliness had

presented no difficulty and had been completed unusually early, by the time she was a year old. No severity had been necessary: the ambition of a precocious child had been a powerful incentive to the speedy attainment of the re- quired standards of cleanliness.1 But this outward success went along with a complete internal failure. Erna’s tre- mendous anal-sadistic phantasies showed to what a degree she remained fixated at that stage and how much hatred and ambivalence flowed from it. One factor in this failure

wasaconstitutionallystronganal-sadisticdisposition; but an important part was played by another factor one which has been pointed out by Freud 2 as having a share

in the predisposition to obsessional neurosis, namely, a too

rapid development of the ego in comparison with the libido. Besides this, analysis showed that another critical phase

in Erna’s development had been passed through with only apparent success. She had never got over her weaning.

And there was yet a third privation which she underwent subsequently to this. When she was between six and nine months old her mother had noticed with what evident sexual pleasure she responded to the care of her body and

especially to the cleansing of her genitals and of her anus.

The over-excitability of her genital zone was unmistak- able. Her mother therefore exercised greater discretion in

washing those parts, and the older and the cleaner the child grew the easier, of course, it was to do so. But the child, who had looked upon the earlier and more elaborate attention as a form of seduction, felt this later reticence as a frustration. This feeling of being seduced, behind

1 What some of the sources of Erna’s

inferred from the phantasies in which she outdid her mother in cleanliness and was called ‘Mrs. Dirt Parade* by her father and married by him on account of

it, while her mother had to starve in

prison.

*The Predisposition to Obsessional Neurosis* (1913).

early

ambition in this line “were can be

ill OBSESSIONAL NEUROSIS IN A SIX-YEAR-OLD GIRL

which there lay a desire to be seduced, was constantly

being repeated all through her life. In every relationship, e.g. to her nurse and the other people who brought her

up and also in her analysis, she tried to repeat the situation of being seduced or alternately to bring forward the

charge that she was being seduced. By analysing this specific transference-situation it was possible to trace her

attitude through earlier situations back to the earliest to the experience of being cared for when she was an infant. Thus in each of the three events that led to the pro- duction of Erna’s neurosis we can discern the part played by constitutional factors.1 It now remains to be seen in what way her experience of the primal scene when she was two and a half combined with those constitutional factors to bring about the full development of her obsessional neurosis. At the age of two and a half, and again at three

and a 2 she had shared her half,

parents’

bedroom a during

1 Ihavesubsequentlycometotheview,whichIshallmorefullysubstantiate in Chapter VIII., that an excessive oral sadism brings on the development of the ego too rapidly and also hastens that of the libido. The constitutional factors in Erna’s neurosis which have been referred to above, her over-strong sadism,

the too rapid development of her ego and the premature activity of her genital impulses, are thus interconnected.

Since dealing with this case I have been able to discover yet another con- stitutional factor in the production of a neurosis. This consists in a relative in- capacity on the part of the ego to tolerate anxiety. In many instances and Erna was one of them the child*s sadism very early on arouses a degree of anxiety which the ego cannot adequately master. It must be said in general that the capacity of the ego to master even ordinary amounts of anxiety varies with the individual; and this fact is of aetiological importance in the neuroses.

1 We have here an

‘History of an Infantile Neurosis’ (1918). When Erna was five years old, that is, eighteen months after the last occasion on which she had watched her parents copulate, she was with them on a visit to her grandmother, and for a short time during the visit shared their bedroom, but without having an opportunity for observing coitus. Nevertheless, one morning Erna astonished her grandmother by saying: ‘Daddy got into bed with Mummy and wiggle-woggled with her*. The child’s story remained inexplicable until her analysis showed that she had taken in what she had seen when she was two and a half, and, though she had forgotten it, it had remained stored up in her mind. When she was three and a half these impressions had been revived, but once again forgotten. Finally, eighteen months later, a similar situation (sleeping in her parents’ bedroom) had excited in her an unconscious expectation of seeing the same events and had stirred up her earlier experiences. In Erna’s case, as in that of the Wolf Man, the

primal scene had been completely repressed but had been subsequently re-activated and brought for a moment into consciousness.

interesting analogy

to the case described in Freud’s

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

summer holiday. At these times she had had an opportun-

ity of watching coitus between them. Not only were the

effects of this observable in her analysis, but they were

definitely established by external evidence. In the summer

during which she had made her first observations, a

markedly unfavourable change had taken place in her.

Analysis showed that the sight of her parents copulat- ing had brought on her neurosis in its full force. It had

enormously intensified her sense of frustration and envy in regard to her parents and had raised to an extreme pitch her sadistic phantasies and impulses against the sexual

The obsessive character of her thumb-sucking was caused

by phantasies of sucking, biting and devouring her father’s penis and her mother’s breasts. The penis represented the

whole father and the breasts the whole mother.3 As we have seen, moreover, the head stood for a penis in her un- conscious. Her action of banging her head against the pillow was intended to represent her father’s movements in coitus, She told me that at night she became afraid of

robbers and burglars directly she stopped ‘bumping’ with her head. She was thus freeing herself from this fear by

identifying herself with the object of it.

The structure of her obsessive masturbation was very

1 In his Hemmungy Symptom und Angst (1926), S. 96, Freud has informed us that it is the quantity of anxiety present which determines the outbreak of a neurosis. In my opinion, anxiety is liberated by the destructive tendencies (cf. Chapters VIII. and XL below), so that the outbreak of a neurosis would, in fact, be a consequence of an excessive increase of those destructive tendencies. In Erna’s case it was her heightened hatred, bringing on anxiety, which led to her illness.

2 also uncovered the melancholic features which her illness Analysis strong

presented. In her analysis she used repeatedly to complain of a queer feeling that she often had. She would sometimes wonder, she said, whether she was an animal or not. This feeling proved to be determined by her sense of guilt over her cannibalistic impulses. Her depression, which she used to express in the words, *There*s something I don’t like about life’, was shown by the analysis to be a genuine taedium <vitae and to be accompanied by suicidal ideas. It had its roots in the feelings of anxiety and guilt resulting from the oral-sadistic introjection of her love-objects.

Cf. Abraham, ‘A Short Study of the Development of the Libido” (1924), Part II.

were 1 obtaining.

gratification they

Erna’s obsessional symptoms were explained as follows.2

ill OBSESSIONAL NEUROSIS IN A SIX-YEAR-OLD GIRL

complicated. She distinguished between various forms of it:

a pressing together of her legs which she called ‘ranking* ;

a rocking movement, already mentioned, called ‘sculpting* ;

and a pulling at the clitoris, called ‘the cupboard game’, in

whichshe’wantedtopulloutsomethingverylong’. Further,

she used to cause a pressure on her vagina by pulling the corner of a sheet between her legs. Various identifications

were operative in these different forms of masturbation,

according to whether, in the accompanying phantasies, she was playing the active part of her father or the passive

one of her mother, or both at once. These masturbation

phantasies of Erna’s, which were very strongly sado-maso- chistic, showed a clear connection with the primal scene and with her primal phantasies. Her sadism was directed against her parents in the act of coition, and as a reaction to it she had phantasies of a correspondingly masochistic character.

During a whole succession of analytic hours Erna mas- turbated in these various ways. Owing to the well-estab-

lished transference, however, it was also possible to induce her to describe her masturbation phantasies in between

times. I was able in this way to discover the causes of her obsessive masturbation and thus to free her from it. The rocking movements which began in the second half of her first year sprang from her wish to be masturbated and went back to the manipulations connected with her toilet as an infant. There was a period of the analysis during which she

depicted her parents copulating in the most various ways in her games and afterwards gave vent to her full fury over

the frustration involved. In the course of these scenes she would never fail to produce a situation in which she rocked

herself about in a half-lying or sitting posture, exhibited, and eventually even made open requests to me to touch her genitals or sometimes to smell them. At that time she once astonished her mother by asking her after her bath to lift up one of her legs and pat or touch her underneath, at the

same time taking up the position of a child having its genitalspowdered apositionwhichshehadnotbeenin

86 THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

for years. The elucidation of her rocking movements led to the complete cessation of the symptom.

Erna’s most resistant symptom was her inhibition in

learning. It was so extensive that, notwithstanding all the trouble she gave herself, she took two years to master what children ordinarily learn in a few months. This difficulty was more decidedly affected by the later part of her analysis, and when I concluded the treatment it had been reduced, though not entirely done away with.

We have already gone into the favourable change which

took place in Erna’s relationship to her parents and in her

libido position in general as a result of analysis, and have

seen how it was only thanks to it that she was able to

take the first steps in the direction of social adaptation.

Herobsessionalsymptoms(obsessivemasturbation,thumb-

sucking, rocking, etc.) were removed, although their

severity had been so great that they had been partly re- sponsible for her sleeplessness. With their cure and the

material lessening of anxiety, her sleep became normal.

Her attacks of also 1 depression passed away.

Notwithstanding these favourable results I did not con- sider that the analysis was by any means complete when it was broken off for external reasons after 575 hours of treat- ment, having extended over two and a half years. The ex- traordinary severity of the case, which was manifested not only in the child’s symptoms but in her distorted character and completely abnormal personality, demanded further analysis in order to remove the difficulties from which she still suffered. That she was still in an insufficiently stable condition was shown by the fact that in situations of great strain she had a tendency to relapse into some of her old troubles, though such relapses were always less acute than

the original condition. In these circumstances it was always possible that a severe strain, or even the onset of puberty, might bring about a fresh illness or some other trouble.

1 When I last had news of her, two and a half years after the end of the analysis, these improvements had been maintained.

in OBSESSIONAL NEUROSIS IN A SIX-YEAR-OLD GIRL

This opens up a question of first-rate importance, namely, the question of when a child analysis can be said

to be completed. In children of the latency age I cannot

consider even very good results, such as fully satisfy the people about them, as sufficient evidence that the analysis

has been carried through to the end. I have come to the conclusion that the fact that an analysis has brought about

a fairly favourable development in the latency period howeverimportantthatmaybe isnotinitselfaguar-

aniee that the patient’s further development will be com-

successful.1 Thetransitionto andfromit to puberty,

pletely

maturity, seems to me to be the test of whether a child

analysis has been carried far enough or not. I shall go further into this question in Chapter VL, and I will only state here as an empirical fact that analysis ensures the future stability of the child in direct proportion as it is able

to resolve anxiety in the deepest mental layers. In this, and in the character of the child’s unconscious phantasies,

or rather in the changes that have been brought about in them, a criterion is to be found which helps us to judge whether an analysis has been carried sufficiently far.

To return to Erna’s case. As has already been said, at

the end of the analysis, her phantasies of persecution were

greatly reduced both in quantity and intensity. In my opinion, however, her sadism and anxiety could and should

have been further diminished in order to prevent the possi- bility of an illness overtaking her at puberty or when she became grown-up. But since a continuance of the analysis was not at the time possible, its completion was left over for a future period.

I shall now proceed to discuss in connection with Erna’s

case-history certain questions of general importance, some of which, indeed, first arose out of her analysis. I found that the extensive occupation of her analysis with sexual

1 In Chapter V., in connection with the analysis of Ilse, a child in the age of puberty, I shall consider in greater detail what are the factors that deter- mine a successful transition to the latency period and what are the factors that determine a further successful transition to puberty.

88 THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH. questions and the freedom which was allowed her in her

and 1 led to a diminution and not to an games

phantasies

increase of sexual excitation and preoccupation with sexual

matters. Erna was a child whose unusual sexual precocity had struck everyone around her. Not only the type of phantasies she had but her behaviour and movements were those of a very sensual girl in her puberty. This was shown especially in her provocative behaviour towards men and boys. Her behaviour in this respect, too, was very much changed for the better during the analysis, and when it was ended she showed a more childlike nature in every way. Further, the result of analysing her masturbation phantasies was to put an end to her obsessive masturbation.1

Another analytic principle which I should like to em- phasize here is that it is indispensable to make conscious as far as possible the doubts and criticism which the child harbours in its unconscious concerning its parents and especially their sexual life. Its attitude to its environment cannot but benefit from this, since, in being brought into

consciousness, its unconscious grievances and adversejudg- ments undergo a test by reality and thus lose their former

virulence, and its relations to reality improve. Again, its

1 In the chapter before this I have pointed out that a child analysis, just as an adult one, must be carried through in abstinence; but as the child is different from the adult, a different criterion must be used. For instance, in taking part in the games and phantasies of the child the analyst gives it a much greater amount of gratification in reality than he does the adult patientj but this amount ofgratificationisseentobelessthanitatfirstappearstobe. Forplayisaform of expression natural to the child, so that the part the analyst takes in it does not differ in character from the attention with which he follows the verbal ex-

pressions of adult patients in describing their phantasies. Furthermore it must be remembered that the gratification which children obtain in their analysis is for the most part one of the imagination. Erna, it is true, did masturbate regularly in her analytic hour over a certain period of time. But she was an exception. We must not forget that in her case obsessional masturbation was present in such measure that she used to masturbate most of the day, sometimes even in the presence of other people. When her compulsion had been considerably lessened, the analytical situation led to a cessation of masturbation during the analytic hours in favour of a mere representation of the masturbation phantasies involved.

2 Imeanbythisthatherexcessivemasturbationandhermasturbationdone in the presence of other people, which had their roots in a compulsion, had stopped. I do not mean that she gave up masturbating altogether.

m OBSESSIONAL NEUROSIS IN A SIX-YEAR-OLD GIRL

capacity to criticize its parents consciously is already, as we saw in Erna’s case, a result of its improved relations to

1 reality.

Coming now to a special question of technique, it has been said more than once that Erna used often to have

outbursts of anger during the analytic hour. Her fits of anger and her sadistic impulses would not seldom assume threatening forms towards me. It is a familiar fact that analysis releases strong affects in obsessional neurotics; and in children these find a much more direct and un- governed outlet than in adults. From the very beginning I made Erna clearly understand that she must not attack me physically. But she was at liberty to abreact her affects in many other ways; and she used to break her toys or cut them up, knock down the little chairs, fling the cushions

about, stamp her feet on the sofa, upset water, smudge paper, dirty the toys or the washing basin, break out into abuse, and so on, without the slightest hindrance on my

2 But at the same time I used to her and analyse rage,

part.

this always lessened it and sometimes cleared it up alto-

gether. There are thus three ways in which analytic tech- nique deals with a child’s outbreaks of emotion during treatment: (i) The child has to keep part of its affect under control, but it should only be required to do so in so far as

there is a necessity for it in reality; (2) it may give vent to its affects in abuse and in the other ways mentioned above;

and (3) its affects are lessened or cleared up by continuous

interpretation and by tracing back the present situation to the original one.

1 SolongasErnawassomuchcutofffromrealityIwasonlyabletoanalyse

material connected with her phantasies; but I was continually on the look-out

for any threads, however weak, that might connect those phantasies with reality.

In this way, and by constantly diminishing her anxiety, I was able gradually to strengthen her relation to reality. In the next chapter I shall try to show more

clearly that in the latency period the analyst has very often to occupy himself for the most part with such phantasy material for long stretches of time before he can gain access to the child’s real life and ego-interests.

* I regard it as an absolute necessity in child analysis that the room in which treatment is given shall be furnished in such a way that the child can abreact very freely. Damage to the furniture, floor, etc., must up to a certain limit be taken into the bargain.

THE PSYCHOANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

The extent to which each of these methods is employed

will, of course, greatly vary. For instance, with Erna I was

early on driven to devise the following plan. At one period she used to have an outbreak of rage whenever I told her

that the hour was at an end, and I used therefore to open both the double-doors of my room so as to check her,

knowing that it would be extremely painful to her if the person who came to fetch her away saw anything of her

outbursts. At this period, I may remark, my room used to look like a battlefield after Erna had left it. Later in the

analysis she would content herself with hurriedly throwing down the cushions before she went out; while later still she used to leave the room perfectly calmly. Here is another example, taken from the analysis of Peter (aged three and three-quarters) who was also at one time subject to violent outbursts of rage. At a later period of his analysis he said

quite spontaneously, pointing to a toy: ‘I can just as easily think I’ve broken that’.1

I might here point out that the insistence which the

analyst must inevitably lay upon the child’s exerting a partialcontroloveritsemotions arulewhich,ofcourse,

the child will not by any means always be able to respect

is in no sense to be regarded as a pedagogic measure; such demands are founded upon necessities of the real

situation such as even the smallest child can understand. In the same way there are occasions on which I do not actually carry out the whole of the actions which have been allotted to me in a game, on the ground that their complete realization would be too difficult or unpleasant for me. Nevertheless, even in such cases I follow out the child’s

1 Theremarksofeven smallchildren quite

that

the nature of the transference-situation and understand that the lessening of

their affects is brought about by interpreting the original situation together with the affects belonging to it. In such cases, for instance, Peter used often to dis- tinguish between myself, who *was like his Mummy’, and his ‘real Mummy*. For instance, in running his motor up and down he spat at me and -wanted to beat me, and called me a ‘naughty beast*. He contradicted my interpretation violently, but by and by he became quiet and affectionate again and asked:

‘When Daddy’s thingummy went into Mummy like that, did I want to say “Beast” to my reed Mummy?’

prove

they

have

fully grasped

ill OBSESSIONAL NEUROSIS IN A SIX-YEAR-OLD GIRL

ideas as far as I possibly can. It is very important, too, that the analyst should show the least possible emotion in the face of the emotional outbursts of the child.

I propose now to make use of the data obtained from this case to illustrate the theoretical views which I have since formed and which will be advanced in the second

part

ofthis volume.1 The

gilded lamps

ofthe which engine,

Erna thought were *so lovely, all red and burning* and

which she sucked, represented her father’s penis (cf. also

the Something long and golden” which held the captain

up in the water) and her mother’s breasts as well. That she

had an intense feeling of guilt about sucking at things was shown by the fact that when I was playing the part of the

child she declared that my sucking these lamps was my greatest fault. This sense of guilt can be explained by the

fact that sucking also represented biting off and devouring her mother’s breasts and her father’s penis. I may refer

here to my view that it is the process of weaning which,

together with the child’s wish to incorporate its father’s

penis, and its feelings of envy and hatred towards its mother,

sets the Oedipus conflict in motion. At the base of this

envy lies the child’s early sexual theory that in copulating

with the father the mother incorporates and retains his

2 penis.

This envy proved to be the central point of Erna’s neurosis. The attacks which she made at the beginning of her analysis as the ‘third person’ onr the house which was occupied only by a man and a woman turned out to be a portrayal of her destructive impulses against her mother’s body and her father’s penis imagined to be inside it. These impulses, stimulated by the little girl’s oral envy, found

expression in her game in which she sank the ship (her mother) and tore away from the captain (her father) the ‘long, golden thing’ and his head that kept him afloat, i.e.

1 Cf. also my paper, ‘Early Stages of the Oedipus Conflict* (1928).

Cf. Chapter VIII.

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

castrated him as he was copulating with her mother. The details of her phantasies of assault show to what heights of sadistic ingenuity these attacks upon her mother’s body went. She would, for instance, transform her excrements into combustible and explosive substances so as to wreck it from within. This was depicted by the burning down and destruction of the house and the ‘bursting’ of the

people inside it. The cutting-out of paper (making ‘hash*

and ‘eye-salad’) represented a complete destruction of the parents in the act of coition. Erna’s wish to bite off my

nose and to make ‘fringes* in it was not only an attack

directed against myself but symbolized an assault upon

the incorporated penis of her father, as was proved by the material she produced in connection with it. 1

That Erna made her attacks on her mother’s body with

an eye to seizing and destroying not only her father’s penis but also the faeces and children there is shown by

the variety of fish round which there revolved that desper- ate struggle, in which every resource was employed, be- tween the ‘fishwife’ (her mother) and me as the child (herself). She furthermore imagined, as we saw, that I, after looking on while she and the policeman ‘wurled’

money, or fish, together, tried to gain possession of the fish at all costs. The sight of her parents in sexual intercourse

had induced a desire to steal her father’s penis and what- ever else might be inside her mother’s body. It will be remembered that Erna’s reaction against this intention of

robbing and completely destroying her mother’s body was expressed in the fear she had, after her struggles with the fishwife, that a robber woman would take out everything inside her. It is this fear that I have de- scribed in Chapter XL as belonging to the earliest danger- situation of the 2 and as to the

girl-child being equivalent castration anxiety of boys. I may here mention the con-

1 In other analyses, too, I have found that attacks upon my nose, feet, head, etc., never referred simply to those parts of my body as such; they were also directed against them as symbolic representations of the father’s penis, attached

to, or incorporated by me, that is, the mother.

See also my ‘Early Stages of the Oedipus Conflict* (1928).

ill OBSESSIONAL NEUROSIS IN A SIX-YEAR-OLD GIRL

nection between this early anxiety-situation of Erna’s and her extraordinary inhibition in learning, a connection

which I have since met with in other

analyses.

1 I have

already pointed out that in Erna it was only the analysis of the deepest layers of her sadism and of her earliest

Oedipus situation that brought about any change in that

inhibition. Her strongly developed epistemophilic instinct was so closely linked up with her intense sadism that the

defence against the latter led to a complete inhibition of a number of activities which were based upon her desire

for knowledge. Arithmetic and writing represented violent sadistic attacks upon her mother’s body and her father’s

penistoherunconscious.2 Theymeanttearing,cuttingup or burning her mother’s body, together with the children

it contained, and castrating her father. Reading, too, in

consequence of the symbolical equation of her mother’s body with books, had come to mean a violent removal of

substances, children, etc., from the inside of her mother,3 Finally, I shall make use of this case to bring up yet another point to which, as a result of further experience, I have come to ascribe general validity. Not only was the character of Erna’s phantasies and of her relations to

reality typical for cases in which paranoid traits are strongly

operative, but the underlying causes of those paranoid traits in her and of the homosexuality associated with them

were, I have found, fundamental factors in the aetiology of paranoia in general. In the second part of this book (Chapter IX.) this question will receive further discussion. I will only point out briefly in this place that I have dis- covered strong paranoic features in a number of analyses of children, and have thus been led to the conviction that one importantandpromisingtaskofChildAnalysisistouncover and clear up psychotic traits in the early life of the individual.

1 Loc. cit.y where the connection between the subject’s inhibition in work and his sadistic identification with his mother is discussed.

2 On this point see also my paper, *The R6le of the School in the Libidinal

Development of the Child* (1923).

* In his paper, ‘Some Unconscious Factors in Reading’ (1930), James

Strachey has pointed out this unconscious significance of reading.

CHAPTER IV

THE TECHNIQUE OF ANALYSIS IN THE LATENCY PERIOD

in the latency period present special diffi- culties of their own in analysis. Unlike the small

CHILDREwNhose and acute child, lively imagination

anxiety enable us to gain an easier insight into its unconscious and

make contact there, they have a very limited imaginative life, in accordance with the strong tendency to repression which is characteristic of their age; while, in comparison

with the grown-up person, their ego is still undeveloped, and they neither understand that they are ill nor want to

be cured, so that they have no incentive to start analysis and no encouragement to go on with it. Added to this is the general attitude of reserve and distrust so typical of this period of life an attitude which is in part an outcome

of their intense preoccupation with the struggle against masturbation and thus makes them deeply averse to any-

thing that savours of sexual enquiry or touches on the im-

pulses they are keeping under with so much difficulty. Patients of this age neither play like small children nor give verbal associations like adults. Thus the analyst finds no clear way of access to them. Nevertheless I have found it possible to establish the analytic situation without delay by making contact with their unconscious, as I do in the case of small children, but from an angle of approach

which is suited to their older minds. The small child is still under the immediate and powerful influence of its in- stinctual experiences and phantasies and puts them in front

CH. iv TECHNIQUE OF ANALYSIS IN THE LATENCY PERIOD 95

of us straight away, so that in the very first hours of analysis we can interpret its representations of coitus and its sad- istic phantasies; whereas the latency-period child has al-

ready desexualized those experiences and phantasies much more completely and given them quite another form.

The following two cases will illustrate this point. The

seven-year-old Crete was a very reserved and mentally re- stricted child. She had marked schizoid traits and was

quite inaccessible. She drew pictures, however, and pro- duced primitive representations of houses and trees which she drew over and over again in an obsessional way, first the one, then the other. From certain continually recur- ring changes in the colour and size of the houses and trees and from the order in which they were drawn I was able to infer that the houses represented herself and her mother and the trees her father and brother, and that she was interested in their relations to one another. At this point I began to interpret and told her that what she was concerned with was the sex difference between her father and mother and between herself and her brother and also the difference between grown-ups and children. She agreed with me and showed the immediate impression that the interpretation had made on her by making alterations in her drawings, which had hitherto been quite monoton- ous. (Nevertheless, I may remark that for some months analysis was still chiefly carried on with the help of her

drawings.) In the case of Inge, aged seven, I was unable for several hours to find any means of approach. I kept up

a conversation about her school and kindred subjects with some difficulty, and her attitude towards me was very mis- trustful and reserved. She showed a little more interest as she began telling me about a poem which she had read at school. She thought it remarkable that long words should have alternated in it with short ones. A little while earlier she had spoken about some birds that she had seen fly into a garden but not out again. These observations had fol- lowed upon a remark she let fall to the effect that she and her girl friend had done quite as well at some game as the

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

boys. I explained to her that she was occupied by a wish to* know where children (the birds) really came from and also to understand better the sex difference between boys and girls (longandshortwords thecomparativeskillofboysand

girls). My interpretation had the same effect on Inge as it had had on Crete. Contact was established, the material

she brought became richer and the analysis was set going. In these and other cases we see repressed curiosity dom-

inating the picture. If in our latency-period analyses we choose this point for making our first interpretations by

which, of course, I do not mean explanations in the intel- lectual sense, but only interpretations of the material as it emerges in the form of doubts and fears or unconscious

knowledge

up against feelings of guilt and anxiety in the child and have thus established the analytic situation.

The effect of interpretation, which depends on having removed a certain amount of repression, shows itself in

several ways, (i) The analytical situation is established. (2) The child’s imagination becomes freer. Its means of

1 Sexual interest serves in this way as a means of approach to the repressed material. As a result of my interpretations Inge and Crete, for example, asked for no further sexual enlightenment but brought up material which opened the way to their anxiety and sense of guilt. This effect was brought about by the removal of a piece of repression. Inge, it is true, was partly conscious of her interest in the origin of children, but not of her breedings over sex differences nor of her anxiety on the subject. Crete had repressed both. The effect my in- terpretations had on both children was due to the fact that I demonstrated their interest to them by means of the material they gave me and so established a con- nection between their sexual curiosity, latent anxiety and sense of guilt.

Purely intellectual explanations not only usually fail to answer the questions that are uppermost in the child’s mind but stir up repressed material without

setting it free. When this happens the child reacts with aversion to the explana- tion. In my paper, ‘The Child’s Resistance to Analysis’ (1921), I put forward the view that children can only accept sexual enlightenment in so far as their own anxiety and internal conflicts do not prevent them, and that therefore their resistance to such enlightenment should be regarded^as a symptom. Since then this view seems to have been generally accepted (cf. *Uber Sexuelle Aufklarung’, Sonderheft der Zeitschrift fur psychoanalytische Pactagogik, 1927; and Fenichel, “Some Infantile Theories not Hitherto Described’, 1927). Whenever an in- tellectual explanation does give relief it has usually succeeded in resolving some piece of repression in the top levels of the mind. Frank explanations in answer to spontaneous questions on this subject are received by the child as a proof of confidence and love and help to alleviate his sense of guilt by bringing sexual questions into open discussion.

orsexualtheories1andsoon wesooncome

IV TECHNIQUE OF ANALYSIS IN THE LATENCY PERIOD 97

representation grow in richness and extent; its speech be- comes more abundant and the stories it tells more full of

phantasy. (3) The child not only experiences relief but gets

a certain understanding of the purpose of analytic work, and this is analogous to the adult’s insight into his illness.1

In this way interpretations lead gradually to the overcom- ing of the difficulties, mentioned at the beginning of the chapter, which stand in the way of the starting and carry- ing out of an analysis during the latency period.

During the latency period, in consonance with the more intense repression of its imagination and with its more de-

veloped ego, the child’s games are more adapted to reality and less imaginative than those of the small child. In its

games with water, for instance, we do not find such direct

representations of oral wishes or of wetting and dirtying as in smaller children ; its occupations subserve the reactive

tendencies in a greater measure and take on rationalized forms like cooking, cleaning and so on. This great im- portance of the rational element in the play of children at

this age is due, I think, not only to a more intense repres- sion of their imagination, but to an obsessional over-em-

phasis of reality which is part and parcel of the special developmental conditions of the latency period.

In dealing with typical cases of this period we see again and again how the child’s ego, which is still much weaker

than that of the adult, endeavours to strengthen its position

by placing all its energies in the service of the repressive tendencies and by holding fast to reality. Our analytic work

runs counter to all the child’s ego-tendencies, and that is why we should not, I think, expect assistance from its ego at the beginning, but should try to establish relations with its unconscious systems first and from thence gradually

gain the co-operation of the ego as well.

In contrast to small children, who are usually more in-

clined to play with toys at the beginning of their analysis,

children in the latency period very soon start acting parts. With children of five to ten years of age I have played games

1 As I pointed out in Chapter II., this is equally true of very small children. G

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH,

of this sort which have been continued from one hour to another over periods of weeks and months, and one game has only given place to another when all its details and

connections have been explained by analysis. The game which is then next started commonly displays the same complexive phantasies in another form and with new de- tails which lead to deeper connections. The seven-year-old

1 for instance, could be described as a normal child on the whole, in spite of certain troubles whose full extent was only revealed by analysis. For a considerable time she played an office game with me, in which she was the man- ager who gave orders of every sort and dictated letters and wrote them, in contrast to her own severe inhibitions in learning and writing. In this her desires to be a man were

clearly recognizable. One day she gave up this game and began to play at school with me. (It is to be noted that she

not only found her lessons difficult and unpleasant but had a great dislike for school itself.) She now played at school with me for quite a long time. She was the mistress and I the pupil, and the kind of mistakes she made me make threw a great deal of light upon the sources of her own failure at school. It turned out that, as a youngest

child, she had, in spite of all appearances to the contrary, found the superiority of her elder brothers and sisters very

hard to put up with, and when she went to school she had

1 which hours in all, was in the nature of a Inge’s analysis, occupied 375

prophylactic treatment. Her main trouble was an inhibition in regard to school,

which did not seem very marked when she first came to me but which, in the

Inge,

course of her analysis, was discovered to be very deep-seated. Inge was a lively and active child, with a good adaptation to society and in no respect abnormal* Nevertheless, her analysis effected some remarkable changes in her. It turned out that her liveliness was founded on an active homosexual attitude and her

generally good relations to boys on an identification with them. Moreover, analysis first

disclosed the severity of the depressions she was liable to, and it showed that behind her apparent self-confidence there was a severe sense of inferiority and a fear of failure which were responsible for her difficulties in regard to school life. After her analysis she had a much freer, happier and more open nature, her relations to her mother were more affectionate and frank and her sublimations increased in number and stability. A change in her sexual attitude, as a result of which her feminine components and maternal tendencies were able to come to the fore to a much greater extent, augured well for her future life. In the seven years that have elapsed since the end of her treatment, she has developed very satisfactorily and has successfully entered the age of puberty.

IV TECHNIQUE OF ANALYSIS IN THE LATENCY PERIOD 99

felt that the old situation was being reproduced. The ulti- mate reason why she could not endure that superiority and why she could not bear being taught at school later on was, as the details of the lessons she gave as mistress showed, because her own desire for knowledge had been unfulfilled and at a 1

repressed very early age.

We have seen how Inge first made an extensive identifi-

cation with her father (as shown by the game in which she was the manager) and then with her mother (as shown by the game in which she was the mistress and I the pupil). In her next game she was a toy-shop woman and I had to buy all sorts of things from her for my children, such as foun-

tain-pens, pencils, etc., so as to make them clever and

quick. The things were all penis-symbols and showed what it was that she had wanted her mother to give her. The

wish-fulfilment in this game, in which the little girl’s homo- sexual attitude and castration complex were once more uppermost, was to the effect that her mother should give her her father’s penis so that with its help she might sup- plant her father and win her mother’s love. In the further course of the game, however, she preferred to sell me as her customer things to eat for my children, and it became evident that her father’s penis and her mother’s breast were the objects of her deepest oral desires and that it was heroralfrustrationsthatwereatthebottomofhertroublesin

general and her difficulty in regard to learning in particular. Owing to the feelings of guilt bound up with the oral-

sadistic introjection of her mother’s breast, Inge had at a very early stage looked upon her oral frustration as a pun-

ishment.2 Her impulses of aggression against her mother,

1 In Chapter IX. the view is put forward in general that the first and most

fundamental beginnings of the epistemophilic instinct appear at a very early stage of development, before the child is able to speak. To the best of my know-

ledge these early questionings (which in all probability remain entirely or partly unconscious) set in at the same time as the earliest sexual theories and the increase

of sadism, towards the middle of the first year of life. They belong, that is, to the period which in my view ushers in the Oedipus conflict.

* According to Ernest Jones the child always regards deprivations as de- liberately imposed on it by the persons about it (cf. his *EarIy Development of Female Sexuality’, 19275 also Joan Riviere’s contribution to *A Symposium on

Child-Analysis’, 192$).

IOO THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

which arose out of the Oedipus situation, and her wish to rob her of her children had strengthened these early

feelings of guilt and led to a very deep though concealed fear of her mother. This was why she was unable to main-

tain the feminine position and tried to identify herself with her father. But she was also unable to accept the homo- sexual position, on account of an excessive fear of her father, whose penis she wanted to steal. To this was added

her feeling of inability to do in consequence of her inability to know (i.e. the early frustration of her epistemophilic in-

stinct) to which her position as youngest child had con-

tributed. She therefore failed at school in the activities that

answered to her masculine components; nor, since she

could not maintain the feminine position, which involved

the conception and bearing of children in phantasy, was she able to develop feminine sublimations derived from

that position. Owing to her anxiety and feelings of guilt, moreover, she also failed in the relation of child to mother

(e.g. in her relation to the school-mistress), since she un-

consciously equated the absorption of knowledge with the gratification of oral-sadistic desires, and this involved the

destruction of her mother’s breast and her father’s penis.

While Inge was a failure in reality, in imagination she

played every role. Thus in the game I have described, in

which she played the part of office-manager, she re- presentedhersuccessesintheroleoffather; astheschool-

mistress she had numerous children, and at the same time exchanged her role of the youngest child for that of the oldest and cleverest; while in the game of being a seller of

toys and food she was not only in the superior position but made up for the oral frustrations she had suffered as a

baby.

I have brought this case forward to show how, in order

to discover the underlying psychological connections, we have to investigate not only all the details of a given game

but the reason why one game is changed for another. I have often found that such a change of game allows us an insight into the causes of changes from one psycho-

IV TECHNIQUE OF ANALYSIS IN THE LATENCY PERIOD IOI

logical position to another or of fluctuations between such positions, and hence into the dynamics of the inter- play of mental forces.

The next case gives an opportunity of demonstrating

the application of a mixed technique. Kenneth, aged nine and a half, a very infantile boy for his age, was sent to me

for analysis on account of various difficulties. He was fear-

ful, shy and seriously inhibited, and he suffered from severe anxiety. From an early age he had suffered to a marked

degree from morbid brooding. He was a complete failure at

his lessons, his knowledge of school subjects being that of a child of about seven. At home he was of an exceedingly

aggressive, insolent and intractable disposition. His un- sublimated and apparently uninhibited interest in all sexual matters was quite out of the ordinary; he used obscene words by preference and exhibited himself and masturbated in an unusually shameless manner for a child ofhis 1

age.

The boy’s previous history had been briefly as follows. At a very early age he had been seduced by his nurse. His

memory of it was quite conscious, and the circumstance had later become known to his mother. According to her, the nurse, Mary, had been very devoted to the child but had been very strict in her insistence upon his cleanliness. Kenneth’s memories of being seduced went back to the be- ginning of his fifth year, but it is certain that it actually

took place very much earlier. He reported, apparently with pleasure and without inhibition, that his nurse used to take

him with her when she went to have her bath and used to ask him to rub her genitals. Besides this, he had nothing but good to tell of her; he asserted that she had loved him and for a longtime denied that she had treated him severely.

At the beginning of his analysis he reported a dream which

1 Kenneth’s treatment occupied 225 hours and could not be carried any further owing to external circumstances. His neurosis, though not actually re- moved, had by then been materially reduced. As far as his practical life was concerned, the partial results obtained led to the diminution of a number of difficulties: among other things he was able to comply better with the require- ments of his school life and of his upbringing in general.

IO2 THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

he had dreamt repeatedly since his fifth year: he was touch-

ing an unknown woman’s genitals and masturbating her. His fear of me cropped up in the first hour. He had

an anxiety-dream shortly after the beginning of his analysis in which all of a sudden a man was sitting in my chair instead

of me. I then undressed^ and he was horrified to see that I had

an unusually large male genital organ. In connection with the interpretation of this dream a quantity of material came up in regard to his sexual theory of ‘the mother with

a penis’, a mental image which, as analysis proved, was very definitely embodied for him in Mary. He had evidently been very much afraid of her when he was a small child, for she had beaten him very severely, but he was still unable to admit this fact until a later dream made him alter his attitude.

Infantile as Kenneth was in many respects, he very soon

acquired a clear understanding of the aim and the necessity of his analysis. He used sometimes to give associations in

the manner of older children and chose of his own accord to lie on the sofa while he did so. The greater part of his

analysis, indeed, was carried on in this way. Soon, how- ever, he began to supplement his verbal material with action. He picked up some pencils from the table and

made them represent people. Another time he brought some paper-clips with him and these in turn became

people and fought with one another. He also made them

represent projectiles and constructed buildings out of them. All this took place on the sofa on which he lay.

Finally he discovered a box of bricks on the window-sill, brought the little play-table up to the sofa and accom- panied his associations with representations by means of the bricks.

Of Kenneth’s second dream, which carried the analysis a long step further, I will now relate as much as is neces-

sary for illustrating the technique employed. He was in the bathroom and was urinating^ a man came in andfired off a bullet

which hit his ear and knocked it off. While he was telling me this dream Kenneth carried out various operations with

IV TECHNIQUE OF ANALYSIS IN THE LATENCY PERIOD 1 03

the bricks which he explained to me in the following way, He himself, his father, his brother and the nurse Mary were each represented by a brick. All these people were lying asleep in different rooms (the walls of which were

also indicated by bricks). Mary got up, took a big stick (another brick) and came towards him. She was going to

do something to him because he had been misbehaving himself in some way. (It turned out that he had mastur- bated and wetted himself.) While she was beating him with the stick he began to masturbate her and she at once

stopped beating him. When she began to beat him again he again masturbated her and she stopped; and this pro-

cess was repeated again and again till at last, in spite of everything, she threatened to kill him with the stick. His brother then came to his rescue.

Kenneth was exceedingly surprised when he recognized at last from this game and its associations that he really

had been afraid of Mary. At the same time, however, part of his fear of both parents had also become conscious. His associations showed clearly that behind his fear of Mary lurked the fear of a wicked mother in league with a castrating father. The latter was represented in his dream bythemanwhoshothisearoffinthebathroom thevery place in which he had often masturbated his nurse.

Kenneth’s fear of his two parents united against him

and perpetually copulating with each other proved to be extremely important in his analysis. It was only after I had made many subsequent observations of the same kind

in other cases 1 that I realized the fact that fear of ‘the woman with a penis’ is founded upon a sexual theory,

formed at a very early stage of development, to the effect that the mother incorporates the father’s penis in the act

of 2 so that in the last resort the woman with a coitus,

penis

1 For a further discussion of this view see my paper, *Early Stages of the

Oedipus Conflict* (1928), also Chapter VIIL ‘

Felix Boehm has pointed out that the idea of the concealed female penis receives its pathogenic value by having been brought into connection, in the unconscious, with the idea

of the father’s dreaded penis hidden inside the mother.

1 In his Homosexualitat und

Odipuskomplex* (1926)

IO4

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

signifies the two parents joined together. I will illustrate this from the material under discussion here. In his dream

Kenneth was first attacked by a man, but afterwards, in

his play, it was Mary, armed with a stick, who attacked

him. She represented, as his associations showed, not only

the Voman with a penis’, but his mother united with his

father. In this figure his father, who had before appeared

as a man, was represented by his penis alone, i.e. by the stick with which Mary struck him.

I may here point out a similarity between the technique

of early analysis and the play technique which is em- ployed in certain cases with older children. Kenneth had

become conscious of an important part of his early history by means of playing with bricks. As his analysis pro- ceeded he used often to get a return of anxiety and could then only communicate his associations to me if he supple-

mented them by representations with the bricks. (Indeed, it not seldom happened that, when this anxiety came on, words quite failed him and all he could do was to play.)

After his anxiety had been lessened by interpretations he

was able to speak more freely again.

Another example of modification in technique is pro-

vided by the method I adopted with Werner, a nine-year* old obsessional neurotic. This boy, who behaved in many respects like an adult obsessional and in whom morbid brooding was a marked symptom, also suffered from severe anxiety which was, however, chiefly exhibited in

great irritability

andin fits of

rage.

1 A ofthis great part

1 Werner’s case presented the following symptoms: anxiety and timidity, which showed themselves in various forms but especially in anxiety at school

and in great and increasing difficulties in his lessons; obsessional ceremonials that were constantly becoming more elaborate and took up hours at a time; and a severely neurotic character which made his upbringing extremely difficult. His analysis, which comprised 210 hours of treatment, removed these difficulties to a great extent. The boy’s general development at the present time (five years after the end of the treatment) is very favourable. The obsessional ceremonials have ceased, he is good at his work, enjoys going to school, gets on with his associates both at home and at school and is well adjusted socially. His relation! both with his immediate and his remoter environment arc good. Above all, however and this was not the case before he takes pleasure in the most varied sorts of activities and sport and feels well.

IV TECHNIQUE OF ANALYSIS IN THE LATENCY PERIOD

analysis was carried on by means of toys and with the help of drawing. I was obliged to sit beside him at the play- table and to play with him to a greater extent than I usually have to with even quite small children. Sometimes I had even to carry out the actions involved in the game by my- self under his direction. For instance, I had to build up the bricks, move the carts about and so on, while he merely supervised my actions. The reason he gave for this was that his hands sometimes trembled very much, so that

he could not put the toys in their places or might upset

them or spoil their arrangement. This trembling was a sign of the onset of an anxiety-attack. I could in most cases cut

the attack short by carrying out the game as he wanted it, at the same time interpreting, in connection with his

anxiety, the meaning of my actions. It appeared that his fear of his own aggressiveness and his disbelief in his

capacity to love had made him lose all hope of restoring the parents and brothers and sisters whom, in his imagina- tion, he had attacked and injured. Hence his fear that

he might accidentally knock down the bricks and things which had already been put up. This distrust of his own

constructive tendencies and of his ability to make good what he had destroyed was one of the causes of his severe inhibition in work and play.

After his anxiety had been resolved to a large extent,

Werner played his games without assistance from me. He

did a great many drawings and gave abundant associations

to them. In the last part of his analysis he produced his

material chiefly in the form of free associations. Lying on

the sofa a position in which he, like Kenneth, preferred to give his associations he would narrate continuous

phantasies of adventure in which apparatus, mechanical contrivances and so on played a large part. In these stories the material that had before been represented in his draw-

ings appeared again, but enriched in many particulars. Werner’s intense and acute anxiety was mainly ex-

pressed, as I have said, in the form of fits of rage and aggressiveness and in an overbearing, defiant and fault-

IO6 THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

finding attitude. He had no insight into the fact that he was ill and used to insist that there was no reason why he should be analysed; and for a long period, whenever his resist- ances came up, he used to behave to me in an insolent and angry way. At home, too, he was a difficult child to man- age, and his people would hardly have been able to induce him to go on with his treatment if I had not very soon

succeeded by analysis in resolving his anxiety bit by bit until his expression, of his resistance to analysis was almost

entirely confined to the analytic hour.

We now come to a case which presented technical diffi-

culties of a quite unusual kind. The nine-and-a-half-year-

old Egon displayed no very definite symptoms, but his con- dition as a whole made a disquieting impression. He was

completely ‘shut-in* even with regard to those nearest to

him, spoke only when it was absolutely necessary, had al- most no ties of feeling, no friends and nothing that inter-

ested or pleased him. He was, it is true, a good scholar, but, as the analysis showed, only on an obsessional basis. When asked whether he would like anything or not, his stereo- typed answer would always be ‘I don’t mind*. The unchild- like, strained expression of his face and the stiffness of his movementsweremoststriking.Hiswithdrawalfromreality went so far that he did not see what was going on around him and failed to recognize familiar friends when he met

them. Analysis revealed the presence of strong and steadily

increasing psychotic features which would in all probability- have led to the onset of schizophrenia at the age of puberty.

Here is a short summary of the boy’s previous history. When he was about four years old he had been repeatedly

threatened by his father for masturbating and told that he must at any rate always confess when he did it. These threats had been followed by marked changes in his char- acter. He began to tell lies and to have frequent outbursts of rage. Later his aggressiveness receded into the back- ground and instead his whole attitude became more and more one of unemotional and passive defiance and of withdrawal from the external world.

iv TECHNIQUE OF ANALYSIS IN THE LATENCY PERIOD 1 07

I began by getting Egon to lie on the sofa (which he

did not mind doing and apparently preferred to playing games) and for several weeks tried in various ordinary

ways to set the treatment going, till I was forced to recog- nize that my attempts along these lines were doomed to failure. It became clear to me that the child’s difficulty in speaking was so deeply rooted that my first task must

be to overcome it analytically. Noticing that the scanty material I had so far been able to get from him had mostly

been inferred from the way in which he played with his fingerswhileheletfallanoccasionalword notamounting tomorethanafewsentencesinanhour Iunderstood that he was under the necessity of helping himself out by action and I accordingly asked him once more whether, after all, he was not interested in my little toys. He gave his usual reply, I don’t mind’. Nevertheless, he looked at

the things on the play-table and proceeded to occupy him- self with the little carts, and with them alone. There now

developed a monotonous game which occupied his whole hour for weeks on end. Egon made the carts run along the table and then threw them on to the ground in my direc- tion; IgatheredbyalookfromhimthatIwastopickthem up and push them back to him. In order to get away from the role of the prying father, against whom his defiance was directed, I played with him for weeks in silence and

made no interpretations, simply trying to establish rapport by playing with him. During all this time the details of

the game remained absolutely the same, but, monotonous

as it was (and incidentally extremely exhausting for me), there were many small points to be noted in it. It appeared

that in his case, as in all analyses of boys, making a cart move along meant masturbation and coitus, making carts hit

together meant coitus, and comparison of a larger cart with a smaller meant rivalry with his father or his father’s penis.

When, after some weeks, I explained this material to

Egon

in connection with what was known1 it already

1 Further analysis showed that it had been quite pointless to withhold in- terpretation of the material for so long. I have never yet in any analysis seen any

IO8 THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

had a far-reaching effect in two directions. At home his

parents were struck by the very much greater freedom of

his behaviour; and in analysis he showed what I have

found to be the typical reaction to the resolving effect of

interpretation. He began to add new details to his mono-

tonousgame detailswhich,thoughatfirstonlydiscern-

ible to close observation, grew more and more marked

as time went on and finally brought about a complete

alteration of the game. From merely pushing carts along,

Egon went on to a building game, as with increasing skill he began to pile the carts one upon another to a very great

heightandtocompetewithmeoverit. Henowproceeded

for the first time to use the bricks, and it soon became evi-

dent that the things he built up were, however skilfully

the fact was concealed, always human beings or genitals of both sexes. From building Egon went on to a quite

remarkable form of drawing. Without looking at the paper he would roll a pencil about between his two hands and in this way produce lines. Out of these scrawls he then

himself deciphered shapes, and these always represented

heads, among which he himself clearly distinguished the male from the female. In the details of these heads and

their relations to one another the material that had occurredintheearliergamessoonreappeared namely, his uncertainty about the difference between the sexes and about coitus between his parents, the questions that were connected in his mind with these subjects, the phantasies in which he as a third party played a part in the sexual intercourse of his parents, etc. But his hatred and his destructive impulses, too, became obvious in the cutting out and cutting to bits of these heads which also repre-

sented the children in his mother’s body and his parents themselves. It was only now that we arrived at the full

meaning of his having piled up the carts as high as he

advantage follow from such a policy of non-interpretation. In most cases in which I have tried the plan I have very soon had to abandon it because acute anxiety has developed and there has been a risk of the analysis being broken off. In Egon’s case, where the anxiety was under such powerful restraint, it was possible to continue the experiment longer.

IV TECHNIQUE OF ANALYSIS IN THE LATENCY PERIOD 109

could. It represented his mother’s pregnant body for which he had envied her and whose contents he wished to steal from her. He had strong feelings of rivalry with his mother and his wish to rob her of his father’s penis and of her children had led to an acute fear of her. These

representations were afterwards supplemented by the cut-

ting out he did, in which he gradually acquired consider-

able skill. Just as in his building activities, the shapes

which he cut out represented only human beings. The way in which he brought these shapes into contact with

one another, their different sizes, whether they repre- sented men or women, whether they had some parts miss- ing or too many, when and how he began to cut them to pieces all these matters took us deep into both his in- verted and his direct Oedipus complex. His rivalry with his mother, based on his strong passive homosexual atti-

tude, and the anxiety he felt concerning it, both in regard to his father and his mother, became more and more evi-

dent. His hatred of his brother and sisters and the de- structive impulses he had had towards them when his

mother was pregnant found expression in the cutting out of forms which he recognized as representing small and

incomplete human beings. Here, too, the order in which

he played his games was important. After cutting out and cutting to pieces he would start building as an act of

restoration; and similarly, the figures he had cut up he proceeded to over-decorate, urged by reactive tendencies, and so on. In all these representations, however, there

always reappeared the repressed questions and the re-

pressed early intense curiosity which proved to be an im- portant factor in his inability to speak, his ‘shut-in’ char-

acter and his lack of interests.

Egon’s inhibition in play dated back to the age of four

and in part to an even earlier time. He had made buildings before he was three and had begun cutting out paper rather later, but had only kept it up for quite a short time and even at that time had only cut out heads. He had never drawn at all, and after the age of four he had taken

IIO THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

no pleasure in any of these earlier pursuits. What appeared now, therefore, were sublimations rescued from profound

repression, partly in the form of revivals and partly as new

creations; and the childlike and quite primitive manner in which he set about each of these pursuits belonged

really to the level of a three- or four-year-old child. It may

be added that simultaneously with these changes the boy’s whole character took a turn for the better.

Nevertheless, his inhibition in speech was for a long time

only slightly relieved. It is true that he gradually began to

answer the questions which I put to him during his games in a freer and fuller way, but on the other hand I was for

a long time unable to get him to give free associations of the kind that are usual in older children. It was not until much later and during the last part of the treatment,

which occupied 425 hours in all, that we fully recognized

and explored the paranoid factors underlying his inhibition in speech, which was then completely removed.1 As his

anxietysubstantiallydiminishedhebeganofhisownaccord to give me single associations in writing. Later on he used to whisper them to me and make me answer him in a low voice. It became ever clearer that he was afraid of being overheard by someone in the room, and there were some parts of the room which he would not go near on any account. If, for instance, his ball had rolled under the sofa or the cupboard or into a dark corner, I used to have to fetch it back for him; while, as his anxiety increased, he would once more assume the same rigid posture and fixed expression which had been so marked in him at the be-

ginning of his analysis. It came out that he suspected the

presence of hidden persecutors watching him from all these places and even from the ceiling, and that his ideas of per-

secution went back, in the last resort, to his fear of the many penises inside his mother’s body and his own. This

paranoic fear of the penis as a persecutor had been very greatly increased by his father’s attitude in watching him

and cross-questioning him in regard to masturbation and 1 I intend to go more fully into this case in Chapter IX.

IV TECHNIQUE OF ANALYSIS IN THE LATENCY PERIOD I I I

had made him turn away from his mother as well, as being in league with his father (the ‘woman with a penis’). As his belief in a ‘good’ mother became stronger in the course of analysis, he came to treat me more and more as an ally and

as a protector from persecutors who were threatening him from every quarter. It was not until his anxiety in this

respect and his estimation of the number and dangerous- ness of his persecutors had lessened that he was able to

exclusively on the lines of free associations. There is no doubt in my mind that I only succeeded in treating and curing this boy by being able to gain access to his uncon- scious with the assistance of the play technique used for small children. Whether it would have been still possible

verbal associations in dealing with children in the latency period, yet in many cases we can only do so in a manner that differs from that employed with adults. With children

like Kenneth, for example, who soon consciously recog-

nized the help given him by psycho-analysis and realized his need for it, or even with the much younger Erna, whose

wish to be cured was very strong, it was possible from the

very beginning occasionally to ask; ‘Well? What are you thinking of now?’ But with many children of under nine

or ten it would be useless to put such a question. The way in which a child is to be questioned must be discovered in connection with its games or its associations.

1 Melitta hasdiscussedasimilarcaseinher 4AContribu- Schmideberg paper,

tion to the Psychology of Persecutory Ideas and Delusions (1931). The patient

was a boy of about sixteen who scarcely spoke at all in his analysis. Here again the inhibition in speech was caused by ideas of persecution, and the boy did not begin to associate at all freely until analysis had lessened his paranoic anxiety.

* In general, too, the result of Egon’s analysis was completely satisfactory. The setness of his face and movements passed off. He began to take pleasure in the games, pastimes and interests common to boys of his age. His relations with his family and the world became good and he grew happy and contented. When last I heard from him, three and a half years after his analysis was finished, this healthy development had continued and had not been disturbed by certain severe strains to which he had been subjected in the meanwhile.

and move more 1 freely.

speak

The last part of Egon’s treatment was conducted almost

seems to me doubtful.2

to do this at a later

Though it is true that in general we make great use of

age

112 THE PSYCHOANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

If we watch the play of a quite small child we shall soon

observe that the bricks, the pieces of paper and, indeed, all the things around it stand in its imagination for some- thing else. If we ask it ‘What is that?’ while it is occupied with these articles (it is true that as a rule before we do this a certain amount of analysis must have been done and a transference established) we shall find out quite a lot. We shall often be told, for instance, that the stones in the water are children who want to come on shore or that they are people fighting one another. The question ‘What is that?’ will lead on naturally to the further question ‘Well, what are they doing?* or ‘Where are they now?’ and so on. We have to elicit the associations of older children in a similar,

thoughmodified,fashion; butthis,asarule,canonlybe effected when the repression of imagination and the mis- trust, which are so much stronger in them, have been diminished by a certain amount of analysis and the analytic situation has been established.

To go back to the analysis of the seven-year-old Inge.

When she was playing the part of office-manager, writing

letters, distributing work and so on, I once asked her:

‘What is there in this letter?’ and she promptly replied :

‘You’ll find that out when you get it*. When I received it,

however, I found that it contained nothing but scribbles.1

So afterwards I said: ‘Mr. X ‘ also shortly (who

figured in the game) ‘has told me to ask you what there is in the letter, as he must know, and would be glad if you would read it all out to him over the telephone’. Where-

upon she told me, without making any difficulty, the whole imaginary contents of the letter and at the same time gave

a number of illuminating associations. Another time, I had to pretend to be a doctor. When I asked her what was

1 Inge, who, as I have already mentioned, suffered from a severe inhibition in

writing, had a burning wish to write ‘quickly and beautifully* like grown-ups. The compromise between this wish and her inhibition was scribbling, which represented in her phantasy beautiful and skilful handwriting. Her wish if possible to excel the grown-ups in writing and her very strong ambition and curiosity, existing as they did side by side with a deep feeling that she

knew nothing and could do nothing, played a great part in her failure in real life.

IV TECHNIQUE OF ANALYSIS IN THE LATENCY PERIOD 113

supposed to be the matter with her, she answered: ‘Oh, that makes no difference*. I then began to have a proper consultation with her like a doctor, and said : ‘Now, Mrs.

j you really must tell me exactly where you feel the pain’. From this there arose further questions why she had fallen ill, when the illness had begun, etc. Presented with them in this form, she willingly answered my ques- tions, and since she played the part of patient several times in succession I obtained abundant and deeply buried material in this way. And when the situation was reversed and she was the doctor and I the patient, the medical advice she gave me supplied me with further informa- tion.

From what has been said in this chapter, then, we see that in dealing with children of the latency period it is essential above all to establish contact with their uncon-

scious phantasies, and that this is done by interpreting the symbolic content of their material in relation to their

anxiety and feelings of guilt. But since the repression of

imagination in this stage of development is much more severe than in earlier stages, we often have to find access

to the unconscious through representations which are to all

appearances entirely devoid of phantasy. We must also, in

typical analyses of the latency period, be prepared to find that it is only possible to resolve the child’s repressions and

set free its imagination step by step and with much labour. In some cases for weeks or even months at a time no-

thing that is produced seems to contain any psychological material whatever. All we get, for instance, are reports out of newspapers or accounts of the contents of books or mono- tonous stories about school. Moreover, such activities as

monotonous obsessive drawing, building, sewing or making things especially when we obtain few associations to them

seem to offer no means of approach to the life of the imagination. But we need only recall the examples of Greta and Egon to remind ourselves that even activities and talk

so completely without phantasy as these do open the way to the unconscious if we do not merely regard them as

114

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

expressions of resistance but treat them as true material. By paying enough attention to small indications and by

taking as our starting-point for interpretation the connec- tion between the symbolism, sense of guilt and anxiety that

accompany those representations, we shall always find

opportunities for beginning and carrying on the work of

analysis.

But the fact that in child analysis we get into com-

munication with the unconscious before we have estab- lished any very extensive relation with the ego does not mean that we have excluded the ego from participating in the analytic work. Any exclusion of this kind would be

impossible, considering that the ego is so closely connected with the id and the super-ego and that we can only find

access to the unconscious through it. Nevertheless, analysis does not apply itself to the ego as such (as educational methods do) but only seeks to open up a path to the un- conscioussystemsofthemind thosesystemswhichare decisive for the formation of the ego.

To return to our examples once more. As we have seen,

the analysis of Greta (aged seven) was almost entirely carried on by means of her drawings. She used, it will be

remembered, to draw houses and trees of various sizes alternately in an obsessive way. Now, starting from these

unimaginative and obsessional pictures, I might have tried to stimulate her phantasy and link it up with other activi-

ties of her ego in the way in which a sympathetic teacher might do. I could have got her to want to decorate and beautify her houses or to put them and the trees together and to make a street out of them and thus have connected her activities with whatever aesthetic or topographical in- terests she might chance to possess. Or I could have gone on from her trees to make her interested in the difference between one kind of tree and another and perhaps in this way have stimulated her curiosity about nature in general. Had any attempt of this kind succeeded, we should ex- pect her ego-interests to come more to the fore and the

analyst to get into closer contact with her ego. But experi-

IV TECHNIQUE OF ANALYSIS IN THE LATENCY PERIOD 115

ence has shown that in many cases such a stimulation of the

child’s imagination fails in its attempts to effect a loosening of the repression and thus to find a foothold for the

beginning of analytic work.1 Moreover, such a procedure is very often not feasible, because the child suffers from so

much latent anxiety that we are obliged to establish the

analytic situation as quickly as possible and begin actual analytical work at once. And even where there is a chance

of gaining access to the unconscious by making the ego our starting-point, we shall find that the results are small in comparison with the length of time taken to obtain them. For the increase in the wealth and significance of the

material thus gained is only a seeming one; in reality we shall not be doing more than meeting the same unconscious

material clothed in more striking forms. In Greta’s case, for instance, we might have been able to stimulate her

curiosity and thus, in favourable circumstances, have led her to become interested, say, in the entrances and exits of houses and in the differences between trees and the way they grew. But these expanded interests would only be a less disguised version of the material she had been showing

us in the monotonous drawings quite at the beginning of her analysis. The big and small trees and the big

and small houses which she kept on drawing in a compul- sive manner represented her mother and father and herself and her brother, as was indicated by the difference in the sizes, shapes and colours of her drawings and by the order in which they were done. What underlay them was her re- pressed curiosity about the difference between the sexes and other allied problems; and by interpreting them in that sense I was able to get at her anxiety and sense of

guilt and to set the analysis going.

Now if the material which underlies noticeable and com-

plicated representations is no different from that which underlies meagre ones, it is irrelevant from the point of view of analysis which of the two kinds of representation

is chosen as the point of departure for interpretation. For 1 Cf.theanalysisofEgonandGreta.

Il6 THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

in child analysis it is interpretation alone, in my experi-

ence, which starts the analytic process and keeps it going. Therefore, so long as the analyst has been able to under-

stand what kind of material is being put forward and to establish its connection with the latent anxiety, he is in a

position to give a correct interpretation of the most mono-

tonous and unpromising representations of it, while step by step as he resolves anxiety and removes repressions the

child’s ego-interests and sublimations will begin to make headway.Inthisway,forinstance,Use whosecasewill be considered in greater detail in the following chapter gradually evolved out of her unvarying and obsessive drawing a decided gift for handicraft and design, without

my having urged upon her or in any way suggested such an activity.

Before leaving the subject of analyses of the latency period, however, there still remains one problem to dis-

cuss* It is not, strictly speaking, of a technical nature but it is of importance in the work of the child analyst. I refer

to the analyst’s dealings with the parents of his patients. In order for him to be able to do his work there must be

a certain relation of confidence between himself and the child’s parents. The child is dependent on them and so theyareincludedinthefieldoftheanalysis; yetitisnot

they who are being analysed and they can therefore only be influenced by ordinary psychological means. The rela-

tionship of the parents to their child’s analyst entails diffi- culties of a peculiar kind, since it touches closely upon their

own complexes. Their child’s neurosis weighs very heavily upon the parents’ sense of guilt, and at the same time as

they turn to analysis for help they regard the necessity of it as a proof of their responsibility for their child’s illness.

It is, moreover, very trying for them to have the details of their family life revealed to the analyst. To this must be

added, particularly in the case of the mother, jealousy of the confidential relation which is established between the

child and its analyst. This jealousy, which is to a very large extent based upon the subject’s rivalry with her own

IV TECHNIQUE OF ANALYSIS IN THE LATENCY PERIOD IIJ

1 is also

nurses, who are often anything but friendly in their attitude

towards analysis. These, and other factors, which remain for the most part unconscious, give rise to a more or less ambivalent attitude in the parents, especially the mother, towards the analyst, and this is not removed by the fact of their having conscious insight into their child’s need for analytic treatment. Hence, even if the child’s relatives are

consciously well disposed to its analysis, we must expect that they will to some extent be a disturbing element in it.

The degree of difficulty they will cause will of course de-

pend on their unconscious attitude and on the amount of

ambivalence they have. This is why I have met with no less

hindrance where the parents were familiar with analysis

thanwheretheyknewpracticallynothingaboutit. Forthe

same reason, too, I consider any far-reaching theoretical

explanations to the parents before the beginning of an ana-

lysis as not only unnecessary but out of place, since such explanations are liable to have an unfavourable effect upon

their own complexes. I content myself with making a few general statements about the meaning and effect of analysis, mention the fact that, in the course of it, the child will be given information upon sexual subjects and prepare the parents for the possibility of other difficulties arising from time to time during the treatment. In every case I refuse

absolutely to report any details of the analysis to them. The child who gives me its confidence has no less claim to

my discretion than the adult.

What we should aim at in establishing relations with

the parents is, in my judgment, in the first place to get them to assist in our work principally in a passive way, by refraining as much as possible from all interference, such as encouraging the child, through questions, to talk about

1 IncertaincasesinwhichIhaveanalysedamotherandchildsimultaneously it has emerged that in the mother’s unconscious there was a fear of being robbed of her children. The child’s analyst represented to her a stern mother who was demanding the restitution of the chiktren she had stolen away and was at the

same time discovering and punishing the aggressive impulses she had once enter- tained against her brothers and sisters.

mother-imago,

very

noticeable in and governesses

II 8 THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

its analysis at home or lending any kind of support to whatever resistances it may give utterance to. But we do need their more active co-operation on those occasions when the child is overtaken by really acute anxiety and violent resistances. In such situations I may here recall the cases of Ruth and Trude 1 it devolves upon those in charge of the child to find ways and means of getting it to come in spite of its difficulties. As far as my experience goes, this has always been possible; for in general, even when resistance is strong there is a positive transference to the analyst as well, so that the child’s attitude to its analysis is ambivalent. The help given us by the child’s parents must, however, never be allowed to become a per- manent adjunct to analytic work. Periods of such intense

resistance should only occur rarely and not last long. The work of analysis must either prevent it, or, if that cannot

be done, rapidly resolve it.

If we can succeed in establishing a good relation with

the child’s parents and in being sure of their unconscious co-operation, we are in a position to obtain useful know- ledge about the child’s behaviour outside analysis, such as

any changes, appearances or disappearances of its symp- toms that may occur in connection with the analytic work.

But if information on these points is only to be got from

parents at the price of raising difficulties of another kind,

then I prefer to do without it, since, although valuable,

it is not absolutely indispensable. I always impress upon the parents the necessity of not giving the child occasion

to believe that any steps they may take in its upbringing are due to my advice and of keeping education and analy-

sis completely separated. In this way the analysis remains,

as it should, a purely personal matter between myself and

my patient.

With children no less than with adults I regard it as

essential that analysis should be carried on in the analyst’s place of work and that a definite hour should be kept to. As a further means of avoiding displacement of the ana-

See Chapter II.

IV TECHNIQUE OF ANALYSIS IN THE LATENCY PERIOD I 19

lytic situation, I have found it necessary not to let the person who brings the child to analysis wait in my house. She brings the child and takes it away again at the

appointed time.

Unless the mistakes that are being made are too gross,

I avoid interfering with the way in which the child is being brought up, for errors in this field usually depend so

largely upon the parents’ own complexes that advice gener- ally proves not only useless but calculated to increase their

anxiety and sense of guilt; and this will only put further obstacles in the path of the analysis and have an unfavour- able effect on the parents’ attitude towards their child,1

The whole situation improves greatly after an analysis is finished or when it is far advanced. The removal or lessening of a child’s neurosis has a good effect upon its parents. As the mother’s difficulties in dealing with her child diminish, her sense of guilt diminishes too, and this improves her attitude towards the child. She becomes more accessible to the analyst’s advice in regard to the child’s upbring- ing and this is the important point has less internal

1 Iwilltakeasanillustrationtheinstanceofamotherwhowaswellacquainted with analysis and who had great faith in it as a result of the satisfactory progress that was being made by her ten-year-old daughter, then under treatment for a severe neurosis. In spite of this I found it difficult to dissuade her from super- vising her daughter’s home-work, although it was clear even to her that doing so only increased the child’s difficulties with her lessons. When at last, however, she had given this up at my request, I discovered from the chUxfs analysis that her mother always tried to get her to say how the analysis was getting on. Once more by my desire she stopped doing this; but she then began telling the child thatshehaddarkringsunderhereyesinthemornings aremarkwithwhich she had formerly accompanied her prohibition against masturbation. When these comments, which interfered with the analysis, had in turn been put a stop to, the mother began to pay an exaggerated attention to the child’s clothes and to comment on the fact that she spent a long time in the w.c., and in this way increased the refractoriness of the child. At this point I gave up all attempts at influencing the mother on matters of this kind and accepted her interference as part of the analytic material; and after a certain time, during which I made no remonstrance, the interruptions diminished. In this case I was able to estab- lish the fact that they all had the same unconscious meaning for the child: they signified enquiries and reproaches about masturbation. That they also had an

analogous complexive origin in the mother was proved by the fact that her conscious desire to stop the educational mistakes that I objected to was quite unavailing. Indeed, it seemed as though my advice only increased her difficulties in.jregard to her child. I may remark that I have had similar experiences in a number of other cases.

I2O THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

difficulty in following that advice. Nevertheless, I do not, in the light of my own experiences, put much faith in the possibility of affecting the child’s environment. It is better to rely upon the results achieved in the child itself, for these will enable it to make a better adaptation even to a difficult environment and will put it in a better position to meet any strains which that environment may lay upon it. This capacity for meeting strains has its limits, of course. Where the child’s environment is too unfavourable we may not be completely successful in our analysis and may have to face the possibility of its again falling ill of a neurosis.

I have, however, repeatedly found that even when this happens the results achieved, even if they did not involve

a complete disappearance of the neurosis, have given a great measure of relief for the child in its difficult situation

and have led to an improvement in its development. It seems quite safe to assume, moreover, that if we have

brought about fundamental changes at the deepest levels, the illness, if it recurs, will not be so severe. It also

seems worth while noting that in some cases of this sort a diminution in the child’s neurosis has had a markedly favourable effect upon its neurotic environment.1 It may

also sometimes happen that after a successfully completed treatment the child can be removed to other surroundings,

for instance to a boarding-school, a thing which had pre- viously not been possible owing to its neurosis and lack

of adaptability.

Whether it is advisable for the analyst to see the parents

fairly frequently or whether it is wiser to limit meetings with them as much as possible must depend upon the circumstances of each individual case. In a number of instances I have found the second alternative the best means of avoiding friction in my relations with the mother.

1 In the case of a fourteen-year-old boy, for instance, whose family life was

extremely trying and unfortunate and who was brought to me for analysis on

account of characterological difficulties, I learnt that the improvements brought about in him had had a very beneficial effect on the character of his sister, who was about a year older and had not been analysed, and that his mother’s attitude to him had also changed for the better.

IV TECHNIQUE OF ANALYSIS IN THE LATENCY PERIOD 121

The ambivalence which parents have towards their child’s analysis also helps to explain a fact which is at once sur-

prising and painful to the inexperienced analyst namely, that even the most successful treatment is not likely to

receive much acknowledgment from the parents. Although I have, of course, often come across parents with plenty of insight, yet I have found in the majority of cases that

they very easily forgot the symptoms which made them bring their child for analysis and overlooked the import-

ance of any improvements that took place. In addition to this we must remember that they are not in a position to form a judgment upon one part, and that the most im- portant, of our results. The analysis of adults proclaims its value by removing difficulties which interfere with the patient’s life. We ourselves know, though the parents as a rule do not, that in child analysis we are preventing the occurrence of difficulties of the same kind or even of

psychoses. A parent, while regarding serious symptoms in its child as an annoyance, does not as a rule recognize

their full importance, for the very reason that they have not so great an effect on the child’s actual life as a neurotic illness has on the life of a grown-up person. And yet I think we shall be well content to forgo our full due of recognition from that quarter so long as we bear in mind that the aim of our work is to secure the well-being of the child and not the gratitude of its mother and father.

CHAPTER V

THE TECHNIQUE OF ANALYSIS IN PUBERTY

analyses at the age of puberty differ in many

essentials from analyses in the latency period. The

TYPICAL ofthechildaremore theactiv- impulses powerful,

ity of his phantasy greater and his ego has other aims and another relation to reality. On the other hand there are

strong points of similarity with the analysis of the small child, owing to the fact that at the age of puberty we once again meet with a greater dominance of the emotions and the unconscious and a much richer life of the imagina- tion. Moreover, at this age manifestations of anxiety and

affect are very much more acute than in the latency period, and area kind of recrudescence of the liberations of anxiety which are so characteristic of small children.

But the efforts of the adolescent to ward off and modify his^ anxiety * task which has all along been one of the mainfunctionsoftheego aremoresuccessfulthanthose of the small child. For he has developed his various in- terests and activities to a great extent with the object of

mastering that anxiety, of over-compensating for it and of masking it from himself and from others. He achieves this

in part by assuming the attitude of defiance and rebellious- ness that is characteristic of puberty. This provides a great

technical difficulty in analyses at puberty; for unless we very quickly gain access to the patient’s anxiety and to those affects which he principally manifests in a defiant

and negative attitude in the transference, it may very

CH. v TECHNIQUE OF ANALYSIS IN PUBERTY

123

well happen that the analysis will suddenly be broken off.

I may say that in analysing boys of this age I have re-

peatedly found that they have anticipated violent physical attacks from me during their first sessions.

The fourteen-year-old Willy, for example, failed to come to his second hour’s analysis and was only with great diffi-

culty persuaded by his mother to ‘give it one more chance’. During this third hour I succeeded in showing him that he identified me with the dentist. He asserted, it is true, that he was not afraid of the dentist (of whom my appearance reminded him) but the interpretation of the material that he brought was sufficient to convince him that he was; for

it showed him that he expected not only to have a tooth

pulled out but his whole body cut in pieces. By lessening his anxiety in this respect I established the analytic situa-

tion. True, in the further course of his analysis it often

happened that large quantities of anxiety were liberated, but his resistance was in essence kept within the analytic

situation and the continuance of the analysis was assured. In other cases, too, where I have observed signs of latent anxiety, I have set about interpreting them in the

very first hour of treatment, and thus at once begun to re- duce the child’s negative transference. But even in cases

where the anxiety is not immediately recognizable it may suddenly break out if the analytic situation is not soon

established by interpreting the unconscious material. This

material is closely analogous to that presented by the small

child. At the ages of puberty and pre-puberty boys busy themselves in their phantasy with people and things in the

same way as small children play with toys. What Peter,

aged three and three-quarters, expressed by means of little carts and trains and motors, the fourteen-year-old Willy expressed in long discourses, lasting for months, on the constructional differences between various kinds of motors,

bicycles, motor-cycles, and so on. Where Peter pushed along carts and compared them with one another, Willy would be passionately interested in the question of which cars and which drivers would win some race; and whereas

124

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

Peter paid a tribute of admiration to the toy man’s skill in

driving and made him perform all sorts of feats, Willy for his part was never tired of singing the praises of his idols of the sporting world.

The imaginative activities of the adolescent are, how-

ever, more adapted to reality and to his stronger ego-in- terests, and their phantasy content is therefore much less

easily recognizable than in small children. Moreover, the adolescent’s actual activities are greater and his relations

to reality more strong, and this again alters the character

ofhis 1 The phantasies.

to evidenceofhis give

impulse

courage in the real world and the desire for competition

with others become more prominent. This is one of the reasons why sport, which offers so much scope for rivalry with others no less than for admiration of their brilliant feats and which also provides a means of overcoming anxiety, plays so large a part in the adolescent’s life and

phantasies.

These phantasies, which give expression to his rivalry with his father for the possession of his mother and in re-

spect of sexual potency, are accompanied, as in the small

child, by feelings of hatred and aggression in every form and are also often followed by anxiety and a sense of guilt.

But the mechanisms peculiar to the age of puberty conceal these facts very much better than do the mechanisms of the small child. The boy at puberty takes as his models heroes, great men, and so on. He can the more easily maintain his identification with these objects since they are far removed from him; and he can also make a more stable over-com-

pensation towards them for the negative feelings attaching

to his father-imagos. In thus dividing up his father-imago he diverts his violent destructive tendencies to other ob-

jects. If, therefore, we bring together his over-compen-

In many analyses of boys of the pre-pubertal period or sometimes even the latency period, most of the time is taken up with stories about Red Indians, or with detective stories, or with phantasies about travel, adventures and fighting, told in serial form and often associated with descriptions of imaginary technical inventions, such as special kinds of boats, machines, cars, contrivances used in warfare, and so on.

V TECHNIQUE OF ANALYSIS IN PUBERTY

125

satory admiration for some objects and his excessive hatred

and scorn for others, such as schoolmasters, relations, etc., which we uncover during analysis, we can find our way to a

complete analysis of his Oedipus complex and affects just as we can in the case of quite young children.

In some instances repression has led to such an extreme

limitation of personality that the adolescent has only one

single definite interest left say, a particular sport. A single interest of this sort is equivalent to an unvarying game played by a small child to the exclusion of all others. It has

become the representative of all his repressed phantasies and has the character of an obsessional symptom rather

than a sublimation. Monotonous stories about football or bicyclingmayformonthsformtheonetopicofconversation

in his analysis. Out of this representative content, appar-

ently so absolutely lacking in imagination, we have to elicit the true material of his repressed phantasies. If we follow

a technique analogous to that of dream- and game-inter- pretation and take into account the mechanisms of dis-

placement, condensation, symbolic representation and so on, and if we notice the connections between minute signs

of anxiety in him and his general affective state we can get behind this fa$ade of monotonous interest and gradually

into the of his mind.1 An deepest complexes

penetrate

analogy is to be found here with a certain extreme type of

latency period analysis. We may recall the seven-year-old Greta’s2 monotonousdrawing,whichwasquitelackingin

phantasy but which was all I had to go on for months in

her or 3 which was of a still more ex- analysis; Egon’s case,

treme type. These children showed to an excessive degree the limitation of phantasy and of means of representation that is normal in the latency period. I have come to the conclusion that, on the one hand, where we find a similar

1 Abraham, as he himself told me, carried out an analysis of a boy of about twelve years old mainly in what he described as ‘stamp-language*, in which details like the torn corners of a stamp, for instance, would afford a means

of approaching his castration complex.

* 3

Cf. Chapter IV. Cf. Chapter IV.

126 THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

limitation of interests and means of expression at the age

of puberty we are dealing with a protracted period of latency, and, on the other, where there is an extensive limit-

ation of imaginative activities (as in inhibitions in play, etc.) in early childhood it is a case of premature onset

of that period. In either case, whether latency begins too soon or ends too late, severe disturbances in the child’s development are indicated; for such an undue extension of that period is accompanied by an undue increase of the

phenomena that normally go with it.

I shall now bring forward one or two examples to illus-

trate what seems to me the proper technique for analysis

at the age of puberty. In the analysis of the fifteen-year-old Bill, his uninterrupted chain of associations about his

bicycle and about particular parts of it for example, his anxiety lest he should have damaged it by riding too fast

had provided abundant material concerning his castration complexandhissenseofguiltaboutmasturbation.1 Inthis connection it came out that he had anxiety and feelings of guilt about his relations with a certain friend of his, but that these feelings were not based on reality but went back to an earlier relationship he had had with a boy called Tony. He told me about a bicycling tour he had made with his friend, in the course of which they had exchanged their bicycles and he had been afraid, for no reason, that his bicycle had been damaged. On the basis of this and other things of the same kind which he told me, I pointed out to him that his fear seemed to go back to sexual acts

which he had done with his friend Tony in early child- hood. When I gave him my reasons for thinking so he agreed and remembered some details about that sexual relation. His sense of guilt about it and his consequent

1 That riding a bicycle symbolizes masturbation and coitus has been shown over and over again. In my paper, ‘Early Analysis* (1923), I have referred to the general symbolic significance of balls, footballs, bicycles, etc., as the penis, and have discussed more fully the libidinal phantasies connected with various sports in consequence of these symbolic equations; so that by dealing with the patient’s stories about sports in their symbolic aspect and relating them to his general affective state, the analyst can arrive at his libidinal and aggressive phantasies and at the sense of guilt which they give rise to.

v TECHNIQUE OF ANALYSIS IN PUBERTY 127 fear of having damaged his penis and his body were quite

In the analysis of the fourteen-year-old Willy, the intro- ductory phase of which has been described above, I was

able to discover, by the help of similar topics, the reason

for his strong feelings of guilt about his younger brother. When, for instance, Willy spoke about his steam-engine being in need of repair, he at once went on to give associa- tions about his brother’s engine which would never be any good again. His resistance in connection with this and his wish that the hour would soon come to an end turned out to be caused by his fear of his mother, who might discover the sexual relations which had existed between him and his younger brother and which he partly remembered. These relations had left behind them severe unconscious feelings of guilt in him, for he as the elder and stronger had at times forced his brother into them. Since then he had felt

responsible for the defective development of his brother, who was seriously neurotic.3

1 Bill was a nervous and inhibited boy and had various neurotic difficulties.

His analysis only lasted three months (54 sessions), but according- to a report I had of him six years after it, he was developing very well.

* was intended as a measure. He suffered, it is Willy’s analysis prophylactic

true, from depressions, but these were not of an abnormal character. He was in addition not fond of company, rather inactive and withdrawn into himself and not on good terms with his brothers and sisters. But his social adaptation was normal; he was a good scholar and there was nothing definitely wrong with him. His analysis occupied 190 sessions. As a result of it I last had news of him three years after its termination this boy, who could certainly be called a normal child, underwent changes of such a nature that even people outside his immediate circle, who did not know he was being analysed, noticed them. It turned out, for instance, that his disinclination to gx> to the theatre or the cinema was connected with a severe inhibition of his epistemophilic instincts^ although, as has been said, he did his lessons well. When this inhibition had been removed, his mental horizon became wider and his general intelligence improved. The analysis of his strongly passive attitude started him on a number of activities. His attitude to his brothers grew better, as did his powers of social adaptation. These and other changes made a much more free, well-balanced and mature person of him; and moreover these changes, though not in themselves perhaps very decisive, reflected certain deeper changes which would almost certainly become of importance later on. For along with the removal of his inactive attitude in ordinary life there went a change in his sexual orientation. His heterosexual tendencies became very much stronger and he got rid of certain difficulties which are admittedly the cause of disturbances of potency in later life. Furthermore, it turned out that his depressions were allied to thoughts of suicide

unconscious.

128 THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

In connection with certain associations about a steamer

trip that he was going to make with a friend, it occurred

to Willy that the boat might sink, and he suddenly drew his railway season-ticket out of his pocket and asked me if I could tell him when it expired. He did not know, he said, which numbers referred to the month and which to the day. The date of ‘expiry’ of his ticket meant the date of his own death; and the trip with his friend was the mutual masturbation which he had performed in early childhood with his brother, and also with a friend, and which had given rise to feelings of guilt and fear of death in him. Willy went on to say that he had emptied his electric battery in order not to dirty the box in which it was packed. He next told me how he had played football with a ping-pong ball with his brother indoors, and said that the ping-pong balls were not dangerous and one was not liable to get one’s head banged or to break the windows with them. Here he re- membered an incident of his early childhood, when he had received a hard blow from a football and lost consciousness. He had suffered no injury, but his nose or his teeth might easily have been hurt, he said. The memory of this incident proved to be a cover memory for his relations with an older friend who had seduced him. The ping-pong balls repre- sented his younger brother’s comparatively small and harmless penis, and the football that of his older friend. But since in his relations to his brother he identified him- self with the friend who had seduced him, those relations aroused a strong sense of guilt in him on account of the supposed damage he had done his brother. His emptying

and went deeper than appeared at first. And his withdrawal into himself and

^felike of company were based on a very decided flight from reality. These, I may add, were only some of the difficulties from which the boy was suffering,

as his deep-going analysis showed.

In this connection I should like to point out how severe the difficulties of even

normal children are (cf. Inge’s case, for instance). This fact of analytic experience is borne out by observations of everyday life; for it is surprising how often people who have hitherto seemed quite normal will break down with a neurosis or commit suicide for some quite slight cause. But, as the treatment of normal adults shows, even those persons who never do have a neurotic illness are burdened with inhibitions in intellectual and sexual matters and with a lack of capacity for enjoyment whose extent cannot be gauged except by psycho-analysis.

v TECHNIQUE OF ANALYSIS IN PUBERTY 129

of the battery and his fear of dirtying the box were deter- mined by his anxiety about the defilement and injury which

he had brought upon his brother by putting his penis into his mouth and forcing him to perform fellatio and which he himself expected to suffer as a result of having done that act with his older friend. His fear that he had dirtied and injured his brother internally was founded on sadistic phantasies about his brother and led to still deeper causes of his anxiety and guilt, namely, his sadistic masturbation

phantasies directed against his parents. Thus, starting from his confession about his relations with his brother a con-

fession expressed in symbolic form in his associations about

the steam-engine which needed repairing we gained access not only to other experiences and events in his life

but to the deepest levels of anxiety in him. I should also like to draw attention to the wealth of symbolic forms in which the material was put forward. This is typical of

analyses at the age of puberty, and, as in analyses of early

childhood, calls for a correspondingly extensive interpreta-

tion of the symbols employed.

Let us now turn to the analysis of girls at the age of

puberty. The onset of menstruation arouses strong anxiety in the girl. In addition to the various other meanings which it has and with which we are familiar, it is, in the last re- sort, the outward and visible sign that the interior of her body and the children contained there have been totally

destroyed.Forthisreasonthedevelopmentofacompletely feminine attitude in her takes longer and is beset by more

difficulties than is the case with the boy in establishing his

masculine position. As a result, her masculine components may become reinforced at the age of puberty; or she may

only accomplish a partial development, mostly on the in- tellectual side, remaining, as far as her sexual life and per-

sonality are concerned, in the latency stage sometimes even

beyond the age of puberty. In analysing the active type of girl with an attitude of rivalry towards the male sex, we

often begin by getting material similar to that produced by the boy. Very soon, however, the differences in structure

I3O

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

between the masculine and the feminine castration com- plexes make themselves felt, as we get down to the deeper levels of her mind and meet with the anxiety and sense of guilt which are derived from her feelings of aggression against her mother and which have led her to reject the feminine role and contributed to the formation of her castration complex. We now discover that it is her fear of having her body destroyed by her mother which has caused her thus to refuse to adopt the position of woman and mother. In this stage of her analysis the ideas she produces are very similar to what we get in small girls. In the second

type, the girl whose sexual life is strongly inhibited, an-

alysis is at first usually occupied with subjects of the kind put forward in the latency period. Stories about her school,

her wish to please her mistress and do her lessons^well, her

interest in needlework, etc., take up a great part of the time. In these cases, accordingly, we must use the methods

appropriate to the latency period and go on resolving her

anxiety piece-meal so that her repressed imaginative activi- ties are gradually freed. When we have done this to some

extent she will bring out more strongly those fears and

guilty feelings which, while leading in the first type of girl to an identification with the father, have in her case mili-

tated against the adoption of a feminine role and caused a general inhibition of her sexual life. Compared to the

adult woman, girls at the age of puberty are exposed to an anxiety which is much stronger and more acute in its expres-

sion, even where their position is predominantly a feminine one. A defiant and negative attitude in the transference is characteristic of this age and necessitates prompt establish- ment of the analytic situation. Again, analysis will often

show that the girl’s feminine position is falsely exaggerated and thrust into the foreground so as to conceal and keep

under the anxiety arising from her masculinity complex and, deeper still, the fears derived from her earliest feminine

attitude.

I shall now give an excerpt from an analysis which,

Cf. Joan Riviere, ‘Womanliness as a Masquerade (1929).

v TECHNIQUE OF ANALYSIS IN PUBERTY

13!

though not absolutely typical of that period, will illustrate

my general remarks on the technique to be applied to girls in pre-puberty and puberty, and will also help to demon-

strate the difficulties attendant upon their treatment at

that age.

Use, aged twelve, presented certain marked schizoid

features and her personality was unusually stunted. Not only had she not reached the level of an eight- or nine-

year-old child intellectually, but she did not even possess the interests normal to children of that age. She was, more-

over, inhibited in every imaginative activity to a striking degree. She had never played in the true sense of the word

and took no pleasure in any occupation whatever except a

compulsive and unimaginative sort of drawing, the char- acter of which will be discussed later. For instance, she did

not care for the company of others, did not like walking in the streets and looking at things, and had an aversion to the theatre, cinema and any kind of entertainment. Her chief interest was in food, and disappointments in this re-

spect always led to fits of rage and depression. She was very jealous of her brothers and sisters, but less on account of

having to share her mother’s love with them than for some fancied preference in what her mother gave them to eat. This unfriendly attitude towards her mother and her brothers and sisters went along with a poor social adapta- tion in general. She had no friends and apparently no de- sire to be liked or thought well of. Her relations with her mother were especially bad. From time to time she had violent outbursts of rage against her but she was at the same time strongly fixated to her. A long separation from herhomesurroundings shewassentawayfortwoyears to a boarding school had made no lasting change in her

condition.

When Use was about eleven and a half years old her

mother discovered her having sexual intercourse with her elder brother. This incident aroused recollections in the mother which told her that it was not the first of its kind. Analysis showed that her conviction was well founded and

132

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

also that the relationship between Use and her brother was continued after its discovery.

It was only at the urgent desire of her mother that Use

came to be analysed, impelled by that uncritical docility far behind her years which, along with her attitude of hatred,

characterized her fixation to her mother. At first I got her to lie down. Her scanty associations were concerned mainly with a comparison between the furniture in my room and in her home, especially her own room. She left in a state of

great resistance, did “not want to come to analysis next day,

and was only with great difficulty persuaded by her mother to do so. Now in cases of this kind it is necessary to estab-

lish the analytic situation quickly, for the support given by the child’s family will not last long. I had been struck by

the movements which Use had made with her fingers in her first hour. She had constantly been smoothing the folds of her frock as she made a few remarks about my furniture and compared it with hers at home. So during the second

hour, on her comparing a teapot I had in my room with one at home that was like it but not so beautiful, I started

giving interpretations, I explained that her comparison be-

tween objects really meant a comparison between people; she was comparing me or her mother with herself to her

own disadvantage because she felt guilty about having masturbated and believed it had done her some bodily

harm. I said that her continual smoothing out of the folds of her dress meant both masturbation and an attempt to

infantility and her difficulty in expressing herself in words and the acute anxiety from which she appeared to suffer,

I thought it advisable to change over to play technique.

1 An interpretation of this kind is not given in ordei to detect something

(such as masturbation) which the child is consciously concealing and so to get a hold over her. The object is to trace back the sense of guilt attaching to the masturbation (or whatever it may be) to its deeper sources and in that way to diminish it.

1 She denied this yet I could strongly ;

her

see the effect the interpretation had on her from the increase in the material she produced. Also, she did not refuse to comeforhernexthour.Nevertheless,inviewofhermarked

repair

genitals.

v TECHNIQUE OF ANALYSIS IN PUBERTY

133

During the months that followed. Use’s associations

consisted in the main of apparently utterly unimaginative drawings done with compasses, in which measuring and

calculating the component parts played an important role. The compulsive nature of this occupation became increas-

clear. 1 After much slow and

that the various forms and colours of these component

parts represented different people. Her compulsion to measure and count proved to be derived from her curi-

osity, which had become obsessive, to know for certain about the inside of her mother’s body and the number of children there, the differences between the sexes, and so forth. In this case, too, the inhibition of her whole person- ality and intellectual growth had arisen from a very early

repression of her epistemophilic instincts which had in

consequence undergone a complete reversal and changed into an obstinate antipathy to all knowledge. With the help

of this drawing, measuring and counting we made con- siderable progress and Use’s anxiety became less acute. Six

months after the beginning of her treatment, therefore, I

suggested that she should try again to carry on her analysis lying down, and she did so. Her anxiety grew more acute

at once; but I was soon able to reduce it, and from that time on her analysis went faster. Owing to the poverty and

monotony of her associations, this part of her analysis in no way came up to the normal standard of analytic work

at this age, it is true; but as it proceeded it approximated more and more closely to that standard. She now began to

want very much to satisfy her teacher and get good reports from her, but her severe inhibition in learning rendered

the fulfilment of this wish impossible. It was only now that

she began to be fully conscious of the disappointment and suffering which her deficiencies caused her. She would cry

for hours at home before beginning to write her essay for school, and would in fact fail to get it done. She would also

ingly

patient

work it

emerged

it is true, a passionate readerj but she did not care what the book was about, for reading was for her chiefly a means of escaping from reality.

Use had, in fact, no real interests that she could have talked about. She was,

134

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

be in despair if, before going to school, she found that she had not mended her stockings and they were in holes. Again and again her associations to her failure in learning led us to questions of a deficiency in her clothes or her body. For months on end her analytic hour was filled, along with stories about her school, with monotonous re- marks about her cuffs, the collar of her blouse, her ties and

every single item of her clothing how they were too long or too short or dirty or not the right colour.1

My material for analysis was at this time mainly taken from the details of her failure in her school essays. To her

unceasing complaints that she had nothing to write about the subject set I always replied by asking her to associate

ignorance were stimulated anew in her by each school task.

As in many other children, having to write an essay signified for her having to make a confession, and this touched her

anxiety and feelings of guilt very nearly. For instance, one

damm’, led to associations about shop windows and their contents and about things she would like to possess, as, for instance, a very large decorated match-box which she had seen in a shop window when she was out walking with her mother. They had actually gone into the shop and her motherhadstruckoneofthelargematchestotryit. She, Use, would have liked to do the same but refrained out of fear of her mother and the shop assistant, who represented

1 2 3

In a paper, ‘History as Phantasy’ (1929), Ella Sharpe has given an account of a case of an adult psychotic, in which for a long time she got her material for analysis almost entirely from the patient’s interest in historical events and was able on that basis to*penetrate to the lowest mental levels.

on that and these forced subject,

2 were instructive.3 Doing her school work meant an acknow- ledgment of the fact that she did not know, in the sense that she was ignorant of what went on when her parents copulated, or of what was inside her mother; and all the anxiety and obstinacy connected with this fundamental

of the subjects set, ‘A Description of the Kurfursten- 4

Cf. J. C. Flugel, The Psychology of Clothes (1930). Cf. Ferenczi, *On Forced Phantasies* (1924).

* OneofthemainshoppingcentresofBerlin.

phantasies

very

v TECHNIQUE OF ANALYSIS IN PUBERTY

135

a father-imago. The match-box and its contents, like the

contents of the shop windows, represented her mother’s

body, and the striking of the match meant coitus between

her parents. Her envy of her mother, who possessed her

father in copulation, and her aggressive impulses against her were the cause of her deepest feelings of guilt. Another

subject for a composition was ‘St. Bernard Dogs’. When Use had mentioned their cleverness in rescuing people who

were freezing to death she began to have a great resistance.

Her further associations showed that children buried in

the snow were in her imagination children who had been

abandoned. It proved that the difficulties she felt about

this subject were based on her death-wishes against her

younger sisters, both before and after their birth, and her

fear lest she should herself be abandoned by her mother as

a punishment. Moreover, every school task she had to do, whether oral or written, stood to her for a confession

about a whole number of things. And to these difficulties

were added special inhibitions about mathematics, geo-

metry, geography and so on.1

As Use’s difficulties in learning continued to diminish,

a very great change took place in her whole nature. She became capable of social adaptation, made friends with other girls and got on much better with her parents and her brothers and sisters. Her interests now approximated to what was suitable to a girl of her age; and as she was now a good scholar and a favourite with her mistresses and had become an almost too-obedient daughter, her family were completely satisfied with the success of her analysis and saw no reason for its continuance. But I was not of their opinion. It was obvious that at this point, when she

was thirteen and physical puberty had already begun, Use had only just accomplished a really successful transition to

the latency period and grown able to satisfy the standards of that period and to achieve a social adaptation. However

1 Inmypaper,’TheRoleoftheSchoolintheLibidinalDevelopmentofthe Child* (1923), I have discussed the wide significance of specific inhibitions attaching to each special branch of knowledge.

136

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

gratifying these analytic results might be, the child I saw

before me was still a completely unindependent being and still excessively fixated to her mother. Though her circle

of interests was greatly widening she was still hardly cap-

able of having any ideas of her own. She usually prefaced her expressions with such words as ‘Mother thinks’. Her

wish to please, the great care that she now took of her appearance in contrast to her former total indifference to it, her need for love and recognition and even her efforts to dobetterthanherschoolmates allthesesprangalmost entirely from her desire to please her mother and her mis- tresses. Her homosexual attitude was very strong and there were as yet scarcely any heterosexual impulses visible in her.

The continuation of the analysis, which now proceeded in a normal way, led to great changes not only in this

respect but in the whole development of Use’s personality. In this she was very much helped by the fact that we were

able to analyse the great anxiety which the onset of men- struation aroused in her at this time. Her excessive positive attachment to her mother, against whom she nevertheless still had occasional outbursts of rage, was now seen to be

caused by anxiety and a sense of guilt. Further analysis, by

completely uncovering her original attitude of rivalry with her mother and the intense hatred and envy she felt to-

wards her on account of her possessicn of the father (and

his penis) and the pleasure she gave him, was able greatly to strengthen her heterosexual tendencies and diminish her

homosexual ones. It was only now that her psychological puberty really set in. Before this, she had not been in a position to criticize her mother and form her own opinions, because this would have signified making a violent sadistic attack upon her mother. The analysis of this sadism enabled Use to achieve an independence of thought and action in keeping with her age. At the same time her opposition to her mother appeared more plainly, but it did not lead to special difficulties since these were outweighed by her all-

round improvement. Somewhat later, after an analysis

V TECHNIQUE OF ANALYSIS IN PUBERTY

137

extending over 425 hours, Use was able to achieve a

firm and affectionate relationship with her mother and

at the same time to establish a satisfactory heterosexual 1

position.

In this case, we see how the girl’s failure to deal with

her over-strong sense of guilt was able to disturb not only her transition to the latency period but the whole later course of her development. Her affects, which found an outlet in occasional outbursts of rage, had been displaced

and her anxiety unsuccessfully modified. Although she made the unmistakable impression of being an unhappy

and unsatisfied individual, she was not aware of her own anxiety and of her dissatisfaction with herself. It was a great advance in her analysis, when I was able to make her understand that she was unhappy and to show her that she felt inferior and unloved and that she was in despair about

it and, in her hopelessness, would make no attempt to gain the love of others. After this, in place of her former appar-

ent indifference to affection and praise from the world

around her there appeared an exaggerated longing for them, which is characteristic of the latency period and

which led to that attitude of extreme obedience and fixa- tion to her mother described above. The later part of her analysis, which uncovered the deeper foundations of her severe feelings of guilt and of her failure, was far easier now that she was fully aware of her illness.

Allusion has earlier been made to sexual acts com- mitted between Use and her brother, who was a year and a half older than herself. Not long after I had begun her analysis I undertook the treatment of her brother as well. Both analyses showed that the sexual connection between them went back to early childhood and had been continued

throughout the latency period, although at rare intervals and in a mitigated form. The remarkable thing was that

Use had no conscious sense of guilt about it but de- tested her brother. The analysis of her brother had the

1 Two and a half after the years

of her I heard that she analysis

completion

was developing well in spite of great external difficulties.

138

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

effect of making him put a complete stop to these sexual relations, and this at first aroused a still more intense hatred of him in her. But later on in her analysis, along

with the other changes brought about in her, she began

to have strong feelings of guilt and anxiety about these 1

episodes.

Use’s method of modifying her feelings of guilt, by which she refused all responsibility for her actions and

adopted a very unpleasant, defiant and antipathetic attitude to her environment, is, I have found, typical of a certain class of asocial individual. In Kenneth,2 for instance, who

displayed such complete indifference to the opinions of others and such extraordinary want of shame, there were

similar mechanisms at work. And they are to be found even

in the more normal, merely ‘naughty’ child. Analyses of children of every age go to show that the lessening of their latent feelings of guilt and anxiety leads to a better social

adaptation and to a strengthening of their sense of personal

responsibility the more so the deeper the analysis goes. This case also gives us certain indications for deciding

which factors in the development of a girl are necessary for her to make a successful transition to the latency period, and which to make the further transition to puberty. As has already been said, we often find that at the age of

puberty the girl is still in a protracted latency period. By analysing the early stages of her development and the early

anxiety and feelings of guilt derived from her aggressive- ness against her mother, we can enable her to make not

only a satisfactory transition to the stage of puberty but a subsequent transition to adult life and can thus ensure

the complete development of her feminine sex-life and

personality.

There yet remains to call attention to the technique em-

ployed in the treatment of this case. In the first part of it I used the technique belonging to the latency period, and

1 InChapterVII.weshallreturntoafullerdiscussionofthisrelationshipin

another connection.

Cf. Chapter IV.

v TECHNIQUE OF ANALYSIS IN PUBERTY

139

in the second that belonging to puberty. Reference has

repeatedly been made in these pages to the connecting links between the modes of analysis appropriate to different

stages. Let me say at once that I regard the technique of

early analysis as the basis of the technique applicable to children of every age. In the last chapter I have said that

my method of analysing children of the latency period was entirely based on the play technique I had worked out for

small children. But as the cases discussed in the present

chapter show, the technique of early analysis is indispens- able for many patients at the age of puberty as well; for we shall be unsuccessful with many of these often very

difficult cases unless we sufficiently take into account the adolescent’s need for action and for expression of phantasy and are careful to regulate the amount of anxiety liberated

and, in general, adopt an exceedingly elastic technique. In analysing the deepest strata of the mind we have to

observe certain definite conditions. In comparison with the

modified anxiety of the higher strata, the anxiety belong- ing to the deep levels is far greater both in amount and

intensity, and it is therefore imperative that its liberation

should be duly regulated. We do this by continually re- ferring the anxiety back to its sources and resolving it and

by systematically analysing the transference-situation.

In the first chapters of this book I have described how, in cases where the child was very timid or unfriendly to-

wards me at first, I immediately began to analyse its nega- tive transference and to detect and interpret the hidden

signs of latent anxiety in it in good time, before they became manifest and led to an anxiety-attack. In order to be able to do this the analyst must be thoroughly conversant with the anxiety-reactions of the earliest phases of the child’s development and with the defensive mechanisms employed by its ego against them. In fact, he must have a theoretic knowledge of the structure of the deepest layers of the mind. His interpretative work must be directed to that part of the material which is associated with the greatest amount of latent anxiety and must uncover the anxiety-

I4O

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

situations which have been activated. He must also estab- lish the connection between that latent anxiety and (a) the

particular sadistic phantasies underlying it, () the defen- sive mechanisms employed by the ego to master it. That is

to say, in resolving a given piece of anxiety by interpreta- tion he should follow up a little way the threats of the

super-ego, the impulses of the id and the attempts of the ego to reconcile the two. In this way he will be able gradu-

ally to bring into consciousness the whole content of the

particular piece of anxiety which is being stirred up at the time. To do this it is absolutely necessary that he should

keep to strictly analytic methods in regard to his patient,

since it is only by abstaining from exerting any educational or moral influence whatever on the child that he can ever

analyse the deepest levels of its mind. For if he prevents it

from bringing out certain id-impulses he will inevitably keepdownotherimpulsesaswell; andeveninthesmall

child he will find it hard enough without that to make his way down to its most primitive oral-sadistic and anal-

sadistic phantasies.

Moreover, by having the liberation of its anxiety sys-

tematically regulated the child will not suffer from a too

great accumulation ofanxiety during intervals in its analysis

or if the treatment is broken off before being completed.

In such circumstances, it is true, the anxiety often does become more acute for the time being, but the child’s ego is

soon able to bind it and modify it, and to a greater degree than before analysis. In some instances the child may

escape even a passing phase of more acute anxiety of this kind.1

1 Inanumberofinstances,rangingfromchildrenofthreetotwelveyearsof age, in which I had to break off analysis after a treatment of from three to nine months, I have found that the child presented a considerably less disquieting picture than when it first came to me. Besides the cases of Rita, Trude and Ruth, which the reader will recall (Chapter II.), I may mention the case of a boy of twelve who came to me with outspoken ideas of being poisoned. After six months* analysis he had to go abroad. By that time his fears had not only been lessened but he showed favourable changes in his general condition, which were observable, among other things, in a greater ease of manner. (When last I heard of him, two and a half years after the end of his treatment, this improvement had been maintained.) In every instance, moreover, the child itself has felt better. And

V TECHNIQUE OF ANALYSIS IN PUBERTY 14!

After having had our attention so persistently called to the similarities between the age of puberty and the early period of the child’s life, let us once more shortly review their differences. The fuller development of the ego at the age of puberty and its more grown-up interests demand a

technique approximating to that of adult analysis. In cer- tain children or in certain sections of an analysis we may

have to employ other methods of representation, but, in

general, in analyses at the age of puberty we have to rely chiefly on verbal associations in order to enable the adoles-

cent to establish a complete relation with reality and with his normal field of interest.

For these reasons, before undertaking the analysis of children at puberty the analyst must thoroughly under-

stand the technique of adult analysis. In general, indeed, I consider a regular training in the analysis of adults as a

necessary groundwork for special training as a child-

analyst. No one who has not gained adequate experience and done a fair amount of work on adults should enter

upon the technically more difficult field of child analysis. In order to be able to preserve the fundamental principles of analytic treatment in the modified form necessitated by the child’s mechanisms at the various stages of its develop- ment, he must, besides being fully trained in the technique ofearlyanalysis, possesscompletemasteryofthetechnique employed in analysing adults.

r although an unfinished analysis of this sort cannot do more than lessen the child s

neurosis, it does much, in my judgment, to obviate the danger of a psychosis or severe obsessional neurosis setting in later on. I have come to the conviction that

every step, however slight, in the direction of resolving anxiety in the deepest levels of the mind effects, if not a cure, at least an improvement of the child’s condition.

CHAPTER VI NEUROSIS IN CHILDREN

the preceding pages we have discussed the technique by which children can be as deeply analysed as grown-

IN We shall now up persons.

on to consider the

go blem of indications for treatment.

pro-

Thefirstquestionthatarisesis: whatdifficultiesareto be regarded as normal and what as neurotic in children

when are they simply being naughty and when are they really ill? In general, one expects to meet with certain typi-

cal difficulties, varying considerably in quantity and effect, which, so long as they do not exceed certain bounds, are

regarded as inevitable accompaniments of the growth of the child. But for this very reason, we are, I think, in-

clined to pay too little attention to the question how far

these everyday difficulties are to be regarded as beginnings and signs of serious developmental disturbances.

Derangements in eating, if they are at all serious, and, above all, manifestations of anxiety, whether in the form

of night-terrors or phobias, are generally recognized as definitely neurotic manifestations. But a study of small

children shows that their anxiety takes on very various and

disguised forms, and that even at the early age of two or three they exhibit modifications of anxiety which imply

the action of a very complicated process of repression. After they have got over their night-terrors, for instance, they are still for some time subject to disturbances of sleep,

such as getting off to sleep late, waking up early, having a restless or easily disturbed sleep, being unable to sleep in

the afternoon all of which are found in analysis to be 142

CH. VI NEUROSIS IN CHILDREN

143

modified forms of the original pavor nocturnus. To this

group also belong the many fads and ceremonies, often of

so disquieting a nature, which children indulge in at bed-

time. In the same way, their original crude disturbances

in l will often turn into a habit of or eating eating slowly

not masticating properly or into a general lack of appetite or even merely into bad table manners.

It is easy to see that the anxiety children feel with re-

gard to particular people often gives place to general timid- ity. Still later it appears often as no more than an inhibition

in social intercourse or as shyness. All these degrees of fear

are only modifications of their original anxiety which, as in the case of fear of people, may determine their whole social behaviour later on. An outspoken phobia of certain animals will go over into a dislike of them or of animals in general. Fear of inanimate things, which to small children are always endowed with life, will come out later on as an inhibition of activities connected with them. Thus in one

instance a child’s phobia of the telephone apparatus be- came, in later years, an aversion to telephoning; and in

other cases, a fear of engines gave rise to a dislike of travel-

ling or a tendency to get very tired on journeys. In others again, a fear of streets grew into a disinclination to go out

for walks; and so on. Into this class come inhibitions in

2 and active and these inhibitions can show games,

sport

themselves in all kinds of ways, such as distaste for special

forms of sport or general dislike of them, or liability to fatigue or clumsiness, etc. To this class, too, belong the idiosyncrasies, habits and inhibitions of the normal adult.

The normal adult can rationalize his dislikes which are

neverwanting inallsortsofwaysbycallingtheobject

of them ‘boring*, ‘in bad taste* or ‘unhygienic’ and many other things, whereas in a child dislikes and habits of this

kind which, it must be admitted, are more intense and less adapted socially than in the adult, are attributed to ‘naughti-

1 In

IX. we shall discuss the nature of the

anxiety underlying

Chapter

infantile disturbances in eating.

Cf. my paper ‘Infant Analysis’ (1923)*

144

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

ness’. Yet they are invariably an expression of anxiety and

feelings of guilt. They are intimately related to phobias and usually to obsessional ceremonials as well and are

complexively determined in every detail; and for this reason they are often very resistant to educative measures,

though they can frequently be resolved by analysis like any

neurotic symptom.

Space forbids the mention of more than one or two in-

stances from this interesting field of observation. In one boy, opening his eyes wide and making a face was meant to reassure him that he was not going to go blind. In

another, blinking served the same purpose. In yet a third, keeping his mouth open and then whistling signified

a confession of having performed fellatio^ followed by a withdrawal of that confession. The unruly behaviour of

children while being bathed or having their hair washed is, as I have repeatedly found, nothing but a hidden fear

of being castrated or having their whole body destroyed. Nose-picking, in both children and adults, has turned out

to represent, among other things, an anal attack on the bodies of their parents. The difficulties parents and nurses

have in persuading children to perform the simplest ser- vices or acts of consideration difficulties which often

make things so unpleasant for the person in charge invariably turn out to be determined by anxiety. A child’s

dislike, for instance, of taking an object out of a box will

not infrequently be due to the fact that doing so signifies an enactment of its phantasy of making an attack on its

mother’s body.

Children often show a kind of over-liveliness which

often goes along with an overbearing and defiant manner and which people frequently mistake either for a special

sign of ‘temperament’ or for disobedience, according to their point of view. Such behaviour is, like aggression, an

over-compensation for anxiety, and this method of modi- fying anxiety greatly influences the child’s character-forma-

tion and its later attitude to 1 The society.

‘fidgetiness’ 1 Cf. Reich, ‘Phobic und Charakterbildung’ (1930).

vi NEUROSIS IN CHILDREN

145

which often accompanies this over-animation is, in my

judgment, an important symptom. The motor discharges which the little child achieves through fidgeting often be-

come condensed at the beginning of the latency period into definite stereotyped movements which are usually lost to view in the general picture of excessive mobility which the child presents. At the age of puberty, or sometimes even earlier, they reappear or become more obvious and form the basis of a tic. 1

Repeated reference has been made to the great import- ance of inhibitions in play. These inhibitions, which can be concealed under the most diverse forms, are present in every degree of strength. Dislike of certain definite games

and a lack of perseverance in any one game are examples of partial inhibition in play. Again, some children have

to have someone who will play a large part in the game, take the initiative in it, fetch the playthings, and so on.

Others only like games that they can play exactly accord- ing to set rules, or only like certain kinds of games (in

which case they usually play them with great assiduity). These children suffer from a powerful repression of phan-

tasy, accompanied, as a rule, by compulsive traits; and their games have the character of an obsessional symptom rather

than a sublimation.

Thereisakindofplaybehindwhich especiallyduring

thetransitionintothelatencyperiod stereotypedorrigid movements are concealed. For instance, an eight-year-old

boy used to play at being a policeman on point duty and used to carry out certain movements and repeat them for

hours together, remaining motionless in certain attitudes for long periods at a time. In other cases some particular game will conceal a peculiar restlessness closely allied to tic.

A dislike of active games in general and want of skill in them is a forerunner of later inhibitions in sport and is

always an important sign that something is wrong.

1 Inmypaper,*ZurGenesedesTic*(1925),Ihaveshownthataticshould

often be regarded as a sign of faulty development and of the existence of deep- seated and concealed disturbances.

146

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

In many cases inhibitions in playing are the basis of inhibitions in learning. In several cases where children who were inhibited in play did become good scholars it turned out that their impulse to learn was mainly compulsive, and

someofthemlateron especiallyatpuberty developed severe limitations in their capacity to learn. Inhibitions in

learning, like inhibitions in play, can possess every degree of strength and every variety of form, such as indolence,

lack of interest, strong dislike of particular subjects or an inability to learn lessons except at the last moment or

under compulsion. Such inhibitions in learning are often the basis of later vocational inhibitions whose earliest signs, therefore, are often already to be seen in the small child’s inhibitions in play.

In my paper, ‘The Development of a Child’ (1921), I have said that the resistance children show to sexual en-

lightenment is a very important indication of something

being wrong. If they abstain from asking any questions on the subject and such an abstention often succeeds to, or

alternates with, obsessive asking we must regard it as a symptom founded upon often very serious affections of the epistemophilic instincts. As we well know, the weari- some questionings of the child are often prolonged into the brooding mania of the adult with which neurotic disorders are always associated.

A tendency to plaintiveness in children and a habit of falling down and knocking or hurting themselves are to be

regarded as expressions of various fears and feelings of guilt. Analysis of children has convinced me that such

recurrent minor accidents and sometimes more seri- ous ones are substitutes for self-inflicted injuries of a

graver kind and may represent attempts at suicide with insufficient means. With many children, especially boys,

excessive sensibility to pain is often replaced very early on by an exaggerated indifference to it, but this indifference

is, I have found, only.an elaborate defence against, and modification of, anxiety.

The child’s attitude towards presents is also very typical.

VI NEUROSIS IN CHILDREN

147

Many children are quite insatiable in this respect, and no present can give them real and lasting satisfaction or lead to anything but disappointment. Others have too little desire for them and are equally indifferent to every gift. In grown-up people we can observe the same two attitudes. Among women there are those who are always longing for new clothes but who never really enjoy them and appar-

ently never have ‘anything to put on’. These are generally women who are always hunting after amusement and who

more often than not change their love-object very easily and cannot find true sexual satisfaction. Then there are

those who are bored and desire nothing very much. In analysis it becomes clear that presents signify to the child all the love-gifts which it has had to do without its mother’s milk and breast, its father’s penis, urine, stool and babies. Presents also alleviate its sense of guilt by sym- bolizing the free gift of things which it has wanted to take by sadistic means. In its unconscious it regards not getting presents, like all other frustrations, as a punishment for the aggressive impulses that are bound up with its libidinal de- sires. In other cases, where the child is still more unfavour- ably situated in regard to its excessive sense of guilt or has failed to modify it, its fear of fresh disappointments will cause it to suppress its libidinal desires altogether so that the presents it does receive afford it no real pleasure.

The child who is unable to tolerate its early frustrations, for the reasons given above, will in its unconscious also regard every later frustration it receives in the course of its upbringing as a punishment, with the result that it

becomes unmanageable and badly adapted to reality. In bigger children and in some cases in little children too

this incapacity to tolerate frustrations is often covered over

by a seeming adaptation, on account of their need to please thepeopleaboutthem.Anapparentadaptationofthiskind

is liable, especially in the latency period, to conceal from view the presence of deeper-seated difficulties.

The attitude many children have towards festivals is also very characteristic. They look forward to Christinas Day,

148

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

Easter and so on with great impatience, only to be left completely unsatisfied by them when they are over. Days like these, and sometimes even Sundays, hold out the hope to a greater or lesser degree of a renewal, a ‘fresh start’, as it were, and, in connection with the presents that are ex-

pected, of a making good of all the bad things that they have suffered and done. Family occasions touch very deeply

the complexes connected with the child’s situation in home-

life. A birthday, for instance, always represents re-birth, and other children’s birthdays stimulate the conflicts con- nected with the birth of real or imaginary brothers and sisters. The way in which children react to occasions of this kind is therefore one of the tests of the presence of a neurosis in them.

Dislike of the theatre, cinema and shows of all kinds is intimately connected with disturbances of the child’s epistemophilic instincts. The basis of this disturbance is, I have found, a repressed interest in the sexual life of its parents and in its own sexual life. This attitude, which brings about an inhibition of many sublimations, is ulti-

mately due to anxiety and feelings of guilt belonging to a

very early stage of development and arising from aggres- sive phantasies directed against sexual intercourse between

the parents.

I should also like to emphasize the part played by psychological factors in the various physical illnesses to

which children are liable. I have become convinced that

many children mostly express their anxiety and sense of

guilt by falling ill (in which case getting well has the

effect of allaying anxiety) and that in general the frequent

illnesses they go through at a certain age are partly brought on by neurosis. This psychogenetic element has the effect

of increasing not only the child’s liability to infection, but theseverityandlengthoftheillnessitself.1 Ingeneral,I

have found that after analysis the child is much less liable

1 Insomecasesofwhooping-cough,forInstance,inwhichanalytictreatment was resumed after only a short interruption, I have found that the coughing fits increased in violence during the first week of analysis but rapidly decreased after that and that the illness ended much sooner than usual. In these cases every

VI NEUROSIS IN CHILDREN

149

to colds in especial. In some cases its susceptibility to them has been almost entirely removed.

We know that neurosis and character-formation are in- timately connected and that in many analyses of adults extensive changes of character take place as well. Now whereas the analysis of older children nearly always effects

favourable changes in character, early analysis, in removing a neurosis, brings about a far-reaching removal of educa- tional difficulties. There thus seems to be a certain analogy

between the small child’s educational difficulties and what in the older child and the adult are known as charactero- logical difficulties. It is a noteworthy fact that in talking of ‘character* we think primarily of the individual himself even when his character has a disturbing influence on his environment, but that in talking of ‘educational difficul- ties’ we think first and foremost of the difficulties which the people in charge of the child have to contend with. In this way we often overlook the fact that these educational

difficulties are the expression of significant processes of de- velopment which reach completion with the decline of the

Oedipus complex. What come to our notice, among other things, as excessive educational difficulties in the child arise from the processes which have formed and still are forming its character and which underlie any later neurosis or de-

fect of development from which it may suffer, so that they

should more properly be regarded as characterological difficulties and as neurotic symptoms.

-V From what has been said above, then, we see that the difficulties which are never lacking in the development of a small child are neurotic in character. In other words,

every child passes through a neurosis differing only in de- gree from one individual to another. 1 Since psycho-analysis

coughing fit, owing to its unconscious meaning, released severe anxiety, and this

anxiety, again, considerably reinforced the stimulus to cough.

1 This view, which I have maintained for a number of years now, has lately

received valuable support. In his book, Die Frage der Laienanalyse (1926), Freud writes: ‘Since we have learnt to see more clearly we are almost inclined to say that the occurrence of a neurosis in childhood is not the exception but the rule. It seems as though it is a thing that cannot be avoided in the course of develop- ment from the infantile disposition to the social life of the adult* (S. 61).

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

has been found to be the most efficacious means of remov- ing the neuroses of adults, it seems logical to make use of

psycho-analysis in combating the neuroses of children, and,

moreover, seeing that every child goes through a neurosis,

to apply it to all children. At present, owing to practical

considerations, it is only possible to submit the neurotic difficulties of normal children to analytic treatment in rare

instances. In describing indications for treatment, there-

fore, it is important to state what signs suggest the pre- sence of a severe neurosis, a neurosis, that is, that places it beyond doubt that the child will suffer considerable diffi-

culties in later years as well.

We shall not stop to discuss those infantile neuroses

whose severity is unmistakable owing to the extent and character of the symptoms, but shall consider one or two cases in which, because insufficient attention has been paid to the specific indications of infantile neuroses, their true gravity has not been recognized. The reason why the neuroses of children have attracted so much less attention than the neuroses of adults is, I think, because in many re-

spects their outward signs differ essentially from the symp- toms of adults. Analysts have known, it is true, that be-

neath the neurosis of the adult there always lay an infantile neurosis, but for a long time they have failed to draw the only possible inference from this fact, namely, that neur-

oses must be, to say the least, extremely common among children and this although the child itself puts before them evidence enough for such a view.

In judging what is neurotic in a child we cannot apply

the standards proper to adults. It is by no means those

children who approximate most nearly to non-neurotic

adults who are the least neurotic themselves. Thus, for in-

stance, a small child which fulfils all the requirements of

its upbringing and does not let itself be dominated by its

life of phantasy and instinct, which is, in fact, to all appear-

ances completely adapted to reality and, moreover, shows little sign of anxiety such a child would assuredly not

only be a precocious being and quite devoid of charm, but

VI NEUROSIS IN CHILDREN

would be abnormal in the fullest sense of the word. If we

complete this picture by supposing that its imaginative life has undergone the extensive repression which would be a

necessary condition of such a development we should cer- tainly have cause to regard its future with concern. The neurosis it suffers from would not be less in degree than

the average, but merely without symptoms, and, as we know from the analysis of adults, a neurosis of this kind is usually a serious one.

>< Normally,weshouldexpecttoseecleartracesofthe severe struggles and crises through which the child passes in the first years of its life. These signs, however, differ in many ways from the symptoms of the neurotic adult. Up to a certain point the normal child brings to view its ambi- valence and affects, its subjection to instinctual urges and

phantasies and the influences proceeding from its super- ego; and it puts certain difficulties in the way of its adapta-

tion to reality and therefore in the way of its upbringing and is by no means always an ‘easy* child. But if its anxiety and ambivalence and the obstacles it presents to its adapta- tion to reality go beyond a certain limit, and the difficulties under which it suffers and which it makes its environment suffer are too great, then it ought to be called a decidedly neurotic child. Nevertheless, I still think that a neurosis of this type may often be less severe than a neurosis of the type in which the repression of affect has been so crushing and has set in so early that there is hardly any visible sign left of emotion or anxiety in the child. What actually differentiates the less neurotic from the more neurotic child is, besides

the question of quantitative differences, the manner in which it deals with its difficulties.

The characteristic signs of an infantile neurosis, as de-

scribed above, constitute a valuable point of departure for

the study of the methods, often very obscure, by which the child has modified its anxiety and of the fundamental posi- tion which it has taken up. Thus, for example, it may be assumed that if a child does not like going to shows of any sort, such as the theatre or cinema, takes no pleasure in

I 2 THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

asking questions and is inhibited in its play or can only

play certain games with no imaginative content, it is suffer- ing from severe inhibitions of its epistemophilic instinct

and from an extensive repression of its imaginative life,

although it may be otherwise well-adapted and seem to have no very marked troubles. Such a child will satisfy its

desire for knowledge at a later age mostly in a very obses- sional way and will often produce other neurotic disturb- ances in the same connection.

It has been said that in many children the original in- ability to tolerate frustration becomes obscured by an ex-

tensive adaptation to the requirements of their upbringing. *

They very early become ‘good’ and clever’ children. But it is precisely these children who most commonly have that attitude of indifference to presents and treats, and so on, that has been mentioned above. If in addition to this attitude they show an extensive inhibition in playing and an excessive fixation to their objects, the probability of their

succumbing to a neurosis in later years is very great. For children like these have adopted a pessimistic view of life

and an attitude of renunciation to it. Their chief aim is to fight off their anxiety and feelings of guilt at all costs, even

if it means giving up all happiness and all gratification of their instincts. At the same time they are more than ordin-

arily dependent upon their objects because they look to their external environment for protection and support

their own

ous, though not estimated at their true value either, are the difficulties presented by those children whose insati-

able craving for presents goes along with an incapacity to tolerate the frustrations imposed on them by their up-

bringing.

It is fairly certain that in the typical cases here described

the prospects of the child’s achieving real stability of mind in the future are not favourable. As a rule, too, the general

impressionthechildmakes itswayofholdingitself,its facial expression, its movements and speech betrays an i Cf. M. N. Searl, ‘The Flight to Reality’ (1929),

against

anxiety

and sense of 1 More obvi- guilt.

VI NEUROSIS IN CHILDREN

1^3

unsuccessful internal adaptation. In any case, analysis alone can show how severe the disturbances are. I have again and

again emphasized the fact that the presence of a psychosis or of psychotic traits has often not been discovered in a

child until it has been analysed for a considerable length of time. This is because the psychoses of children, like their

neuroses, differ in many ways in their mode of expression from the psychoses of adults. In some children I have

treated, whose neurosis already at an early age had the character of a severe obsessional neurosis in an adult, an-

show that it is fairly well adapted internally? It is a hopeful sign if it enjoys playing and gives free rein to its phantasy in doing so, being at the same time, as can be recognized from certain definite indications, well adapted to reality, and if it has really good not over-affectionate relations

to its objects. Another good sign is if, together with this, it shows a relatively undisturbed development of its epis-

temophilic impulses, so that they flow freely in a number of different directions, without, on the other hand, having

that character of compulsion and intensity which is typical of an obsessional neurosis. The emergence of a certain

amount of affect and anxiety is also, I think, a pre-condi- tion of a favourable development. These and other reasons

for a favourable prognosis have in my experience, however, only a relative value and are no absolute guarantee of the

future; for it often depends on the unforeseeable favour- able or unfavourable external realities which the child en- counters as it grows up whether its neurosis will reappear in later years or not.

Furthermore it seems to me that we do not know much about the mental structure of the normal individual or the difficulties that beset his unconscious, since he has been so

much less the object of psycho-analytic investigation than

the neurotic. Analytic experience of healthy children of various ages has convinced me that even though their ego

showed that

The question now to be considered is: how does a child

alysis

strong paranoid

1 Cf. the analyses of Eraa (Chapter III.) and Egon (Chapter IV.).

features were 1 present.

154

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

reacts in a normal way they too have to face great quanti- ties of anxiety, severe unconscious guilt and deep depres- sion and that in some cases the only thing that distinguishes their difficulties from those of the neurotic child is that they are able to deal with them in a more confident and active manner. The result obtained by analytic treatment in these cases too seems to me to prove its value even for children who are only very slightly neurotic. 1 There can be no doubt that by diminishing their anxiety and sense of guilt, and effecting fundamental changes in their sexual life analysis can exert a great influence not only on neurotic children but on normal ones as well.2

The next question to be considered is at what point the

analysis of a child is to be regarded as completed. In adults we can tell this from various signs, such as that the patient

has become capable of working and loving, of looking after himself in the circumstances in which he is placed and of

making whatever decisions are necessary in the conduct of his life. If we know what the factors are which lead to failure in grown-up people and if we are alive to the pre- sence of similar factors in children we possess a reliable guide in deciding whether an analysis has reached com-

pletion or not.

In adult life the individual may succumb to a neurosis,

to characterological defects, to disturbances of his capa- city for sublimation or to disorders of his sexual life. As

regards neurosis, its presence at an early age can be de- tected, as I have endeavoured to show, by various slight

butcharacteristicsigns; anditscureatthatageisthebest

prophylaxis against its appearance in later years. As regards characterological defects and difficulties, they, too, are best

prevented by being eliminated in childhood. Concerning the third point, the play of children, which enables us to

1 Cf.theanalysesofWilly(ChapterV.)andInge(ChapterIV.).

3 This assumption is also supported by the fact that in a cumber of cases I have had the child has successfully accomplished the transition to the stage of development next above the one it has been in, even including in some instances the critical transition to puberty and the transition from that period into adult life*.

VI NEUROSIS IN CHILDREN

155

penetrate so deeply into their minds, gives us an idea of when their analysis has been completed in respect of their future capacity for sublimation. Before we can consider the analysis of a small child as completed, its inhibitions in

playing

must have been reduced.1 When this has largely

happened its interest in the play appropriate to its age will have become not only deeper and more stable but will also

have been extended in various directions.

If, as a result of analysis, a child’s obsessive interest

in a single game becomes steadily enlarged until it covers

many other forms of play, this process is equivalent to the expansion of interests and the increase of capacity for sub-

limation which is achieved in the analysis of an adult. In this way, by understanding the play of children we can estimatetheircapacityforsublimationinfutureyears; and

we can also tell when an analysis has sufficiently guarded against future inhibitions of their capacity to learn and to

work.

Finally, the development of the child’s interests in

games, and the variations in quantity and kind which they

show, enable us to gauge whether a good foundation has

been laid for its sexual life in adult years. This may be

illustrated by the analysis of two small children a boy

and a girl. Kurt, aged five, occupied himself at first, like most boys, with the toy motors and trains on my play-

table. He picked them out from among the other toys and played some games with them. He compared their size and power, made them travel to a definite goal and expressed

in this symbolic and, according to my experience, typical

way, a comparison in respect of his penis, his potency and his personality as a whole with his father and brothers. It

might have been assumed that these actions pointed to a normal and active heterosexual attitude in him. But his

markedly apprehensive and unboyish nature gave quite a

2 and as the the analysis proceeded

contrary impression ;

1 In older children inhibitions in learning and in active games must be

similarly reduced.

1 Kurt’s passive attitude had been strengthened by the fact that he was the

vountrest bv manv vears of a number of brothers. He was therefore in many

156

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

truth of this impression was confirmed. His games repre- senting his rivalry with his father for the possession of his mother were very soon interrupted by the onset of severe

anxiety. It appeared that he had developed a predominantly passive homosexual attitude but, owing to anxiety, could not maintain this attitude either and had therefore found

refuge in megalomaniac phantasies. On this unrealistic basis he could thrust in the foreground and exaggerate

both to himself and others a portion of the active and masculine tendencies which still remained alive in him.

I have often referred to the fact that children’s play, like dreams, has a fafade and that we can only discover its latent content by means of a thorough analysis, in the same way as we discover the latent content of dreams. But since play, owing to its closer relation to reality and its para-

mount position as a vehicle for the expression of phantasies, undergoes a stronger secondary elaboration, it is only very

gradually, by observing the successive changes that take place in the games of children, that we can get to know the various currents of thought and feeling which flow beneath them.

We have seen that in Kurt the active masculine attitude which he exhibited in his first games in analysis was for the most part only a pretence and that it was soon broken off by

theappearanceofsevereanxiety.Thismarkedthebeginning of the analysis of his passive homosexual attitude, but it was only after a considerable period of treatment (which

occupied in all about 450 sessions) that the anxiety which opposed that attitude was to some degree reduced. When

this had been accomplished the toy animals which had

originally represented imaginary allies in his fight against his father emerged as children, and his passive feminine

attitude and the desire for children which arose from it

now found

1 plainer expression.

ways in the situation of an only child, and he suffered much from comparisons with his active elder brothers whose superiority was all the more oppressive from their habit of bringing it home to him.

1 Inmypaper,’EarlyStagesoftheOedipusConflict (1928),Ihavediscussed

the earliest foundation of the feminine position in the male child and have tried

VI NEUROSIS IN CHILDREN 1 57

Analysis of Kurt’s fear of the ‘mother with a penis* and of his excessive terror of his father 1 had the effect of in- creasing and once more bringing to the fore his active heterosexual position. He was able to give a more sustained

expression in his play to his feelings of rivalry with his father. He once more took up the games he had played at

the beginning of his analysis but this time he played them

more steadily and imaginatively. He would, for instance, take great pains to build up the garages in which the

motors were housed and was indefatigable in adding fresh itemstowardstheirperfection; orhewouldconstructdif- ferent kinds of villages and towns for the cars to make

expeditions to expeditions which symbolized his rivalry with his father for the possession of his mother. In the

pleasure and care he took in making these villages, towns and garages he gave expression to his desire to restore his mother whom he had attacked in imagination. At the same time his attitude to his mother underwent a com- plete change in real life. As his anxiety and sense of guilt lessened and he became more capable of entertaining re- active tendencies, he began to have a much more affec- tionate attitude towards her.

The gradual strengthening of his heterosexual im- pulses was registered in numerous alterations that he made in his play. At first the separate details of it showed that

here, too, his pregenital fixations still predominated or rather continually alternated with his genital fixations.

For instance, the load which the train brought to the town

or the van delivered at the house often symbolized excre-

ments and in that case it would be delivered at the back ;

door. The fact that these games represented a violent kind of anal coitus with his mother appeared, among other

to show that his femininity complex undergoes a very early modification and becomes buried beneath the castration complex, to which it makes certain contributions. It is for this reason that the boy often very speedily relinquishes such games as playing with dolls, which correspond to his feminine components, and goes over to games which lay exaggerated emphasis on his masculinity.

1 In this case also the aggressive feelings he had in regard to coitus between his parents proved to be the deepest motive force of his anxiety; and the ‘woman with a penis* meant the mother who had incorporated his father’s penis.

158

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

things, from the fact that in unloading, say, coal from a van, the garden or house would often be damaged, the

people in the house get angry and his game soon be stopped

by his own anxiety.

The conveying of loads of different kinds occupied, with

its wealth of detail, the whole of one part of Kurt’s an-

1 Sometimes it would be vans from fetching goods

alysis.

the market or taking them there, sometimes people going on a long journey with all their possessions, in which case his further play-associations would show that what was being represented was a flight and that the articles were things that had been seized or stolen from his mother’s body. The variations in minor points were most instruc-

tive. For instance, Kurt expressed the supremacy of his

anal-sadistic phantasies by delivering his goods at the back entrance.2 A little later on he did the same thing,

but this time on the ground that he had to avoid the front entrance. From his associations to the front garden (the female genitals) it appeared that his fixation on the anus was reinforced by his dislike of the female genitals, a dislike that was based on a fear of them which had many

determinants, one important one being a phantasy of meeting his father’s penis while he was copulating with

his mother.

This fear, which often has an inhibiting effect, can also act as a stimulus to the development of certain sexual

phantasies. The boy’s attempt to retain his heterosexual impulses, in spite of his fear of his father’s penis and his flight from it, can also lead to peculiarities in his sexual life

inadultyears.Atypicalboy’sphantasyofthiskind and one which Kurt brought out, too is of copulating with

his mother jointly with his father or in turns with him. In

This is, incidentally, a typical game among children.

1 In this description I have only selected on* or two of the play phantasies

involved in order to illustrate by their development the development of play

phantasies in general. The material here brought forward was supported by a number of representations of various kinds. Thus, for example, the carts that carried goods to the town took a road which was shown by various details to have the significance of t{*e anus.

VI NEUROSIS IN CHILDREN

159

this, combined genital and pregenital phantasies or pre-

dominantly genital ones alone may be engaged. In Kurt’s games, for instance, two toy men or two carts would drive

through one entrance of a building which represented his

mothers body (another entrance being her anus). These two toy men would often agree to enter together or in

turn; or else one of them would overpower or outwit the other. In this struggle the smaller man Kurt him- self would gain the victory over the bigger one his father by turning himself into a giant. But soon after, a reaction of anxiety would set in and he would take flight in various ways, one of them being that he would use the other entrance, the back one, and give up the front one to the father figure. This example shows how the child’s fear of castration impedes the establishment of his genital stage

and strengthens his fixation, or rather regression, to pre- genital stages. But the immediate result is not always a

regression to the pregenital stage. If the child’s anxiety is not too strong he can have recourse to many kinds of

phantasies belonging to the genital level besides the ones that have been mentioned here.

What, as a child, the individual shows us in these play

phantasies will emerge in him in manhood as a necessary condition of his love life. Kurt’s phantasies of the two toy

men entering a building from different sides or using the same side, either together or alternately, either after a

fight or by agreement, display the various ways in which an individual will actually behave in a ‘triangular’ situation

in which he is the third party. In such a situation he may, for instance, take the line of the ‘injured third party’ or of the family friend who outwits the husband or fights him, and so on. Another effect of anxiety, on the other hand, may be to diminish the frequency of games of this sort representing coitus, and this effect will come out in later life in the diminished or disturbed potency of the indi- vidual in question. To what extent he will be able to live out the sexual phantasies of his childhood in later life will depend on other factors in his development as well,

l6o THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

in especial his experiences in reality. But fundamentally, the conditions under which he can love are foreshadowed in

every particular in the play phantasies of his early years. These phantasies, by the way in which they evolve, show that as the child’s sexual impulses advance to the genital level his capacity for sublimation develops too, and that sublimation and sexuality are interlinked. Kurt, for in-

stance, made a house that was to be all his own. The house was his mother of whom he wanted to have sole possession. At the same time he could never do enough in the way of planning his house well and making it beautiful.

Play phantasies of this kind already outline the detach- ment from his love-objects that the child will effect later on* A small patient of mine used to represent his mother’s body by means of maps. At first he wanted to have larger and larger sheets of paper so as to make the maps as large

as possible; then, after his game had been interrupted by an anxiety-reaction, he began to do the opposite and make

very small maps. His attempt to depict by the smallness of the things he drew a dissimilarity and detachment from his

original large object his mother failed, and his maps got bigger and bigger again until at last they reached their

original size and he was once more interrupted in his draw-

ing by anxiety. He brought out the same idea in the paper dolls which he cut out. The small doll, which he always

ended by discarding in favour of a larger one, turned out to be a small girl friend of his whom he was trying to make his love-object instead of his mother. Thus we see that even the individual’s capacity for libidinal detachment from his objects at puberty has its roots in early years and that analysis of the small child is of great assistance in facilitat-

ing this process.

As his analysis goes forward the boy becomes increas-

ingly able to carry out in games and sublimations the hetero- sexual phantasies in which he dares to fight his father for the possession of his mother. His pregenital fixations diminish and the struggle itself changes greatly in char- acter. His sadism decreases, so that his part in the fight is

VI NEUROSIS IN CHILDREN l6l

less arduous since it arouses less anxiety and guilt in him. Thus his increased ability to carry out his phantasies in

games calmly and uninterruptedly and to introduce the element of reality into them more satisfactorily is an indi-

cation that he possesses the foundations of sexual potency in later life. These changes in the character of his phan-

tasies and games are always accompanied by other im-

portant changes in his whole personality and make him more free and active in his behaviour, as is seen from the re-

moval of numerous inhibitions in him and from his changed attitude both to his immediate and his more distant en- vironment.

Let us now turn to our second illustration of the way

: n which throw a child’s later play phantasies light upon

sexual life. Rita, aged two and three-quarters, was severely inhibitedinplay.Theonlythingshewoulddo andthat

only very unwillingly and with obvious inhibitions was to play with her dolls and toy animals. Even this occupa- tion was more like an obsessional symptom, for it con-

sisted almost entirely in washing her dolls and continually changing their clothes in a compulsive way. As soon as she

introduced any imaginative element into these activities,

that is, as soon as she began to play in any sense of the

word, she had an immediate outbreak ofanxiety and stopped

the 1 showed that her feminine and mater- game. Analysis

nal attitude was very poorly developed. In her play with

-her doll she only to a very slight degree played the part of mother. Her relation to it was mainly one of identification.

In this identification her own acute fear of being dirty or

destroyed inside or wicked urged her to keep on cleaning her doll and changing its clothes. Only after her castration

complex had been in part analysed did it transpire that her obsessional play with her doll at the very beginning of

the analysis had already given expression to her deepest anxiety, namely, her fear that her mother would take her

children away from her.

1 In Chapters I. and II. I have referred in another connection to the deeper causes of Rita’s anxiety and the repression of her phantasies.

162 THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN 05.

At the time when her castration complex was in the fore-

ground, Rita made a toy bear represent the penis which she had stolen from her father l and with the help of which she

wanted to supplant her father in the possession of her mother’s love. In this part of her analysis she would have anxiety in connection with masculine phantasies of this

kind. It was not until her deeper-lying anxiety belonging to the feminine and maternal attitude had been analysed

that her attitude really changed and she showed a genu- inely maternal attitude towards her bear and her doll. While she was kissing the bear and hugging it and calling it pet names Rita once said: ‘Now Fm not a bit unhappy* any more because IVe got such a dear little child after air. That she had now attained the stage in which genital tendencies, heterosexual impulses and a maternal attitude

wereparamountwasobviousfrommanyindications,among others from her changed behaviour towards her objects. Her aversion to her father, which had before been so marked, gave place to affection for him.3

The reason why we can foretell from the character and

development of play phantasies in children what their sexual life will be in later years is because the whole of

their play and sublimations is based on masturbation phantasies. If, as I think, their games are a means of

expressing their masturbation phantasies and finding an outlet for them, it follows that the character of their play

phantasies will indicate the character of their sexual life in

adult 4 and it also follows that child is able years; analysis

1 Ritausedtopretendthatshehadgotridoftheguardofthetrainandthat she was now travelling with the bear to the house of a *good’ woman where she would be well looked after. But the guard came back and threatened her. This showed that her fear of her father, whose penis (the bear) she had stolen, pre- vented her from maintaining her identification with him.

* Rita suffered from periods of severe depression during which she some-

times brought to light quite extraordinarily strong feelings of guilt, and at others sat by herself and cried. When asked why she was crying she would answer: ‘Because I’m so unhappy’j and when asked why she was unhappy she would answer: ‘Because I’m crying*.

Cf. Chapter II.

4 In his course of lectures, ‘On the Technique of Psycho-Analysis’, delivered

in Berlin in 1923, Hanns Sachs mentioned the evolution of masturbation phan-

VI NEUROSIS IN CHILDREN

163

not only to bring about a greater stability and capacity for sublimation in childhood but to ensure mental well-being

and prospects of happiness in maturity.

tasies from the anal-sadistic to the genital stage as one of the criteria which, in the analysis of an obsessional case, indicate that the treatment has been

completed.

CHAPTER VII

THE SEXUAL ACTIVITIES OF CHILDREN

of the important achievements of psycho-ana- lysis is the discovery that children possess a sexual

life which finds utterance both in direct sexual ONE

activities and in sexual phantasies.

We know that masturbation occurs in general in the

sucking stage and that it is very commonly prolonged, in a greater or less measure, right up to the latency period. (I need hardly say that we do not expect to find children, even small ones, masturbating openly.) In the period before puberty and particularly during puberty itself, masturba- tion becomes very frequent again. The period in which the child’s sexual activities are least pronounced is the latency period. This is because the decline of the Oedipus complex is accompanied by a diminution in the force of instinctual trends. On the other hand, there is the still unexplained fact that it is at that very period that the child’s struggle against masturbation is at its height. In his Hemmung^

Symptom und Angst (1926), Freud says (S. 55) that during the latency period the energies of the child seem to be

mainly taken up with the task of resisting the temptation to masturbate. His statement seems to support the view

that even during the latency period the pressure of the id has not diminished to the extent commonly supposed, or

else that the force exerted by the child’s sense of guilt against its id-tendencies has increased.

In my opinion, the excessive sense of guilt which mas- turbatory activities arouse in children is really aimed at

164

CH. vii THE SEXUAL ACTIVITIES OF CHILDREN

165

the destructive tendencies residing in the phantasies that accompany masturbation.1 It is this sense of guilt which

urges children to stop masturbating altogether and which, if it has been successful in doing so, often leads them on

to a phobia of touching. That a fear of this kind is as im- portant an indication of a disturbance in development as obsessive masturbation is perfectly evident from analyses of adults, where we see how the patient’s fear of mastur- bation often leads to grave disorders of his sexual life. Disturbances of this kind cannot, of course, actually be seen in the child, since they only emerge in later life in

the form of impotence or frigidity according to the sex

oftheindividual buttheirexistencecanbeinferredfrom ;

the presence of certain other difficulties which are in- variable concomitants of a faulty sexual development.

Analyses of touching-phobias show that a too complete suppression of masturbation not only results in the appear-

ance of all kinds of such as 2

symptoms, tic, but,bycausing

an excessive repression of masturbation phantasies, puts a

grave obstacle in the way of the latency period in respect of the formation of sublimations a function which is

of paramount importance from the cultural point of view.3 For masturbation phantasies are not only the basis of all the child’s play activities but a constituent of all its later sublimations. When these repressed phantasies are set free in analysis the small child can be seen to begin to play and the older one to learn and to develop sublimations and interests of every kind; while at the same time, if it

has been suffering from a phobia of touching, it will

start masturbating again. Conversely, in cases of ob- sessive masturbation the curing of that compulsion4 will

go hand in hand, among other things, with a greater * Cf.ChapterVIII.

1 Cf. Ferenczi, ‘Psycho-Analytical Observations on Tic* (1919).

8 In my paper, *Zur Genese des Tic* (1925), I have described a case of tic during the analysis of which the patient at one and the same time gradually became freed of his symptom, resumed his long-forbidden practice of masturba- tion, and built up a number of sublimations.

* It nearly always happens that analysis of touching-phobias leads the patient through a temporary phase of obsessive masturbation, and *ince ‘versa. Another

I 66 THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

capacity for sublimation. In this case, however, as has been

shown in detail elsewhere,1 the child will continue to mas-

turbate, though in a more moderate degree and not ob-

sessively. Thus, as regards capacity for sublimation and

masturbatory activity, analysis of obsessive masturbation

and analysis of phobias of touching lead to the same result.

It would seem, then, that the decline of the Oedipus conflict normally ushers in a period in which the child’s sexual desires are diminished though by no means entirely lost; and that a moderate amount of masturbation of a non-obsessive kind is a normal occurrence in every stage of its life.

The factors underlying obsessive masturbation are operative in yet another form of infantile sexual activity.

As I have repeatedly said, in my experience it is the regular thing for quite young children to enter into sexual

relations with one another. Moreover, analyses of children in the latency and puberty period have shown that mutual activities of this kind have been prolonged into and be-

yond the latency period or have been sporadically resumed during that time. The same factors were found to be opera-

tive in the main in every instance. The following two cases, in which I was able to analyse both partners in the relation- ship, will illustrate a situation of this kind.

The first case concerns two brothers, Franz and Giin-

ther, aged five and six respectively. They had been brought up in poor but not unfavourable family circumstances.

Their parents got on well together; and although the mother had to do all the housework herself she took an

active and enlightened interest in her sons. She sent Gun- ther to be analysed on account of his unusually inhibited and timid character and his obvious want of contact with reality. He was a secretive and extremely distrustful child,

factor In obsessive masturbation is the patient’s desire, based on his sense of guilt, to display his habit to the people about him. This also holds good for children of every age who masturbate openly and to all appearance in an un-

inhibited manner,

Cf. Chapter III.

VII THE SEXUAL ACTIVITIES OF CHILDREN

167

apparently debarred from any genuine feelings of affec- tion. Franz, on the other hand, was aggressive, over-

excitable and difficult to manage. The brothers got on very badly together, but on the whole Gunther seemed

brother.1 was able to Analysis

to to his give way

younger

trace back their mutual sexual acts as far as the ages of

about three and a half and two and a half

but it is quite probable that they had begun even earlier. It appeared that whereas neither had any conscious sense of guilt whatever about these acts (though careful to con- ceal them), both suffered from a very heavy one in the unconscious. To the elder brother, who had seduced the younger and sometimes forced him to perform them, the acts which comprisedfellatio^ mutual masturbation and

touching the anus with the fingers were equivalent to

castrating his brother (fellatio meant biting off his penis)

and totally destroying his whole body by cutting and tear-

ing him to pieces, poisoning or burning him, and so on.

An analysis of the phantasies accompanying the acts showed that they not only represented destructive on-

slaughts upon his younger brother but that the latter stood for Gunther’s father and mother joined in sexual inter- course. Thus his behaviour was in a sense an actual enact-

ment, though in a mitigated form, of his sadistic mastur- 3

batoryphantasiesagainsthisparents. Moreover,indoing these things, sometimes by force, to his younger brother, he was trying to assure himself that he would come out best

1 Analysis revealed the presence of strong psychotic traits in both boys. But we are solely concerned here with the analysis of their sexual relations.

* At that time their mother had noticed one or two occurrences of this kind.

* Cf. my paper, ‘Early Stages of the Oedipus Conflict* (1928). In their total lack of any reaction-formations as well as in many other respects, these phantasies resembled the actions of criminals of a sadistic type. Gunther felt no remorse or sorrow, but only fear of retaliation. But this fear was a constant incentive to him to repeat his sexual activities. Owing to the extremely abnormal character of the elder boy, in whom the destructive instincts so greatly predominated over the libidinal ones that his sexual behaviour had the value of criminal actions

(and we must not forget that among adult criminals perverse sexual acts often go along with criminal ones), his fear of retaliation, as we have seen, urged him to put his object out of the way. Every time Gunther did violence to his brother he received assurance that he himself was not the victim.

respectively,

1 68 THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

in his dangerous fight with his father and with his mother too. His overwhelming fear of his parents increased his im-

pulsetodestroythem; andhisconsequentimaginaryattacks on them added to that fear. 1 Furthermore, his fear that his

brother might betray him intensified his hatred of him and his desire to kill him by means of his practices with him. Accordingly the sexual life of this boy, in whom an enormous amount of sadism was present, was almost en- tirely lacking in positive elements. In his mind the various sexual procedures he undertook were nothing but a series of cruel and subtle tortures, designed in the end to put his object to death. His relations with his brother were

continually arousing his anxiety along these lines, and went to increase those difficulties which had led to a com-

pletely abnormal psycho-sexual development in him.

As to the younger brother, Franz, his unconscious had

completely fathomed the unconscious meaning of the

practices, and accordingly his terror of being castrated and killed by his elder brother had been heightened to an ex-

aggerated degree. Yet he had never complained to anyone nor in any way allowed their relations to transpire. He re-

acted to these activities which terrified him so much with a severe masochistic fixation and with a sense ofguilt although he was the one who had been seduced* The following are some of the reasons for this attitude :

In his sadistic phantasies Franz identified himself with the brother who was doing him violence, and in this way obtained gratification of his sadistic tendencies, such ten- dencies being, as we know, one of the sources of masochism. But in thus identifying himself with the object of his fear

he was also attempting to master his anxiety. In imagina- tion he was now the assailant and the enemy he was over-

poweringwashisid2 andalsohisbrother’spenis,internal- ized in himself, which represented his father’s penis his

dangerous super-ego and which he viewed as a perse- 1 Inhisbook,DerSchrecken(1929),Reikhaspointedoutthatanxietyin-

of hatred.

Cf. my paper, ‘Personification in the Play of Children* (1929)? in which

creases

feelings

these mechanisms are discussed at greater length.

VII THE SEXUAL ACTIVITIES OF CHILDREN

cutor. This internal persecutor would be destroyed by the

attacks that were made on his own being

body.

But since the boy could not maintain this alliance with

a cruel external super-ego against his id and his internal- ized objects, because it constituted too great a menace to his ego, his hatred was continually being diverted to his external objects which represented his own feeble and hated ego as well so that he would, for instance, some- times be brutal to children younger and weaker than him- self. These displacements accounted for the hatred and rage which he showed at times during his analytic hour* He would, for instance, threaten me with a wooden spoon,

wanting to push it into my mouth and calling me small,

stupidandweak.Thespoonsymbolizedhisbrother*s penis being forcibly thrust into his own mouth. He had identi-

fied himself with his brother and thus turned his hatred of him against his own self. And he had passed on his rage against himself for being small and weak to other children less strong than him, and, incidentally, to me in the trans- ference-situation. Alternately with the employment of this mechanism, he used in imagination to reverse his relations with his elder brother so that he would view Giinther’s

attacks on him as something that he, Franz, was doing to Giinther. But since for him, too, his brother also had the

significance of his parents in his sadistic phantasies, he was

put in the position of being his brother’s accomplice in a joint attack on them, and consequently shared Giinther’s

unconscious sense of guilt and fear of being found out by them. He had thus, like his brother, a strong uncon- scious motive for keeping the whole relationship secret.

A number of observations of this kind have led me to the conclusion that it is the excessive pressure exerted by

the super-ego which not only causes the complete sup-

1 In Chapter XI. we shall go more fully into this particular mechanism, which seems to me a fundamental one in the formation of feminine masochism.

In her paper, ‘Psychotic Mechanisms in Cultural Development* (1930), Melitta Schmideberg has pointed out that among primitive people the practice of expulsion of disease by violence aims at overcoming the patient’s fear of the

demon within him (his father’s introjected penis).

169

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

pression of sexual activities, as we already know, but which actually arouses the compulsion to indulge in such activi- ties that is to say, that anxiety and a sense of guilt re- inforce libidinal fixations and heighten libidinal desires.1 As far as I can see, an excessive sense of guilt and too great anxiety act in the direction of preventing the child’s in- stinctual needs from diminishing when the latency period sets in* And we must not forget that in that period even a much lessened sexual activity calls forth excessive re- actions of guilt. The structure and dimensions of the child’s neurosis will determine how the struggle in the

latency period will fall out. As the final upshot a phobia of touching on the one hand and obsessive masturbation on the other are the two extremes of a complemental series that presents an almost infinite number of possible grada- tions and variations.

In the case of Gtinther and Franz it became clear that their compulsion to have sexual intercourse with one an- other was determined by a factor which would seem to be

of general significance for the repetition-compulsion.When his anxiety concerns an unreal danger directed towards the

inside of his body, the individual is impelled to turn that danger into a real and external one. (In the present instance Franz’s fear of his brother’s internalized penis as a perse- cutor and his fear of his ‘bad’ internalized parents urged him to let himself be assaulted by his brother.) He will

continually be bringing about an external danger-situation of this kind in a compulsive way since the anxiety it

arouses in him, however great it may be, is nevertheless not so great as the anxiety he feels about the inside of his body and can in any case be better dealt with.2

As it happened, it would have been impossible to put a

1 On this which is dealt with in point,

greater

find myself in agreement with Reik, who, in his ‘Libido und Schuldgefiihl*

(1929), has pointed out that in certain instances activation of the sense of guilt can bring about a strengthening of the libido and an enlargement of instinctual gratification, and: that in these cases an increase of anxiety coming from a bad conscience can actually produce instinctual gratification.

* M. N. Searl has

paper, ‘The Flight to Reality’ (1929).

pointed

out the mechanism of

flight

into in her reality

detail in VIII., I Chapter

vii THE SEXUAL ACTIVITIES OF CHILDREN

I*JI

stop to the brothers’ sexual relations by external measures, since their home was not big enough for each to have a bedroom of his own. And even if such a measure had been

practicable it would have failed, I think, especially in a case like this where the compulsion on both sides was so strong. Left alone together for only a few minutes in the day, they would often find time to start some kind of mutual sexual touching which had the same significance for their unconscious as the complete performance of their various

sadistically imagined acts. It was only after a long analysis of both boys, during which I never once tried to influence

them to their give up

1 but confined to myself

practices

bringing to light the determining cause of their sexual re-

lations to each other in a purely analytic way, that their

sexual activities gradually began to change, becoming at first less compulsive in character and finally ceasing alto-

gether not because the two had grown indifferent about them, but because now that their sense of guilt was less acute and less insusceptible to modification it became the very factor which urged them to renounce those prac- tices; so that, whereas too much anxiety and a sense of

guilt originating in an early stage of development had been

responsible for their compulsion by reinforcing their fixa- tion, a decreased sense of guilt operating in a different way

enabled them to give up those relations. Hand in hand with the gradual alteration and cessation of their sexual practices their personal attitude towards each other underwent a con-

siderable change. From having been visibly ill-disposed and hostile they began to entertain a quite normal relation

of friendship and goodwill towards each other.

Coming to the second case, we find that it exhibits the

1 I may remark that in this particular case, where the evil consequences of the boys* relations were so striking, I did not find it at all easy to keep to my absolute rule of abstaining from any interference of that kind. And yet it was precisely this case which brought me most convincing proof of the uselessness of any educational measures on the part of the analyst. Even if I had been able to stop their practices which I was not I should have done nothing towards the essential business of removing the underlying determinants of the situation and thus giving a new direction to the whole course of their hitherto faulty

development.

172

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

same deep-seated causes as the one we have just described, although, of course, it differs in certain details, A short

account of it will therefore suffice. Use, aged twelve, and Gert, aged thirteen and a half, used to indulge from time to time in coitus-like acts which happened quite suddenly, and often after long intervals. The girl showed no con- scious sense of guilt about them but the boy, who was much more normal, did. Their analysis showed that they had had sexual relations with each other from earliest child- hood and had only temporarily broken them off at the beginning of the latency period; for both suffered from an

overpowering sense of guilt which obliged them to repeat their acts from time to time in a compulsive manner. These

acts had nevertheless not only become more rare in their incidence but more limited in their scope during that

1 The children had and cunnilinctus given ^fellatio

period.

and for some time had not gone beyond touching and in-

specting each other’s genitals. During pre-puberty, how- ever, they began having coitus-like contact once more. It

was the brother who initiated these acts and they were compulsive in character. He used to do them on a sudden impulse and never thought about them before or after. He even used to ‘forget’ the event altogether in between whiles, He had a partial amnesia of this kind for a number of

things connected with these sexual relations, especially in regard to his early childhood. As far as the girl was con-

cerned, she had often been the active partner in early child- hood but later on she had only played a passive role.

As its profounder causes began to emerge under analysis the compulsive behaviour of brother and sister gradually

1 Inotherinstances,too,inwhichintercourseofthiskindhasbeenprolonged

into the ktency period, it has been the writer’s experience that only a portion of the original acts is continued (fellatio and cunnilinctus being most often given up)andthateventhatremnantisperformedmoreseldom usuallyonlyquite occasionally. Nevertheless, it carries with it, as far as the child’s unconscious sense of guilt goes, the complete psychological content of the original sexual relations and all the acts performed at that time. For instance, after an attempt to have coitus with her brother, Ilse developed a rash round her mouth. This rash was an expression of her sense of guilt about fellatio, which she used to practise as a small child together with other sexual acts, but which she had given up since

early childhobd.

vn THE SEXUAL ACTIVITIES OF CHILDREN 1 73

cleared away, until in the end the sexual relation between them stopped entirely, as it had in the case of Franz and Gunther. And similarly their personal relations, which had been very unsatisfactory before, showed a remarkable improvement.

In the analysis of these two cases and others like them

we find that step by step with the recession of the com-

pulsive character of the acts a number of important and

interconnected changes take place. The decrease of the

child’s sense of guilt is accompanied by a decrease of

sadism and a stronger emergence of the genital phase; and

these changes are evinced in corresponding changes in its

masturbation phantasies and, if it is still quite young, in the phantasies it introduces into its play.

In analyses of children at the age of puberty we find^a further and quite special alteration taking place in their masturbation phantasies. For instance, Gert had at first no consciousmasturbationphantasiesatall; butinthecourse of his treatment he began to have one about a naked girl whose headless body alone was visible. At a later stage the head began to appear and grew more and more distinct till at last it became recognizable as that of his sister. By the time this happened, however, his compulsion was already gone and his sexual relations with his sister had quite stopped. This shows the connection there was between the excessive repression of his desires and phantasies in regard to his sister and his obsessive impulse to have sexual relations with her. Later on still his phantasies underwent^ further change and he saw other, unknown girls, in his

imagination. Finally he had phantasies about one in especial, a friend of his sister’s. This gradual alteration registered

the process of libidinal detachment from his sister that was goingon aprocesswhichcouldnottakeplaceuntilhis compulsive fixation on her, maintained by his excessive

1 Gert came to me on account of certain neurotic difficulties of a not very- severe kind. His analysis lasted one year. Three years later I h^ard that he was going on well.

sense of guilt, had been removed in the course of analysis,

174

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

In general, as regards the existence of sexual relations

between children, especially between brothers and sisters, I may say on the basis of my observations that they are the

rule in early childhood but are only prolonged into the

latency period and puberty if the child’s sense of guilt is excessive and has not been successfully modified.1 As

far as we can judge, the effect of the sense of guilt during the latency period is to allow the child to continue to

masturbate, though in a lesser degree than before, but at the same time to make it give up its sexual activities with other children, whether its own brothers and sisters or not, as being too realistic an enactment of its incestuous and sadistic desires. During puberty the movement away from such relations is continued, in conformity with the aims of that period which involve a detachment of the libido from incestuous objects. But at a later stage of puberty the individual will, under normal circumstances, enter into sexual relations with new objects a relation- ship based on his progressive libidinal detachment from the old objects and sustained by different, contra-incestuous currents of feeling.

We must now consider how far relations of this kind can be prevented from occurring in the first instance. It seems highly doubtful whether it is possible to do this without causing a good deal of harm in other ways, since, for in- stance, the children would have to be kept under regular surveillance and would suffer a serious curtailment of liberty; and whether in any case, however strictly they were watched, it could be done at all. Furthermore,

although early experiences like these can do a lot of mischief in some cases, in others their effect upon the

child’s general development can be a favourable one. For besides gratifying the child’s libido and his desire for sexual knowledge, relations of this kind serve the important function of diminishing his excessive sense of guilt, and for this reason: the phantasies the child

1 In any case I think that such relations are much more frequent even during latency and puberty than is usually supposed.

VII THE SEXUAL ACTIVITIES OF CHILDREN

175

introduces into these relations are based, as we know, upon sadistic masturbation phantasies round which are centred his most intense feelings of guilt; therefore the knowledge that his forbidden phantasies against his parents are shared

by another gives him the feeling of having an accomplice

andthis theburdenofhis 1 Onthe greatly lightens anxiety.

other hand a relation of this kind gives rise to anxiety and a sense of guilt on its own account. Whether its effect will ultimately be good or bad whether it will protect the child from anxiety or increase it seems to depend upon

the quantity of sadism present in him and more especially

upon the attitude of his partner. From my knowledge of a number of cases, I should say that where the positive and

libidinal factors predominate, such a relationship has a favourable influence upon the child’s object relations and

capacity for love; 2 but where, as with Gtinther and Franz, destructive impulses, on one side at any rate, and acts of coercion dominate it, it is able to impair the whole

development of the child in the gravest way.

In the matter of the sexual activities of children, psycho-

analytic knowledge, while showing us the full import of certain developmental factors, has once again not yet en- abled us to suggest any really reliable measures of a pro-

kind. Let me a from Freud; 3 quote passage

phylactic

‘This state of things has a certain interest for those look-

ing to pedagogy for the prevention of neuroses by early intervention in the matter of the child’s sexual develop-

ment. As long as attention is mainly directed to the in- fantile sexual experiences one would think everything in the way of prophylaxis of later neurosis could be done by ensuring that this development should be retarded and the child secured against this kind of experience. But we know that the conditions causing neurosis are more complicated than this and that they cannot be influenced in a general

1 Inhisbook,GemeinsameTagtraume(1924),HarmsSachsremarksuponthe fact that when incestuous phantasies or day-dreams are shared the sense of guilt is lessened.

XLandXII.forafullerconsiderationofthesefactors. Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis (1918), p. 305.

1 Cf. 3

Chapters

iy6

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH. vn

way by attending to one factor only. Strict supervision in childhood loses value because it is helpless against the con-

stitutional factor; more than this, it is less easy to carry out than specialists in education imagine; and it entails two new risks which are not to be lightly disregarded. It may accomplish too much, in that it favours an exaggerated de- gree of sexual repression which is harmful in its effects, and it sends the child into life without power to resist the urgent demands of his sexuality that must be expected at puberty. It therefore remains most doubtful how far pro-

in childhood cati with adr and whether go . ntage,

phylaxis

a changed attitude to actuality wouid not constitute a

better point of departure for attempts to forestall the neuroses/

PART II

EARLY ANXIETY-SITUATIONS AND THEIR EFFECT ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD

CHAPTER VIII

EARLY STAGES OF THE OEDIPUS CONFLICT AND OF SUPER-EGO FORMATION

the following chapters I shall attempt to add some- thing to our knowledge of the origin and structure of

the super-ego. The theoretical conclusions I IN am

going to put forward have been obtained from a direct acquaint-

ance with the earliest processes of mental development, since they are based on actual analyses of small children. These analyses have shown that the oral frustrations which children undergo release the Oedipus impulses in them and that the super-ego begins to be formed at the same time. The genital impulses remain out of sight at first since they do not as a rule assert themselves against the pre- genital impulses until the third year of life. At that period they begin to emerge into clear view and the child enters a phase in which its early sexual life comes to a climax and its Oedipus conflict attains full development.

In the following pages I shall outline the developmental

processes which precede this early expansion of sexuality and try to show that the early stages of the Oedipus con-

flict and of the formation of the super-ego extend, roughly, from the middle of the first year to the third year of the

child’s life.

Normally the infant’s pleasure in sucking is succeeded

by pleasure in biting. Lack of gratification at the oral- sucking stage Increases its need for gratification at the

1 Cf,mypaper,*EarIyStagesoftheOedipusConflict*(1928). 179

ISO THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH,

1 Abraham’s that the child’s in- opinion

oral-biting stage.

ability to get sufficient pleasure in its sucking period de- pends on the circumstances under which it is fed is com-

pletely borne out by general analytic observation. We also

know that the illnesses and developmental deficiencies of

children are partly due to the same cause. Nevertheless,

unfavourable conditions of nutrition, which we may regard

as external frustrations, are not, it seems, the only reason

why the child gets too little pleasure at the sucking stage. This is seen from the fact that some children are incapable

ofobtainingenjoymentfromsucking are’badfeeders’ although they receive sufficient nourishment. Their in-

ability to obtain gratification from sucking is, I think, the consequence of an internal frustration and is derived, as

far as my experience goes, from an abnormally increased oral sadism.2 It would seem that the polarity between the

life-instincts and the death-instincts is already coming out

in these phenomena of early infancy, for we may regard the force of the child’s fixation at the oral-sucking level

as an expression of the force of its libido, and, similarly, the early and powerful emergence of its oral sadism as a sign of the ascendancy of its destructive instinctual com-

ponents.

1 In his *Oral Erotism and Character* (1921) Abraham has pointed out that

excess of gratification as well as want of it in the sucking period can lead to *

a specially strong fixation on pleasure in biting. In his Notes on Oral Char- acter-Formation’ (1925) Edward Glover lays special stress on the importance of oral frustration for a fixation of this kind, since he believes that whenever an excess of oral gratification leads to traumatic consequences other factors are at work as well. In my view, too, the results are essentially different in the two cases.

1 Erna (Chapter III.) was a case in point. She had repeatedly injured her mother’s breast by biting when she was still quite small and long before she had

grown her teeth. She had also been a bad feeder in infancy. I have come across other instances, too, of abnormally strong oral sadism in which the sucking period had brought with it no outward disturbance or difficulty but had in

reality been completely unsatisfactory for the child. Again, we get cases in which serious external disturbances in that period have led, not to an abnormally in- tense oral sadism, but to a strong fixation at the oral-sucking stage. Thus Ruth (Chapter II.), who had a strong oral-sucking fixation of this kind, had gone hungry for months as an infant because her mother had too little milk. Another patient, who had never had the breast at all but had been bottle-fed, showed a strong oral sadism, it is true, but he also had a strong fixation at the oral- sucking stage.

vili EARLY STAGES OF THE OEDIPUS CONFLICT l8l

As Abraham1 and Ophuijsen have pointed out, a re- inforcement from constitutional sources of the zones which are involved in biting, such as the muscles of the jaw, is a fundamental factor in the infant’s fixation at the oral- sadistic level. The most serious deficiencies of develop- ment and psychic illnesses result where external frustra- tions Le. unfavourable conditions of nourishment co-

incide with a constitutionally strengthened oral sadism which impairs the infant’s pleasure in sucking. On the other

hand, an oral sadism which sets in neither too soon nor

too violently (and this implies that the sucking stage has run its course satisfactorily) seems to be a necessary condition

for the normal development of the child.2

If this is the case, temporal factors will take on a new

importance side by side with quantitative ones. If the child’s oral-sadistic tendencies are heightened too early

and violently, its relations to its objects and the formation of its character will fall too much under the sway of its sadism and ambivalence,3 and its ego will develop in ad- vance of its libido this being, as we know, a factor in the production of obsessional neurosis4 because the anxiety arising from such an abrupt increase of its oral sadism will exert great pressure on its as yet immature ego.

Concerning the origin of anxiety, Freud has broadened

his original conception and now only gives a very limited

application to the hypothesis that anxiety arises from a direct conversion of libido. He shows that when the suck-

ing infant is hungry it feels anxiety as a result of an in- crease of tension caused by its need, but that this early

anxiety-situation has an earlier prototype. He says: ‘The situation of being unsatisfied, in which the amount of

excitationreachesapainfuldegree. . . mustbeanalogous

1 Abraham,*AShortStudyoftheDevelopmentoftheLibido'(1924),p.451.

* Another developmental factor of basic importance is, I have found, the greater or lesser capacity of the immature ego to tolerate anxiety. This factor will be discussed later on.

8 Cf. Abraham, ‘The Influence of Oral Erotism on Character-Formation*

(1924); also Edward Glover, *The Significance of the Mouth in Psycho-

Analysis* (1924).

4 Cf. Freud, *The Predisposition to Obsessional Neurosis’ (1913).

1 82 THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

for the suckling to its experience of birth and must there-

fore be a repetition of that danger-situation. Both situa- tions have in common the economic disturbance brought

about by the accumulation of stimuli which require to be

discharged. It is this factor, therefore, which is the true core of the “danger”, and in both situations a reaction of anxiety sets in. . . -* 1 On the other hand, he has difficulty

in reconciling the fact that ‘the anxiety belonging to phobiasisanego-anxiety i.e.arisesintheego anddoes not emanate from repression but is itself the cause of re-

2 with his first statement that in certain cases anxiety arises from a tension of libido. The supposition that *in such situations as disturbance during coitus, inter- rupted excitement or abstinence, the ego senses dangers

pression’

and reacts to them with

anxiety’

3 does not to his mind

offer a satisfactory solution of the problem; and in a later

passage he returns from the discussion of other points to

consider the problem once more, and refers the emerg-

ence of anxiety *to that danger-situation in which, as at

birth, . . . the ego finds itself helpless in the face of grow-

ing instinctual demands, i.e. that situation which is the

first and condition for the of 4

original appearance anxiety’. He defines as the nucleus of the danger-situation ‘the

admission of our helplessness against it a physical help-

lessness if the danger belongs to reality and a psycho- logical one if it comes from the instincts’.5

The clearest instance of conversion of unsatisfied libido

into anxiety is, I think, the reaction of the suckling to tensions caused by its physical needs. Such a reaction, however, is without doubt not only one of anxiety but of rage as well.6 It is difficult to say at what time this fusion of the destructive and libidinal instincts occurs. There is

1 und Hcmmung, Symptom

Ibid. S, 86. Ibid. S. 109.

Cf. Ferenczi, *The Problem of the Acceptance of Unpleasant Ideas* (1926). In his paper, ‘The Problem of Melancholia” (1928), Rado has pointed out the importance of rage in the reaction of the suckling to hunger, but the inferences he has drawn from it are different from those I shall put forward in the following

pages.

Ibid. S. 49.

Angst (1926), **

S. * Ibid. S.

78. 49.

VIII EARLY STAGES OF THE OEDIPUS CONFLICT

183

a good deal of evidence for the view that it has existed all along and that the tension caused by need merely serves to strengthen the sadistic instincts of the infant. We know, however, that the destructive instinct is directed against the organism itself and must therefore be re-

garded by the ego as a danger. In my view it is this

danger

by from

which is felt

the individual as 1 Thus anxiety.

would

know, libidinal frustration heightens the sadistic instincts,

ungratified libido would, indirectly, liberate anxiety or in- crease it. On this theory Freud’s suggestion that the ego

senses a danger in abstinence would be a solution of the problem after alL My only contention is that it is the destructive instincts which give rise to that danger which he calls ‘psychological helplessness in face of instinctual

danger’.

Freud tells us that the narcissistic libido of the organism

deflects the death-instinct outwards in order to prevent it

from destroying the organism itself, and that this process is at the bottom of the individual’s relations to his objects

and underlies the mechanism of projection. He goes on to

say: ‘Another portion* (of the death-instinct) *is not in- cluded in this displacement outwards; it remains within

the organism and is “bound” there libidinally with the help of the accompanying sexual excitation mentioned

above. This portion we must recognize as the original erotogenic masochism/ 3 It seems to rne that the ego has

1 InHemmung,SymptomundAngst(1916),Freudconsidersthatinsomecases a certain amount of instinctual anxiety which has become released from the destructive instinct may enter into reality anxiety. His actual words are: ‘It may often enough happen that in a situation which the individual is right in regarding as one of danger a portion of his instinctual anxiety may become joined to his reality anxiety. The instinctual demand of which he is frightened would in that case be a masochistic one, i.e. a destructive instinct turned against himself. An addition of this kind would perhaps account for the fact that his anxiety reaction is excessive, inadequate and hampering in its action’ (S. 1 1 r).

* Since writing this book I find that Therese Benedek, starting from a different line of approach, has also come to the conclusion that anxiety originates in the destructive instinct. She says: ‘Anxiety, therefore, is not a fear of death but the perception of the death-instinct that has been liberated in the organism

the perception of primary masochism* (‘Todestrieb und Angst’, 1931). * ‘The Economic Problem in Masochism’ (1924).

anxiety

spring

aggression.

since,

2 But

as we

184

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

yet another means of mastering those destructive impulses which still adhere to the organism. It can mobilize one part of them as a defence against the other part. In this way the id will undergo a division which is, I think, the first step in the formation of instinctual inhibitions and of the

super-ego and which may be the same thing as primal

1 We that a division of this sort is may suppose

repression.

rendered possible by the fact that, as soon as the process

of incorporation has begun, the incorporated object be- comes the vehicle of defence against the destructive im-

pulses within the organism.

The anxiety evoked in the child by his destructive im-

pulses takes effect, I think, in two ways. In the first place it makes him afraid of being exterminated himself by those very impulses, i.e. it relates to an internal instinctual

3 and in the second it focuses his fears on place

danger;

his external object, against whom his sadistic feelings are

directed, as a source of danger. This fear of an object seems to have its earliest basis in external reality in the child’s

1 In Eemmungj Symptom und Angst (1926), S. 31, Freud writes: *Wc are not

yet in a position to say whether it may not be the emergence of the super-ego

which differentiates primal repression from secondary repression. At any rate we know that the child’s earliest outbreaks of anxiety, which are extremely

intense, occur before the super-ego has come into beingj and it is not at all un- likely that quantitative factors, such as an excessive degree of excitement and the breaking through of the barrier against stimuli, are the immediate cause of primal repression.*

* The process by which the object is internalized will be discussed later on.

At present it is enough to say that, in the writer’s opinion, the incorporated object at once assumes the functions of a super-ego.

1 In early analysis we come across numerous representations of this anxiety.

Here is an example: A five-year-old boy used to pretend that he had all sorts

of wild animals, such as elephants, leopards, hyenas and wolves, to help him against his enemies. Each animal had a special function. The elephants were to stamp the foe to a pulp, the leopards to tear him to bits and the hyenas and wolves to eat him up. He sometimes imagined that these wild animals who were in his service would turn against him, and this idea used to arouse very great anxiety in him. It turned out that the animals stood in his unconscious for the varioussourcesofhissadism theelephantbeinghismuscularsadismjtheanimals that tore, his teeth and nails; and the wolves,^iis excrements. His fear that those dangerous animals which he had tamed would themselves exterminate him was referabletohisfearofhisownsadismasadangerousinternalenemy. Letme also remind the reader of the common expression ‘to burst with rage*. In my analyses of small children I have repeatedly come across representations of the idea underlying this figure of speech.

vin EARLY STAGES OF THE OEDIPUS CONFLICT

185

growingknowledge aknowledgebasedonthedevelop- ment of his ego and a concomitant power of testing by

reality of his mother as someone who either gives or with-

holds gratification, and thus in his growing knowledge of the power of his object in relation to the satisfaction of his

needs. In this connection it would appear that he displaces the full burden of his intolerable fear of instinctual dangers on to his object, thus exchanging internal dangers for ex- ternal ones. From these external dangers his immature ego

then seeks to protect itself by destroying his object.

We must now go on to consider in what way a deflection

of the death-instinct outwards influences the relations of the child to his objects and leads to the full expansion of his sadism. His growing oral sadism reaches its climax during and after weaning and leads to the fullest activation and development of sadistic tendencies flowing from every source. He has certain oral-sadistic phantasies of a quite definite character, seeming to form a link 1 between the

oral-sucking and oral-biting stages, in which he gets possession of the contents of his mother’s breast by suck-

ing and scooping it out. This desire to suck and scoop out, first directed to her breast, soon extends to the inside of

wish is to rob her body of its contents and destroy it.

1 Abrahamhasdrawnattentiontothevampire-likebehaviourofsomepeople

and has explained it as being the effect of a regression from the oral-sadistic to

the oral-sucking stage. (*Oral Erotism and Character*, 1924, p. 401.)

1 In discussing this subject with me, Edward Glover suggested that the feeling of emptiness in its body which the small child experiences as a result of lack of oral gratification might be a point of departure for phantasies of assault on its mother’s body, since it might give rise to phantasies of the mother’s body being full of all the desired nourishment. Going over my data once more, I find that his supposition is completely borne out. It seems to me to throw fresh light upon the steps by which the transition is effected from sucking out and devouring the mother’s breast to attacking the inside of her body. In this con-

nection Dr. Glover also mentioned Rado’s theory of an ‘alimentary orgasm’

(“The Psychic Effects of Intoxicants*, I9z6), in virtue of which gratification passes over from the mouth to the stomach and intestines.

her 2 In body.

ofthe Conflict’ ( 1 928), I have described an early stage of develop- ment which is governed by the child’s aggressive tendencies against its mother’s body and in which its predominant

my article, ‘Early Stages

Oedipus

1 86 THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN

CH.

As far as can be seen, the sadistic tendency most closely

allied to oral sadism is urethral sadism. Observation

has shown that children’s phantasies of destroying by

flooding, drowning, soaking, burning and poisoning by means of enormous quantities of urine are a sadistic re-

action to their having been deprived of fluid by their mother and are ultimately directed against her breast. I should like in this connection to point out the great im- portance, hitherto little recognized, of urethral sadism in the development of the child.1 Phantasies, familiar to

analysts, of flooding and destroying things by means of

2 and the more known generally

impulses which are attached to the function of urinating.

In analysing both grown-up patients and children I have constantly come across phantasies in which urine was im-

agined as a burning, dissolving and corrupting liquid and as a secret and insidious poison. These urethral-sadistic

phantasies have no small share in giving the penis the un- conscious significance of an instrument of cruelty and in bringing about disturbances of sexual potency in the male. In a number of instances I have found that bed-wetting was caused by phantasies of this kind.

Every other vehicle of sadistic attack that the child em- ploys, such as anal sadism and muscular sadism, is in the first instance levelled against its mother’s frustrating breast; but it is soon directed to the inside of her body, which thus becomes the target of sadistic onslaughts coming from every source at once and raised to the highest pitch

lungen xur Sexualtheorie (1905); also Sadger, ‘Uber Urethralerotik’ (1910); Abraham, *Ejaculatio Praecox* (1917) and “The Narcissistic Evaluation of Excretory Processes* (1920), and Rank, ‘Psychoanalytische Beitrage zur Mythenforschung* (1919).

Cf. Freud’s remarks on this connection in his ‘Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria* (1905).

of connection between

urine,

with fire and

are merely the more visible and less repressed signs of the

great quantities

playing

bed-wetting,

1 Inhis’TheNarcissisticEvaluationofExcretoryProcesses*(1920),incon- nection with a case of strongly developed urethral sadism, Abraham states that in neurotic persons *we find the functions and products of the bowel and bladder used as vehicles of hostile

impulses* (p. 319).

Cf. in especial Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams (1900), and DreiAbkand-

vin EARLY STAGES OF THE OEDIPUS CONFLICT 1 87

of intensity. In early analysis these destructive desires of the small child constantly alternate between anal-sadistic desires, desires to devour its mother’s body and desires to

wet it; but their primal aim of eating up and destroying her breast is always discernible in them,1

The phase of life in which the child’s imaginary sadistic attacks against the inside of its mother’s body are pre- dominant and in which its sadism reaches a maximum strength in every source from which it flows is introduced by the oral-sadistic stage of development and comes to an end with the decline of the earlier anal-sadistic stage.

Abraham’s work has shown that the pleasure the infant

gets from biting is not only due to libidinal gratification of its erotogenic zones but is connected with strongly

marked destructive cravings which aim at the injury or annihilation of its object. This is still more so in the phase of maximal sadism. The idea of an infant of from six to twelve months trying to destroy its mother by every method at the disposal of its sadistic tendencies with its teethj nails and excreta and with the whole of its body, transformed in imagination into all kinds of danger-

ousweapons presentsahorrifying,nottosayanunbe- lievable, picture to our minds. And it is difficult, as I know

from my own experience, to bring oneself to recognize that such an abhorrent idea answers to the truth. But the abun-

dance, force and multiplicity of the imaginary cruelties

1 In his ‘Short Study of the Development of the Libido* (1924), p. 47, Abraham has pointed out that criminal phantasies of manic patients are for the most part directed against their mother, and he gives a striking example of this in a patient who identified himself in his imagination with the Emperor Nero, who killed his mother and wanted to burn down Rome (a mother symbol). But according to Abraham these destructive impulses of the son against his mother are secondary in character, being originally aimed at his father. In my view these attacks on her body have their origin in oral-sadistic attacks upon her breast and are therefore primary; but in so far as they are reinforced by his original hatred of his father’s penis as he imagines it to exist inside her body

and are centred upon that object and culminate in its destruction, they are directed against his father to an extent sufficient to influence the whole course of his Oedipus conflict. Thus it is true to say that the son’s primary hatred of his father is in part displaced on to his mother. In Chapter XII. we shall discuss

in detail the significance of this displacement in the sexual development of the male child.

1 88 THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

which accompany these cravings are displayed before our

eyes in early analyses so clearly and forcibly that they leave no room for doubt. We are already familiar with

those sadistic phantasies of the child which find their culmination in cannibalism, and this makes it easier for us to accept the further fact that as its methods of sadistic attack become enlarged so do its sadistic phantasies gain in fulness and vigour. This element of intensification of impulse seems to me to be the key to the whole matter. If what intensifies sadism is libidinal frustration, we can readily understand that the destructive cravings which are fused with the libidinal ones and cannot be gratified

in the first instance, that is, oral-sadistic cravings should lead to a further intensification of sadism and to an activa- tion of all its methods.

In early analyses we find, furthermore, that oral frus- tration arouses in the child an unconscious knowledge that its parents enjoy mutual sexual pleasures and a belief at first that these are of an oral sort. Under the pressure of its own frustration it reacts to this phantasy with envy of its parents, and this in turn gives rise to hatred of them.

Its cravings to scoop and suck out now lead it to want to suck out and devour all the fluids and other substances which its parents (or rather their organs) contain, includ- ing what they have received from one another in oral copu- lation.1 Freud has shown that the sexual theories of chil- dren are a phylogenetic heritage, and from what has been said above it appears that an unconscious knowledge of this kind about sexual intercourse between the parents, to-

gether with phantasies concerning it, already emerge at

this very early stage of development. Oral envy is one of the motive forces which make children of both sexes want

1 Inashortcommunication,*AParanoicMechanismasseenintheAnalysis of a Child’ (1928), M. N. Searl has reported a case of intensely oral-sadistic phantasies of this kind, in which the child’s craving to suck out of its father what he had taken from its mother’s breast was bound up with paranoic mechan- isms. The great power exerted by phantasies of this sort, which are connected with an intense oral sadism and which consequently pave the way for particu-

larly aggressive impulses against the inside of the mother’s body, is, I have since found, characteristic of psychotic disorders.

VIII EARLY STAGES OF THE OEDIPUS CONFLICT

189

to push their way Into their mother’s body and which arouse

the epistemophilic instinct allied to that desire.1 Their de-

structive impulses, however, soon cease to be directed

against the mother alone and become extended to the

father. For they imagine that his penis is incorporated by her during oral copulation and remains inside her (the

father being equipped with a great many), so that their attacks on her body are also levelled at his penis inside

it.

I think that the reason why, in the deepest layers of his

mind, the boy has such a tremendous fear of his mother as the castrator and why he harbours the idea, so closely associated with that fear, of the ‘woman with a penis’, is that he is afraid of her as a person whose body contains hisfather’spenis; sothat,ultimately,whatheisafraidof is his father’s

penis incorporated

placement of feelings of hatred and anxiety from the father’s penis to the mother’s body which harbours it is

very important, I think, in the aetiology of mental dis- orders and is an underlying factor in disturbances of sexual development and in the adoption of a homosexual attitude in the male individual 3 and, in my view, his fear

;

of his mother’s imaginary penis is an intermediate step in

this process of displacement. For in this way he modifies his greater fear of his father’s penis inside her a fear

which is quite overpowering, because at this early stage

of development the principle of pars pro toto holds good and the penis represents the father in person. Thus the

1 Cf. Abraham, ‘Psycho-Analytical Studies on Character-Formation*

(1925).

1 In his ‘Homosexualitat und Odipuskomplex* (1926) Felix Boehm draws

attention to the significance of phantasies frequently found in men that^ their father’s penis has been retained by their mother after copulation and is hidden inside her vagina. He also points out that ‘the various notions of a concealed female penis exert a pathological influence in virtue of the fact that they are brought into unconscious relation with the idea of a big and dreaded penis belonging to the father, which is hidden inside the mother*. In psycho- analytical literature frequent mention is made of phantasies of meeting the father’s penis in the mother’s womb and of witnessing copulation between the parents, or of being damaged by it, during intra-uterine life.

Cf. Chapter XII.

in his mother.2 The dis-

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH. penis inside the mother represents a combination of father

I9O

and mother in one

1 and this combination is re-

person,

garded as a particularly terrifying and threatening one.

As has been pointed out earlier, at its period of maximal strength the child’s sadism is centred round coitus be- tween his parents. The death-wishes he feels against them

during the primal scene or in his primal phantasies are associated with sadistic phantasies which are extraor- dinarily rich in content and which involve the sadistic destruction of hrs parents both singly and together.

The child also has phantasies in which his parents de- stroy each other by means of their genitals and excrements

which are imagined as dangerous weapons. These phan- tasies have important effects and are very numerous, con-

taining such ideas as that the penis, incorporated in the mother, turns into a dangerous animal or into weapons loadedwithexplosivesubstances; orthathervagina,too, becomes a dangerous animal or some instrument of death,

as, for instance, a poisoned mouse-trap. Since such phan- tasies are wish-phantasies and since his sexual theories are

largely fed by sadistic desires, the child has a sense of guilt

about the injuries which, in his imagination, his parents inflict on each other.

In addition to the quantitative increase which the child’s

sadism undergoes at every point of origin, qualitative changes take place in it and serve to heighten it still further.

In the later part of the sadistic phase the child’s imaginary attacks on his object, which are of a very violent nature and

made by every method at the disposal of his sadism, be- come extended to include more secret and subtle methods which make them all the more dangerous. In the first part of this phase, for instance, where open violence reigns, excrements are regarded as instruments of direct assault;

butlatertheyacquiresignificanceassubstancesofanexplo- sive or poisonous kind. All these elements taken together

I have noticed in boys* analyses time and again that attempts to attack me were ^directed more especially against my head or feet or nose, and I have found that it was not the female penis which they were thus attacking but the father’s penis which had been incorporated in me or affixed to my person.

vin EARLY STAGES OF THE OEDIPUS CONFLICT 191

give rise to sadistic phantasies whose number, variety and richness are wellnigh inexhaustible. Moreover, these

sadistic impulses against his father and mother copulat-

ing together lead the child to expect punishment from both parents in concert. In this early stage, however, his anxiety serves to intensify his sadism and to increase his

impulse to destroy the dangerous object, so that he brings a still greater amount of sadistic and destructive wishes

to bear upon his combined parents and is correspondingly more afraid of them as a hostile entity.

According to my view, the Oedipus conflict sets in in the boy as soon as he begins to have feelings of hatred

against his father’s penis and to want to achieve genital union with his mother and destroy his father’s penis which he imagines to be inside her body. I consider that early

genital impulses and phantasies, although they set in dur- ing the phase dominated by sadism, constitute, in children of both sexes, the early stages of the Oedipus conflict, be- cause they satisfy the accepted criteria for it. Although the child’s pre-genital impulses are still in the ascendant, it is already beginning to feel, in addition to oral, urethral and anal desires, genital desires for the parent of the opposite sex and jealousy and hatred of the parent of the same sex and to experience a conflict between its love and its hatred of the latter. We may even go so far as to say that the Oedipus conflict owes its very acuteness to this early situa- tion. The small girl, for instance, while turning from her mother with feelings of hatred and disappointment and directing her oral and genital desires towards her father, is yet bound to the former by the powerful ties of her oral fixations and of her helplessness in general; and the small boy is drawn to his father by his positive oral attachment, and away from him by his feelings of hatred that arise from the early Oedipus situation. But the conflict is not so clearly visible in this stage of the child’s development as it is later on. This, I think, is partly due to the fact that the small child has less means of giving expression to its feelings and that its relations to its objects are as yet confused and

192

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

vague. A part of its reactions to its object are applied to

1 and it often directs the bulk of its anxiety and hatred towards the latter in especial towards internalized objects so that its attitude towards its parents only reflects a portion of the difficulties it experiences in its attitude to its object. But these difficulties find ex- pression in a number of other ways. It has been my in- variable experience, for instance, that the night-terrors and phobias of small children are already due to the presence

of an Oedipus conflict.

I do not think that a sharp distinction can be made be-

tween the early stages of the Oedipus conflict and the later

genital impulses even in later stages of development, the

attainment of the genital stage merely means a strengthen-

ing of the genital impulses. That the pre-genital and the

genital impulses are thus merged together is seen from the well-known fact that when children witness the primal

scene or have primal phantasies both events of a genital

character they experience very powerful pre-genital im-

pulses, such as bed-wetting and defaecating, accompanied by sadistic phantasies directed towards their copulating

parents.

According to my observation, the child’s masturbation

phantasies have as their nucleus early sadistic phantasies centred upon its parents’ copulation. It is those destructive impulses, fused with libidinal ones, which cause the super-

object-relation- ships flow later on. It attaches to its imaginary objects not only feelings of hatred and anxiety but positive feelings as well. In doing this it withdraws them from its real objects, and if its relations to its imaginary objects are too powerful,

both in a negative and a positive sense, it cannot adequately attach either its

sadistic phantasies or its restitutive ones to its real objects, with the result that

itundergoesdisturbancesofitsadaptationtorealityandofitsobject-relationships. * I do not, for instance, think that Fenichel is justified in differentiating

*pre-genital precursors of the Oedipus complex’ from the Oedipus complex itself, as he does in his *Pregenital Antecedents of the Oedipus Complex’ (1930).

its

phantasy-objects;

ones,8 as far as Since,

the impulses set in at the same time as the pre-genital ones and influence and modify them, and since, as a result of this early association, they themselves bear traces of certain pre-

observations

show,

genital

1 We shall discuss the various directions in which the child’s

VIII EARLY STAGES OF THE OEDIPUS CONFLICT

193

ego to put up defences against masturbation phantasies and, incidentally, against masturbation itself. The child’s

sense of guilt about its early genital masturbation is thus derived from its sadistic phantasies directed against its

parents. And since, furthermore, those masturbation phantasies contain the essence of its Oedipus conflict and can therefore be regarded as the focal point of its whole sexual life, the sense of guilt it has on account of its libidinal impulses is really a reaction to the destructive impulses that are knit up with them.1 If this is so, then not only would it not be the incestuous tendencies which give rise in the first instance to a sense of guilt, but fear of incest itself would ultimately be derived from the de- structive impulses which have entered into a permanent partnership with the child’s earliest incestuous desires.

If we are right in supposing that the child’s Oedipus

tendencies set in in the phase of maximal sadism, we are led

to accept the view that it is chiefly impulses of hate which

bring on the Oedipus conflict and the formation of the

super-ego and which govern the earliest and most decisive

stages of both. Such a view, though it may at first sight

seem alien to the accepted theory of psycho-analysis, never- theless fits in with our knowledge of the fact that the libido

evolves to the genital stage out of the pre-genital stages.

Freud has repeatedly pointed out that in the development of the individual hatred precedes love. In his ‘Instincts and

their Vicissitudes’ (1915) he says: ‘The relation of hate to objects is older than that of love. It is derived from the primal repudiation by the narcissistic ego of the external world whence flows the stream of stimuli’ (p. 82); and again: *Theegohates,abhorsandpursueswithintentto destroy all objects which are for it a source of painful feel-

1 In a paper, *The Importance of Symbol-Formation in the Development of the Ego*, which I read at the Psycho-Analytical Congress held in Oxford in 1929, I stated this view as follows: *It is only in the later stages of the Oedipus conflict that the defence against the libidinal impulses makes its appearance; in the earlier stages it is against the accompanying destructive impulses that the

defence is directed*.

At thesame Congress Ernest Jones, in his paper Tear, Guilt and Hate*,laid stress

upon the importance of the aggressive tendencies in giving rise to the sense ofguilt. N

194

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

ings, without taking into account whether they mean to it frustration of sexual satisfaction or gratification of the

needs of self-preservation’ (p. Si).

The orthodox view is that the formation of the superego

begins in the phallic phase. In his ‘Passing of the Oedi- pus Complex’ (1924) Freud states that the Oedipus com- plex is succeeded by the erection of the super-ego that

it falls to pieces and the super-ego takes its place. Again,

in his Hemmung, Symptom und Angst (1926), we read: ‘Anxiety in animal phobias is thus an effective reaction of

the ego to danger the danger that is threatened being castration. There is no difference between this anxiety and the reality anxiety that the ego normally feels in situa- tions of danger, except that its content remains uncon- scious and is only perceived in a distorted form’ S. 67). According to this view, the anxiety which affects children

until the beginning of the latency period would refer solely to fear of castration in the case of the boy and to fear of

losing love in the case of the girl, and the super-ego would not start to form until the pre-genital stages had been left behind and would be the result of a regression to the oral stage. In The Ego and the Id (1927) Freud tells us that ‘At

the very beginning, in the primitive oral phase of the indi- vidual’s existence, object cathexis and identification are

hardly to be distinguished from each other’ (p. 35): and

‘it’ (the super-ego) ‘is really the precipitate of the first object cathexes of the id; the inheritor of the Oedipus

complex after the dissolution of the latter’.2

1 In his Civilization and its Discontents (1929) he goes still further and says: This instinct’ (of aggression) . . . *is at the bottom of all the relations of affection andlovebetweenhumanbeings possiblywiththesingleexceptionofthatof a mother to her male child* (p. 89). My own view that the Oedipus conflict starts under the primacy of sadism seems to me to supplement what Freud says, since it gives another reason why hatred should be the basis of object-relationships inthefactthatthechildformsitsrelationwithitsparents a.relationthatisso fundamental and so decisive for all its future object-relationships during the time when its sadistic tendencies are at the height of their power. The ambivalence it feels towards its mother’s breast as its first object becomes strengthened by the increasing oral frustration it undergoes and by the onset of its Oedipus conflict,

until it grows into fully-developed sadism.

* Die Fragf der Lcuenonalyse (1926), 74.

viii EARLY STAGES OF THE OEDIPUS CONFLICT

195

My own observations have led me to believe that the formation of the super-ego is a simpler and more direct pro- cess. The Oedipus conflict and the super-ego set in, I be-

lieve, under the supremacy of the pre-genital impulses, and the objects which have been introjected in the oral-sadistic

phase the first object cathexes and identifications form

the ofthe 1 what beginnings early super-ego. Moreover,

originates the formation of the super-ego and governs its earliest stages are the destructive impulses and the anxiety

they arouse. In thus regarding the impulses of the indi- vidual as the fundamental factor in the formation of his

super-ego we do not deny the importance of the objects themselves for this process, but we view it in a different

light. The earliest identifications of the child reflect its objects in an unreal and distorted fashion. As we know

from Abraham, in an early stage of development both real

and introjected objects are mainly represented by their organs. We also know that the father’s penis is an anxiety

object par excellence^ and is compared in the unconscious to

dangerous weapons of various kinds and to terrifying ani- mals which poison and devour, while the vagina represents a

2 shows that these dangerousopening, Earlyanalysis

equa- tions are a universal mechanism of fundamental importance

in the structure of the super-ego. As far as I can judge, the nucleus of the super-ego is to be found in the partial incor- poration that takes place during the cannibalistic phase of

development;

3 and the child’s take the im- early imagos

of those

pre-genital impulses.

1 In her paper, ‘Privation and Guilt* (1929), Susan Isaacs points out that

Freud’s *primary identification* probably plays a greater part in the formation

of the super-ego than was originally supposed.

* Cf. the phantasy, so often mentioned in psycho-analytic literature, of the

vagina dentate.

3 In the next chapter, and more especially in Chapter XL, I shall try to

show that the child introjects both good imagos and bad ones, and that gradually, as his adaptation to reality and the formation of his super-ego go forward, those imagos approximate more and more closely to the real objects they represent, In this chapter I only intend to give a picture of the development or the child’s sadistic tendencies and their connection with his early super-ego formation and anxiety-situations.

4 In my ‘Early Stages of the Oedipus Conflict’ (1928) I wrote: *It does not seem understandable that a child of, say, four years old should set up in its

196

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

That the ego should regard the internalized object as so cruel an enemy of the id would follow logically from the fact that the destructive instinct which the ego has de- flected to the outer world has become directed against that

object, from which, in consequence, nothing but hostility against the id can be awaited. But as far as can be seen, a

phylogenetic factoi is also present in the origin of the very

early and intense anxiety which, in my experience, the child feels in respect of his internalized object. The father

of the primal horde was the external power which enforced aninhibitionofinstinct.1 Inthecourseofthehistoryof man, the fear of his father which he had acquired would, when he began to internalize his object, serve in part as a defence against the anxiety which his destructive instinct in him gave rise to.*

Concerning the formation of the super-ego, Freud seems to follow two lines of thought, which are to some extent

mutually complementary. According to one the severity of the super-ego is derived from the severity of the real father

whose and commands it 3 prohibitions repeats. According

mind an unreal, phantastic image of parents who devour, cut and bite. But it does seem understandable that in a child of one year old the anxiety caused by the beginning of the Oedipus conflict should take the form of a dread of being devoured and destroyed. The child itself desires to destroy its libidinal object by biting:, devouring and cutting it, and this leads to anxiety, since the awakening of its Oedipus tendencies is followed by introjection of its object, which then becomes one from whom punishment is to be expected. The child now dreads

a punishment corresponding to its offence, and the super-ego becomes something which bites, devours and cuts up,*

(1912).

* The ego would, as it were, play off its two enemies, the object and the

destructive instinct, against one another, although in so doing it would find itself in a very perilous position between the two opposed forces. That the dreaded father should in part be a protection against the destructive instinct may also be due to the admiration for his power which the individual would have acquired in the same phylogenetic way. This possibility receives support from the fact that in early analysis we find that quite small children of both sexes are not only afraid oftheir father but have a feeling of boundless admiration for his power a feeling which is very deep-lying and primary in character. And we must remember that as children grow older, the part their super-ego

1 Cf.Freud,TotemundTabu

plays, though that of a severe father, is not that of an unkind one. Freud con- 1

cludes his paper on ‘Humour (1928) with these words: ‘Finally, if the super-ego does try to comfort the ego by humour and to protect it from suffering, this 4oes not conflict with its derivation from the parental institution*.

1 In his ‘Passing of the Oedipus Complex (1924) Freud says that the ego

vni EARLY STAGES OF THE OEDIPUS CONFLICT

197

to the other, as indicated in one or two passages in his writings, its severity is an outcome of the destructive im-

ofthe 1 pulses subject.

Psycho-Analysis has not followed up the second line of

thought. As its literature shows, it has adopted the theory

that the super-ego is derived from parental authority and has made this theory the basis of all further enquiry into

the subject. Nevertheless, Freud has recently, in part, con-

2 which

ance of the impulses of the individual himself as a factor

of the child turns away from the Oedipus complex in consequence of the threat

of castration. ‘The authority of the father or the parents is mtrojected into the

ego and there forms the kernel of the super-ego, which takes its severity from

the father, perpetuates his prohibition against incest, and so insures the ego

against a recurrence of the libidinal object-cathexis’ (p. 273). In The Ego and the

Id (1926) we are told: ‘Its* (the super-ego’s) ‘relation to the ego is not exhausted

by the precept: “You ought to be such and such (like your father)*’; it also com-

prises the prohibition: “You must not be such and such (like your father); that

is, you may not do all that he does; many things are his prerogative”. This

double aspect of the ego-ideal derives from the fact that the ego-ideal had the

task of effecting the repression of the Oedipus complex; indeed, it is to that

revolutionary event that it owes its existence. Clearly the repression of the

Oedipus complex was no easy task. The parents, and especially the father, were perceived as the obstacle to realization of the Oedipus wishes; so the child’s

ego brought in a reinforcement to help in carrying out the repression by erecting this same obstacle within itself, The strength to do this was, so to speak, borrowed

from the father, and this loan was an extraordinarily momentous act. The super-ego retains the character of the father, while the more intense the Oedipus complex was and the more rapidly it succumbed to repression (under the

influence of discipline, religious teaching, schooling and reading) the more exactinglateronisthedominationofthesuper-egoovertheego intheform of conscience or perhaps of an unconscious sense of guilt. I shall later bring forward a suggestion about the source of the power it employs to dominate in this way, the source, that is, of its compulsive character which manifests itself in the form of a categorical imperative* (p. 44).

1 In The Ego and the Id (1926) he says: ‘Everjr such identification is in the nature of a desexualization or even of a sublimation. It now seems as though when a transformation of this kind takes place there occurs at the same time an instinctual defusion. After sublimation the erotic component no longer has the power to bind the whole of the destructive elements that were previously com- bined with it, and these are released in the form of inclinations to aggression and destruction. This defusion would be the source of the general character of

‘

firmed own my

view,

lays emphasis

on the

import-

harshness and cruelty exhibited by the ideal its dictatorial “Thou shalt”

(p. 80).

3 InhisCruiUxationanditsDiscontents(1930)weread:’Experiencehasshown,

however, that the severity which a child’s super-ego develops in no way corre-

sponds to the severity of the treatment it has itself experienced*, and that ‘the original severity of the super-ego does not or not so much represent the severity which has been experienced or anticipated from the object, but expresses the child’s own aggressiveness towards the latter* (p. 116).

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH. in the origin of his super-ego and on the fact that his super-

ego is not identical with his real objects.

I should like to call the early identifications made by the

child ‘early stages of super-ego formation’ in the same way as I have used the term ‘early stages of the Oedipus con- flict’. In the earliest stages of the child’s development the precipitates of its object cathexes exert an influence of a kind which characterizes them as a super-ego, although they differ in quality and mode of operation from the iden- tifications belonging to later stages. And cruel as this super- ego formed under the supremacy of sadism may be, it nevertheless takes on the defence of the ego against the destructive instinct, and is thus already at this early stage the agency from which instinctual inhibitions pro- ceed.

In his paper, ‘Die Identifizierung* (1926), Fenichel has applied certain criteria which differentiate the ‘precursors

of the super-ego’, as he calls those early identifications in accordance with a suggestion made by Reich,2 from the

super-ego itself. These precursors exist, he thinks, in a scattered state and independently of one another, and lack

the unity, the severity, the opposition to the ego, the quality ofbeingunconsciousandthegreatpowerwhichcharacterize

the actual super-ego as inheritor of the Oedipus complex. In my opinion such a differentiation is incorrect in several respects. As far as I have been able to observe, it is precisely the early super-ego which is especially severe; and, nor-

mally speaking, in no period of life is the opposition be- tween ego and super-ego so strong as in early childhood. Indeed, this latter fact explains why in the first stages of

1 My views are in agreement with those of Ernest Jones, Edward Glover, Joan Riviere and M. N. Searl, who, approaching the subject from different standpoints, have come to the conclusion that the child’s early phantasy life and libidinal development play a large part in the evolution of the super-ego. Cf. *A Symposium on Child Analysis* (1926); also a paper by Ernest Jones on “The Origin and Structure of the Super-ego” (1926), in which he points out that *there is every reason to think that the concept of the super-ego is a nodal point where we may expect all the obscure problems of Oedipus complex and narcissism on the one hand, and hate and sadism on the other, to meet’ (p. 304).

198

1 Cf. Reich, Der Triebhafte Charakter (1925),

vm EARLY STAGES OF THE OEDIPUS CONFLICT

199

life the tension between the two is chiefly felt as anxiety. Furthermore, I have found that the commands and pro- hibitions of the super-ego are no less unconscious in the small child than in the adult, and that they are by no means identical with the commands that come from its real ob-

jects. Fenichel is right, I think, in saying that the super- ego of the child is not yet as closely organized as that of the

grown-up person. But this point of difference, apart from not being universally true, since many small children ex-

hibit a well-organized super-ego and many adults a scat- tered one, seems to me merely to be in keeping with the

lesser degree of mental cohesion possessed by the small child as compared to the adult. We know that small chil- dren have a less highly organized ego than children in the

latency period, yet we do not therefore say that they have

no ego but only precursors of an ego.

It has already been said that in the phase of maximal

sadism an increase of sadistic tendencies leads to an in- crease of anxiety. The threats uttered by the early super- ego against the id contain in detail the whole range of sadistic phantasies that were directed to the object, so that now every item of them is turned back against the ego. Thus the pressure of anxiety exerted in this early stage will

correspond in degree to the amount of sadism originally present, and in quality to the variety and wealth of the

accompanying sadistic phantasies.

The gradual overcoming of sadism and anxiety is a re-

sult of the development of the libido.8 But the very excess of his anxiety also impels the individual to overcome it. Anxiety assists the several erotogenic zones to grow in strength and gain the upper hand one after another. Thus the supremacy of the oral- and urethral-sadistic impulses is followed by the supremacy of the anal-sadistic im- pulses; and since the mechanisms belonging to the early anal-sadistic stage, however powerful they may be,

1 Cf. my paper, lnfantik Anxiety-Situations Reflected in a Work of Art*

9)-

Cf. the next chapter for a fuller discussion of this poinu

2OO THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

are already acting on behalf of the defences which have been erected against anxiety arising from the earlier periods of the sadistic phase, it follows that that very

anxiety which is pre-eminently an inhibiting agency in the development of the individual is also a factor of funda-

mental importance in promoting the growth of his ego and of his sexual life.

In this stage of the development of the individual his methods of defence are proportionate to the pressure of anxiety in him and are violent in the extreme. We know that in the early anal-sadistic stage what he is ejecting is his

object, which he perceives as something hostile to him and which he equates with excrement. In my view, what he is

also already ejecting is his terrifying super-ego which he has

introjected in the oral-sadistic stage of his development. Thus his act of ejection is a means of defence employed by

his fear-ridden ego against his super-ego; it expels his internalized objects and projects them into the outer world.

The mechanisms of projection and expulsion in the individ- ualarecloselyboundupwiththeprocessofsuper-egoforma- tion. Just as his ego tries to defend itself against his super-

egobyviolentlyejectingitandthusdestroyingit, so,urged on by the threats of that super-ego, it tries to rid itself of his

sadistic id that is, of his destructive tendencies by the

same method of forcible expulsion. In Hemmung^ Symptom und Angst (1926) Freud says that he considers the idea of

defence as well-fitted for ‘a general designation for all the methods used by the ego in those conflicts which may lead to a neurosis; whereas the idea of repression should be reserved for that particular method of defence which our line of investigation has first led us to understand’ (S. 106). He furthermore explicitly states the possibility ‘that re- pression is a process which stands in a special relationship to the genital organization of the libido and that the ego turns to other methods of defence when it has to protect itself against the libido in other stages of its organization*

(S. 65). My view is also supported by Abraham in a passage in which he says that ‘the tendency to spare

VIII EARLY STAGES OF THE OEDIPUS CONFLICT 2OI

the object and to preserve it has grown out of the more

primitive destructive tendency by a process of repres-

1 sion’.

Concerning the dividing line between the two anal- sadistic stages the same author writes as follows: *In re-

garding this dividing line as extremely important we find ourselves in agreement with the ordinary medical view.

For the division that we psycho-analysts have made on the strength of empirical data coincides in fact with the classi- fication into neurosis and psychosis made by clinical medi- cine. But analysts, of course, would not attempt to make a rigid separation between neurotic and psychotic affec- tions. They are, -on the contrary, aware that the libido of

any individual may regress beyond this dividing line be- tween the two anal-sadistic phases, given a suitable excit-

ing cause of illness, and given certain points of fixation in his libidinal development which facilitate a regression of

this nature.’

As we know, it is not in the actual structure of his

mind that the normal man differs from the neurotic, but in the quantitative factors at work. The above quotations from Abraham imply that the difference between the psy- chotic and the neurotic person is also one of degree. My own psycho-analytical work with children has not only confirmed me in the opinion that the points of fixation for

psychoses lie in the stages of development preceding the second anal level, but has convinced me that neurotic and

normal children have points of fixation there as well,

though in a minor degree.

We know that the psychotic has a far greater quantity

of anxiety than the neurotic; yet the accepted theory of super-ego formation offers no explanation of the fact that

such an overwhelming anxiety can come into being in

those very early stages of development in which, according to the findings of Freud and Abraham, the fixations for

the psychoses are situated. Freud’s latest theories, brought

1 *AShortStudyoftheDevelopmentoftheLibido*(1924),p.428.

Ibid. p. 433.

2O2 THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

forward in his Hemmung, Symptom und Angst., rule out the

possibility that this immense quantity of anxiety might arise from the conversion of unsatisfied libido into anxiety.

Nor can we assume that the child’s fear of being devoured, cut up and killed by its parents is a reality fear. But if we suppose that this excessive anxiety can only be an effect of intra-psychic processes we shall not be so far from the

theory put forward in these pages that early anxiety pro- ceeds from the pressure of the super-ego. The pressure

which, in an early stage of the child’s development, the super-ego exerts on his destructive tendencies not only

answers, both in degree and kind, to his sadistic phantasies, but arouses anxiety-situations which reflect the various periods which his sadistic phase covers. These anxiety- situations, furthermore, call out special mechanisms of de- fence on the part of his ego and determine the specific character his psychotic disorder will assume, as well as

Before attempting to study the relationship between

early anxiety-situations and the specific character of psy- chotic affections, however, let us first turn our attention

to the way in which the formation of the super-ego and

the development of object-relations affect each other. If it is true that the super-ego is formed at such an early

stage of ego development, when the ego is still so far re- moved from reality, we must review the growth of object- relations in a new light. The fact that the individual creates a distorted picture of his objects in virtue of his

own sadistic impulses not only puts a different complexion on the influence exerted by those objects and his relations

to them on the formation of his super-ego, but, conversely, increases the importance of his super-ego formation in

regard to his object-relations. When, as a small child, he first begins to introject his objects and these, it must be remembered, are only very vaguely known to him and

1 In Hemmung, Symptom und Angst (1926) Freud writes: ‘It is possible that there is a close connection between the operative danger-situation and the form assumed by the neurosis that follows upon it” (S. 84-5).

being decisive for his development in general.

VIII EARLY STAGES OF THE OEDIPUS CONFLICT

2O3

mainlythroughtheirseparateorgans hisfearofthose introjected objects sets in motion the mechanisms of ejec-

tion and projection, as we have already seen; and there now follows a reciprocal action between projection and introjection, which seems to be of fundamental import- ance not only for the formation of his super-ego but for

the development of his object-relations to persons and his

adaptation to reality. The steady and continual urge he is under to project his terrifying identifications on to his

objects results, it would seem, in an increased impulse to

repeat the process of introjection again and again, and is thus itself a decisive factor in the evolution of his relation-

ship to objects.

The interaction between object-relation and super-ego

is also exhibited, I think, in the fact that at every stage of development the methods which the ego uses in its deal-

ings with its object correspond exactly to those used by the super-ego towards the ego, and by the ego towards

the super-ego and the id. In the sadistic phase the indi- vidual protects himself from his fear of his violent object,

both introjected and external, by redoubling his own destructive attacks upon it in his imagination. In thus

getting rid of his object his aim would in part be to silence the intolerable threats of his super-ego. But a reaction of this kind presupposes that the mechanism of projection has already begun to work along two lines one by which

the ego is putting the object in the place of the super-ego from which it wants to free itself, and another by which

it is making the object stand for the id of which it also wants to be rid. In this way the amount of hatred which

was primarily directed against the object is augmented by the amount attaching to the id and the super-ego. Thus

it would seem that in people in whom the early anxiety- situations are too powerful and who have retained the

1 In his ‘Instincts and their Vicissitudes’ (1915) Freud writes: *The objects

presenting themselves, in so far as they are sources of pleasure, are absorbed by

the ego into itself, “introjected” (according to an expression coined by Ferenczi) j while, on the other hand, the ego thrusts forth upon the external world whatever

within itself gives rise to pain (i;. infra: the mechanism of projection)* (p. 78).

2O4

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

defensive mechanisms belonging to that early stage, fear of the super-ego, if for external or intra-psychic reasons

it oversteps certain bounds, will compel them to destroy their object and will form the basis for the development

of a criminal type of behaviour.

These too-powerful early anxiety-situations are also, I

think, of fundamental importance in theaetiology of schizo-

phrenia. But I can only support this view here by putting forward one or two suggestions. As has already been

pointed out, by projecting his terrifying super-ego on to his objects, the indK I aal increases his hatred of those objects

and thus also his fear of them, with the result that, if his

aggression and anxiety are excessive, his external world is changed into a place of terror and his objects into enemies and he is threatened with persecution both from the ex- ternal world and from his introjected enemies. If his anxiety is too immense or if his ego cannot tolerate it, he will try to evade his fear of external enemies by putting hismechanismsofprojectionoutofaction; thiswouldinits

turn prevent any further introjection of objects from tak- ing place and put an end to the growth of his relation to

reality,

2 and he would be all the more to fear of his exposed

already introjected objects. He would be in dread of being attacked and injured in various ways by an enemy within him from whom there was no escape. A fear of this kind is

probably one of the deepest sources of hypochondria, and the excess of it, insusceptibl’e as it is to any modification

or displacement, would obviously call out particularly violent methods of defence. A disturbance like this of the

mechanism of projection seems, moreover, to go along

of understanding the criminal and perhaps reforming him would seem to be to

subject the deepest levels of his mental life to analysis.

Cf. my paper, *The Importance of Symbol-Formation in the Develop- ment of the Ego’ (1930).

Melitta Schmideberg has pointed out that the schizophrenic cuts himself offfromtheexternalworldbytakingrefugeinhis’good’internalobject a manoeuvre which he accomplishes by ceasing to project and by over-com-

pensating ^his love of his internal object in a narcissistic way and thus evading his fear of his ‘bad* internal and external objects. (Cf. her articles

If crime does indeed spring from early anxiety in this way, our only hope

vni EARLY STAGES OF THE OEDIPUS CONFLICT

205 thus only

witha

negation

intra-psychic reality.

1 The

person

affected 2 and to a certain extent denies,

eliminates,

3 not

the source of his anxiety, but its affects well. A whole num-

ber of phenomena belonging to the syndrome of schizo-

phrenia can be explained as an attempt to ward off, master

or contend with an internal enemy. Katatonia, for instance,

could be regarded as an attempt to paralyse the intro- jected object and keep it immovable and so render it in-

nocuous.4

The earliest period of the sadistic phase is characterized

by the great violence of the attack made on the object, In

a later period of this phase, coinciding with the early anal

stage in which the anal-sadistic impulses take the lead,

more secret methods of attack prevail, such as the use of

poisonous and explosive materials. Excrements now repre-

sent 5 and in its the child uses faeces poisons, phantasies

as 6 its and persecuting agencies against objects secretly

‘The Role of Psychotic Mechanisms in Cultural Development*, 1930, and *A Contribution to the Psychology of Persecutory Ideas and Delusions’, 1931.)

1 In his paper, ‘Stages in the Development of a Sense of Reality* (1913), Ferenczi has remarked that the complete denial of reality is a very early form of

mental reaction and that the points of fixation for psychoses should be situated in a correspondingly early stage of development.

According to Melitta Schmideberg, denial of the affect of anxiety is in part utilized to deny the existence of the introjected object with which the affects are equated (cf. *A Contribution to the Psychology of Persecutory Ideas and Delusions’, 1931).

3 In his ‘fjber Skotomisation in der Schizophrenic* (1926) Laforgue has suggested the name ‘scotomization* for this defensive mechanism and has drawn attention to its importance in schizophrenia.

4 According to Melitta Schmideberg, katatonia represents death and is a means of escaping from the various forms of attack which the patient dreads

(cf. op. cit.).

6 Cf. my paper, *The Importance of Symbol-Formation in the Development

of the Ego* (1930), also *A Contribution to the Theory of Intellectual In-

hibition* (1931). More recently, in a paper entitled ‘tJber respiratorische Intro- jektion* (1931), Fenichel has described a class of sadistic phantasies in which the excreta are instruments of killing, the faeces by poisoning and exploding, and the urine by poisoning. According to him these phantasies bring on a fear of being poisoned by excreta. His paper seems to me to corroborate the views already put forward by me in the above-mentioned articles,

6 Cf. Ophuijsen, *On the Origin of the Feeling of Persecution* (1919)* and Starcke, ‘The Reversal of the Libido-Sign in Delusions of Persecution* (1919). According to them the paranoic’s idea of the persecutor is derived from the unconscious idea of the scybalum inside his bowels and his equation of that scybalum with his persecutor’s penis. I have found that the fear of pieces of

2O6 THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

inserts them a kind of 1 into the anus and other by magic

bodily apertures of those objects and leaves them there. In

consequence it begins to be afraid of its own excrement, as a substance which is dangerous and harmful to its body, and of the incorporated excrements of its objects from whom it awaits similar secret attacks through the same dangerous medium. Thus its phantasies lead to a fear of having a multitude of persecutors inside its body and of

being poisoned, and are the basis of hypochondriacal fears, They also serve to increase the fear aroused by the equa-

2 for that

is made still more dangerous by being likened to the poisonous and destructive scybalum. And the fact that, in consequence of its urethral-sadistic impulses, the child also

thinks of urine as something dangerous, as something that

burns, cuts and poisons, prepares it unconsciously to re- gard the penis as a sadistic organ and to dread its father’s

3 within itself. (thepersecutor’s) dangerouspenis

In the period in which it makes attacks by means of poisonous excreta, the child’s fears of subterraneous attacks upon itself on the part of its introjected and ex- ternal objects become more manifold, in accordance with

the greater variety and subtlety of its own sadistic proced- ures; andtheypushtheactivityofitsmechanismsofpro-

jection to their furthest limits. Its anxiety spreads out and is distributed over many objects and sources of danger in the outer world, so that it now expects to be attacked by a numberof 4 The of

stool as persecutors was ultimately derived from sadistic phantasies in which urine and faeces were employed as poisonous and destructive weapons against the mother’s body.

1 R6heim, in his ‘Nach dem Tode des Urvaters* (1923), has shown that in primitive tribes the black magician kills a man or makes him ill by magically inserting excrements or their equivalents into his body.

* Abraham (*A Short Study of the Development of the Libido*, 1924) has

tion of the with introjected object

faeces,

object

great persecutors, quality secrecy

and

shown that the hated object is equated with faeces. Cf. also R6heim, *Nach dem 1

Tode des Urvaters (1923), and Simmel, ‘The Doctor-Game, Illness, and the Profession of Medicine* (1926).

3 Cf. my paper, *A Contribution to the Theory of Intellectual Inhibition” (1931).

4 The fear of numerous persecutors has not only an anal-sadistic origin, as

vni EARLY STAGES OF THE OEDIPUS CONFLICT

2OJ

cunning which it attributes to those attacks leads it to ob- serve the world about it with a watchful and suspicious eye and thus to strengthen its relations to reality, one-sided and false though that relation may be; while its fear of the in-

trojected object, notwithstanding the mechanisms of pro- jection, is a constant incentive to it to keep those mechan-

isms in operation.

The fixation-point for paranoia is, I think, this period of the phase of maximal sadism, in which the child’s attacks upon the interior of its mother’s body and the penis it im- agines to be there are carried out by means of poisonous and

1 and delusions of reference and persecution spring from the anxiety-situations attached to

According to my view, the child’s fear of its introjected objects urges it to displace that fear into the external world. In doing this it takes its organs, objects, faeces and all manner of things, as well as its internalized objects, and equates them with its external objects; and it also distri-

being a fear of many persecuting faeces, but an oral one as well. In my ex- perience the child’s sexual theory, according to which its mother incorporates a new penis every time she copulates and its father is provided with a quantity of penises, contributes to its fear of having a great number of persecutors.

Melitta Schmideberg regards this multiplicity of persecutors as being a pro- jection of the child’s own oral-sadistic attacks on its fathers penis, each separate

bit of his penis becoming a new object of anxiety (cf. her paper, ‘The R61e of Psychotic Mechanisms in Cultural Development*, 1930).

1 Cf. also my paper, *The Importance of Symbol-Formation in the Develop- ment of the Ego’ (1930). I find myself in agreement with Abraham’s view that in the paranoic the libido regresses to the earlier anal stage, for according to me the phase of maximal sadism is introduced by the oral-sadistic impulses and terminates with the decline of the earlier anal stage. The period of this phase which has been described above and which I consider to be fundamental for paranoia will be seen to be under the supremacy of the earlier anal stage. What has been said here adds something, I think, to the findings of Abraham. It shows that in the above-mentioned phase the various means of sadism are employed in conjunction and to their fullest capacity and that the urethral- sadistic tendencies are of fundamental importance as well as the oral-sadistic ones. It has also furnished a certain amount of information about the structure of those phantasies in which the anal-sadistic tendencies belonging to the earlier anal stage find expression.

1 Melitta Schmideberg has brought forward two cases in which delusional

ideas of and reference were derived from of this persecution anxiety-situations

kind (cf. her paper, *A Contribution to the Psychology of Persecutory Ideas and Delusions*, 1931).

dangerous excreta;

those attacks.

2O8 THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH. butes its fear of its external object over a great number of

objects by equating one with another.

A relation of this kind to many objects, based as it is

in part on anxiety and brought about by means of equa-

2 tions, may

be called a and is, phobicanxiety-mechanism,

I think, a further advance on the part of the individual in the establishment of a relationship to objects and an adapta-

tion to reality; for his earliest object-relation only included one thing, i.e. his mother’s breast as representing his mother. In the imagination of the small child these multiple objects are situated inside his mother’s body, and this place is also the chief objective of his destructive and libidinal tendencies and also of his awakening epistemo- philic impulses. As his sadistic tendencies increase and he takes possession in phantasy of the interior of his mother’s body, that part of her becomes the representative of her whole person as an object, and at the same time symbolizes the external world and reality. Indeed, through her breast, she originally represented the external world for him. But now the inside of her body represents object and outer world in a more extended sense, because it has become the place which contains, by reason of the wider distribu- tion of his more manifold 3

anxiety, objects.

Thus the child’s sadistic phantasies about the interior

of his mother’s body lay down for him a fundamental relation to the external world and to reality. But his

aggression and the anxiety he has in consequence of it,

1 Thechild’sdestructivedesires its against

represented by bodily

objects,

organs, arouse its fear of those organs and objects. Such a fear, together with

its libidinal interests, leads it to equate those organs with other things, which thus in their turn become objects of anxiety, so that it is continually moving away from them and making fresh equations; and in this way it forms a system of symbolization (cf. my paper, “The Importance of Symbol-Formation in the Development of the Ego*, 1930).

8 As Ferenczi has shown, the small child seeks to re-discover its own organs

and their functions in every outside thing by means of identification which is

the precursor of symbolization.

According to Ernest Jones (“The Theory of Symbolism’, 1916} the pleasure- principk enables the individual to liken quite different things to each other if the interest they arouse is of a similar kind. This view lays stress on the im- portance of libidinal interest as a basic factor in processes of identification and

symbolization.

VIII EARLY STAGES OF THE OEDIPUS CONFLICT

2O9

though one foundation of his object-relations, is not the only one. His libido is also active at the same time and makes its influence felt. His libidinal relations to his objects and the influence exerted by reality counteract his fear of internal and external enemies. His belief in the existence of kindly and helpful figures a belief which is founded upon the efficacy of his libido enables his reality-

objects to emerge ever more powerfully and his phantastic

to recede into the 1 background.

imagos

In this way the interaction between super-ego formation

and object-relation, based on an interaction between pro-

jection and introjection, profoundly influences his develop-

ment. In the early stages the projection of his terrifying imagos into the external world turns that world into a place

of danger and his objects into enemies; while the simul- taneous introjection of real objects who are in fact well- disposed to him works in the opposite direction and lessens the force of his fear of the terrifying imagos. Viewed in this

light, super-ego formation, object-relations and adaptation to reality are the result of an interaction between the pro-

jection of the individual’s sadistic impulses and the intro-

jection of his objects.

Cf. my paper, ‘Personification in the Pky of Children (1929).

CHAPTER IX

THE RELATIONS BETWEEN OBSESSIONAL NEUROSIS AND THE EARLY STAGES OF THE SUPER-EGO

the foregoing chapter we have considered the con- tent and effects of the early anxiety-situations of the

individual. We shall now IN

on to examine in what way his libido and his relations to real objects bring about

a modification of those anxiety-situations.

As a result of the oral frustration the child undergoes it

seeks new sources of 1 The little turns gratification. girl

away from her mother and takes her father’s penis as an

object of gratification. At first this gratification is of an oral

nature, but there are tendencies at work 2 genital already.

The small boy also evolves a positive attitude toward his father’s penis out of his oral-sucking position, in virtue of

the assimilation of the breast to a 3 An penis.

oral-sucking fixation to the father’s penis is, I have found, a primal

factor in the establishment of true

homosexuality.

4 But *

pointed out that frustration is a stimulating factor in the development of the

individual.

Cf. my papers, ‘The Psychological Principles of Infant Analysis’ (1926) and ‘Early Stages of the Oedipus Conflict’ (1928).

In his paper, ‘Nach dem Tode des Urvaters’ (1923), Roheim argues that through having devoured the corpse of their primal father his sons came to look on him as the nourishing mother. In this way, he thinks, they transferred the love which they had hitherto felt for their mother alone to their father as wells and their attitude to him, from having been a purely negative one, acquired

In his Notes on Oral Character-Formation’ (1925) Edward Glover has

a positive element.

Cf. Freud, Kindkeitstrirmerung Leonardo da Vincu (1910). We shall follow these developmental processes more closely in Chapter XII. in discussing the sexual development of the boy.

CH. IX OBSESSIONAL NEUROSIS AND EARLY SUPER-EGO 211

ordinarily his feelings of hatred and anxiety towards his

father, arising out of his awakening Oedipus tendencies,

1 militateagainstthisfixation. Ifhisdevelopmentgoesfor-

ward successfully his positive attitude towards his father’s

penis becomes the basis of a good relationship to persons of his own sex and allows him to achieve a complete

heterosexual position at the same time. Whilst, however, in the boy an oral-sucking relation to his father’s penis

may, under certain circumstances, lead to homosexuality, in the girl it is normally the precursor of heterosexual im- pulses and of the Oedipus conflict. A move of this sort on her part towards the father, and, in the boy, a second orientation towards the mother as a genital love-object, set up a new aim for the libidinal gratification of the child, in which the genitals begin to make their influence felt.

In that early phase of development which I have termed the phase of maximal sadism, I have found that all the

pre-genital stages and the genital stage as well are cathected in rapid succession. What then happens is that the libido

enters upon a struggle with the destructive impulses and gradually consolidates its positions. Side by side with the -polarity of the life-instinct and the death-instinct we may, I think, place their interaction as a fundamental factor in the dynamic processes ofthe mind. There is an indissoluble bond between the libido and the destructive tendencies which puts the former to a great extent in the power of the latter. But the vicious circle dominated by the death-instinct,

in which aggression gives rise to anxiety and anxiety re- inforces aggression, can be broken through by the libidinal

1 Thefollowingexample,takenfromdirectobservation,illustratesthecourse of such a change from like to dislike. In the months which followed his weaning, a small boy showed a preference for fish foods as well as a great interest in fish in general. At the age of one he used often to look on with intense and obviously pleasurable interest while his mother killed and prepared fish in the kitchen. Soon afterwards he developed a great dislike of fish foods, which spread to a dislike of seeing fish and then to a regular fish phobia. Experience of numerous early analyses in which attacks on fishes, snakes and lizards have been seen to represent attacks on the father’s penis enable us, I think, to understand the child’s behaviour. The killing offish by his mother satisfied his sadistic impulses against his father’s penis in a very high degree, and this made him afraid of his father, or, more correctly, of his father’s penis.

212 THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

forces when these have gained in strength. As we know, in the early stages of development the life-instinct has to exert its power to the utmost in order to maintain itself against the death-instinct. But this very necessity stimulates the growth of the sexual life of the individual.

Since the child’s genital impulses remain concealed for a long time, we are not able clearly to discern the fluctua-

tions and interminglings of the various phases of develop- ment which result from the conflict between its destructive

and its libidinal impulses. The emergence of the stages

of organization with which we are acquainted corresponds, I should say, not only to the positions which the libido has

won and established in its struggle with the destructive

instinct, but, since these two components are forever

united as well as opposed, to a growing adjustment be- tween them.

It is true that on the surface the small child shows relatively little of that tremendous sadism which is re- vealed in the analysis of its deepest mental levels. But my contention that in the earliest stages of its development the child goes through a time in which its sadistic tendencies reach their maximum at every source is, after all, only an

amplification of the accepted and well-established theory that the child passes on from a stage of oral sadism (can-

nibalism) to one of anal sadism. We must also bear in mind that those cannibalistic tendencies themselves find no ex-

pression commensurate with their psychological import;

for normally we only get comparatively faint indications of the small child’s impulses to destroy its object, What we

see are only derivatives of its phantasies in that connection.

That the child should express its intensely sadistic im-

pulses towards its external objects in such a weakened

form becomes more intelligible if we assume that the ex-

travagant phantasies which arise in a very early stage of its development never become conscious at all. It should,

moreover, be remembered that the stage of ego-develop- ment in which such phantasies occur is a very early one and that the child’s relations to reality are as yet very much

IX OBSESSIONAL NEUROSIS AND EARLY SUPER-EGO

213

influenced by its imaginative life. A further reason may be found in its inferiority in size and strength to the adult and

initsbiologicallydetermineddependenceonhim; forwe

see how much more strongly it manifests its destructive

instincts towards inanimate things, small animals, and so

on. And finally, it may be that even in the earliest stages

of its life genital impulses, although themselves still hidden

from view, are already exerting a restraining influence upon its -sadistic ones and are assisting to lessen the force with

which they would otherwise express themselves against its external object. As far as can be seen, there exists in the small child, side by side with its relations to real objects but on a different plane as it were, relations which are based on its relations to its unreal imagos both as excessively good and

excessively bad figures. Ordinarily, these two kinds of

object-relations intermingle and colour each other to an ever increasing extent. (This is the process which I have

described as an interaction between super-ego formation and object-relations.) But in the mind of the quite small child its real objects and its imaginary ones are still widely separated; and this may in part account for its not ex- hibiting as much sadism and anxiety towards its real ob- jects as would be expected from the character of its

phantasies.

As we know, and as Abraham especially has pointed

out, the nature of the child’s object-relations and character- formation is very strongly determined by whether its pre- dominant fixations are situated in the oral-sucking stage or in the oral-sadistic one. In my opinion this factor is decisive for the formation of the super-ego as well. The

introjection of a kindly mother leads to the setting up of

a friendly father-imago, owing to the equation of breast

with 1 In the construction of the too, fixa- penis. super-ego,

tions in the oral-sucking stage will counteract the terrify-

1 Abraham writes, in *A Short Study of the Development of the Libido* *

(1924), p. 490: Another point to be noted in regard to the part of the body that has been introjected is that the penis is regularly assimilated to the female breast, and that other parts of the body, such as the finger, the foot, hair, faeces and buttocks, can be made to stand for those two organs in a secondary -way, . . .*

214

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

ing identifications which are made under the supremacy of oral-sadistic impulses.

As the sadistic tendencies of the child diminish, the threats made by his super-ego become somewhat reduced in violence and the reactions of his ego also undergo a change. Hitherto the excessive fear of his super-ego and objects which has dominated the earliest stages of his life has called out proportionately violent reactions in his ego. It would seem that the ego tries to defend itself at first

against the super-ego by scotomizing it to use Laforgue’s word and then by ejecting it. As soon as it attempts to outwit the super-ego and reduce the latter’s opposition to

the 1 itis, Ithink, id-impulses,

beginning

which takes cognizance of the power of the super-ego. As

the later anal stage sets in, the ego recognizes tjiat power

ever more clearly and is led to make progressive attempts to come to terms with it. This recognition brings with it

a recognition of the necessity of obeying the commands of

the super-ego.

The behaviour of the ego to the id, which in a some-

what earlier stage has been one of ejection, becomes in the

later anal stage one of suppression or rather, of repres- sion in the true sense of the word.2 At the same time the

amount of hatred it feels towards the object is lessened, since much of that hatred is derived from what was once attached to the super-ego and the id. The increase of the libidinal components and the concomitant diminution of the destructive ones also serve to moderate the primary sadistic tendencies that were directed to the object. When this happens the ego seems to become more conscious of its fear of suffering retribution at the hands of its object. It thus acknowledges the power of the object in addition

1 In his Psychoanalyse der Gesamtpersonlichkeit (1927) Alexander has pointed out that the id in a sense corrupts the super-ego and that this ‘understanding* between them enables it to carry out its forbidden actions.

* In his Hemmung, Symptom und Angst (1926) Freud says: ‘Nevertheless, we must bear in mind for future consideration the possibility that repression is a

process which has a special relation to the genital organization of the libido, and that the ego uses other methods of defence for warding off the libido on different levels of its organization. , . .’

toreactina

way

IX OBSESSIONAL NEUROSIS AND EARLY SUPER-EGO

to submitting to, and accepting the prohibitions of, a

severe Its ofexternal 1 isthus super-ego. acceptance reality

dependent upon its acceptance of intra-psychic reality, the more so as its endeavour is to make the super-ego and the

object converge. A convergence of this kind is a further step in the direction of modifying anxiety, and, assisted by

mechanisms of projection and displacement, goes along with a development of the individual’s relationship to

reality. The principal method which the ego adopts for

overcoming anxiety at this point is to try to satisfy both external and internalized objects* This induces it to ensure

the safety of its objects a reaction which Abraham has allocated to the later anal stage.

This changed method of behaviour towards the object may show itself in two ways: the individual may turn away from it, on account of his fear of it as a source of danger and also in order to shield it from his own sadistic im-

pulses; or he may turn towards it with greater positive feeling, An object-relation of this kind is brought about

by a splitting up of the mother-imago into a good and a bad one. The ambivalence of the individual towards

his object not only represents a further step in the de- velopment of his object-relations but is a mechanism of fundamental importance for overcoming his fear of his

super-ego by distributing it, after having directed it out- wards, over a number of objects, so that certain ones stand

for the object which he has attacked and which therefore

threatens him with danger, and others, especially his

mother, signify the kindly, protecting person.

As the individual advances to the genital stage and his

introjected imagos become more friendly, his super-ego changes its mode of behaviour, and the process of over-

coming anxiety becomes increasingly successful. When the hitherto overpowering threats of the super-ego become toned down into admonitions and reproaches, the ego can

1 In his ‘Problem of the Acceptance of Unpleasant Ideas* (1926) Ferenczi remarks that knowledge of external reality goes along with knowledge of psychological reality.

215

2l6 THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

find support against them in its positive relationships. It can now employ restitutive mechanisms and reaction-

formations of pity towards its objects so as to placate

1 and the love and recognition it receives from those objects and the external world are regarded as at once a guarantee and a measure of the approval of the super-ego. It is here, too, that the mechanism of dis-

tributing the imagos is important; for while the ego turns

away from the dangerous object, it tries to make good on

the friendly one the imaginary injuries it has done.

The process of sublimation can now set in, for the

the

super-ego;

restitutive tendencies of the individual towards his object are a fundamental motive force in all his sublimations, even his very earliest ones, such as quite primitive mani- festations of the to 2 A for the

impulse play* pre-condition development of restitutive tendencies and of sublimations

is that the pressure exerted by the super-ego should be

mitigated and felt by the ego as a sense of guilt. The quali-

tative changes which the super-ego begins to undergo as a result of the growing strength of the individual’s genital

impulses and object-relations cause it to behave in a differ- ent way to the ego, so that true feelings of guilt arise in the latter. But should such feelings become too over- powering they will once more affect the ego principally as

anxiety.

3 If this line of is then it would thought correct,

be not a deficiency in the super-ego but a qualitative difference in it that gives rise to a lack of social feeling

in certain individuals, notably in criminals and so-called

1 In his paper, *Uber das MitleicT (1930), Jekels shows that the person who

feels compassion for his object treats it as he would like to be treated by his own

‘asocial’ persons.

super-ego. *1

Cf. my paper, ‘Infantile Anxiety-Situations Reflected in a Work of Art (1929).

Ella Sharpe has shown that in sublimation the child projects its introjected

parents on to an external object upon whom it gratifies its sadistic and restitutive

tendencies and with whom it thus connects its feelings of magical omnipotence.

(Cf. her paper, ‘Certain Aspects of Sublimation and Delusion* (1930).

(1929).

In his paper, ‘Identifizierung (1926), Fenichel also takes this view.

Cf. also Ernest Jones’s contribution to this subject, Tear, Guilt and Hate*

IX OBSESSIONAL NEUROSIS AND EARLY SUPER-EGO 2 17

In my view, in the earlier anal stage the child is making a defence against the terrifying images which it has intro-

jected in the oral-sadistic phase. In ejecting its super-ego it is beginning to try to overcome its anxiety. But the

attempt is not as yet successful, because the anxiety to be overcome is still too powerful and because the method of

violent ejection continually arouses fresh anxiety. The

anxiety which cannot be allayed in this way urges the child to cathect the next highest level of the libido the

later anal stage and thus acts as a promoting agency in

its development.

We know that in the adult individual super-ego and

object by no means coincide; nor do they do so, as I have tried to show, at any time in his childhood. I believe that

the efforts his ego makes, in consequence of this discrep-

ancy, to make his real objects interchangeable with his imagos of them constitute a fundamental factor in his

development.

1 The smaller the is the more discrepancy

his imagos approximate to his real objects as his genital

stage takes the lead and the imaginary, terrifying imagos which have been taken over in the earliest stages of his

life recede into the background the more stable is his mental equilibrium and the more successful has he been

in modifying his early anxiety-situations. As the genital

impulses gradually gain in strength, the suppression of the id by the ego loses much of its violence, too, so that there

is less friction between the two. Thus the more positive

object-relationship which goes along with the advent of

the genital stage may also be regarded as a sign of a satis- factory relation between super-ego and ego and between

ego and id.

We have already been told that the fixation-points for

the psychoses are to be found in the earliest stages of de- velopment and that the boundary between the earlier and later anal stage forms the line of demarcation between psychosis and neurosis. I am inclined to go a step further

1 The of this factor for the importance

development relationship to reality is examined at greater length in Chapter X.

of the and for its ego

21 8 THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

and regard those fixation-points as points of departure not only for subsequent illnesses but for disturbances which

phases

the child undergoes during the earliest stages of its life. In the last chapter we have seen that the too powerful anxiety-situations that arise in the phase of maximal sad- ism are a fundamental aetiological factor in psychotic dis- orders.1 But in the earliest of their

development normal children too, I have found, go through anxiety- situations which are psychotic in character. If, whether for external or internal reasons, those early situations are acti-

vated in a high degree, the child will exhibit psychotic

traits.2 And if it is too hard its pressed by

fear-arousing imagos and cannot sufficiently counteract them with the

aid of its helpful imagos and its real objects, it is exposed to disturbances which are similar to the psychosis of the

adult and which are often prolonged into a regular psy-

chosis in later life, or else form the basis of severe illnesses

or other of 2 But since in child- impairments development.

hood anxiety-situations of that kind invariably come into operation at one time or another and reach a certain inten-

sity, every child will at some time or other produce psy-

chotic symptoms.

For instance, the change between excessive high spirits

and extreme wretchedness, which is a characteristic of melancholic disorders, is regularly found in children. The real extent and depth of theunhappiness children feel is not taken into full account, just because it is of such frequent

occurrence and undergoes such rapid changes. But analytic observation has taught me that their unhappiness and de-

pression, though not so acute as the melancholic depres- sion of the adult, have the same causes and can be accom- panied by thoughts of suicide. The minor and major acci- dents that befall children and the hurts they do themselves are often, I have found, attempts at suicide, undertaken with as yet insufficient means. Then, too, they exhibit some

*ThereaderwillrecallthecasesofErna(Chap*terIII.)J,EgBon(^ChapvterIV.)j and Ilse (Chapter V.).

Cf. my paper, ‘Personification in the Play of Children* (1929).

IX OBSESSIONAL NEUROSIS AND EARLY SUPER-EGO

219

degree of that exclusion of reality which we take as a criterion of psychosis in the adult, though in their case we still look upon it as normal up to a point. Paranoid traits are much less easy to observe in them, from being associ- ated with that secrecy and dissimulation which is typical of the disorder; and yet we know that small children feel

themselves hemmed in and pursued by phantastic figures. In analysing some quite young children I have found that

when they were alone, especially at night, the feeling they had of being surrounded by all sorts of persecutors like

sorcerers, witches, devils, phantastic forms and animals 1 and their anxiety in regard to them had a paranoid character.

Infantile neuroses present a composite picture made up of the various psychotic and neurotic traits and mechan-

isms which we find singly and in a more or less pure form in grown-up persons. Sometimes the features of this dis-

order, sometimes of that, are more strongly emphasized ; but in many instances the scene is completely obscured by the fact that the various affections, together with the de- fences employed against them, are all at work at the same time.

In his bookjHetnmung, Symptom und Angst (1926), Freud declares that ‘the earliest phobias of children have so far

found no explanation whatever*, and that ‘their relation to the later and obvious neuroses of childhood is in no way clear’ (5*77). I believe that those early phobias contain

anxiety arising in the early stages of the formation of the

super-ego. The earliest anxiety-situations of the child ap- pear round about the middle of the first year of its life and

are brought on by an increase of sadism. They consist of

fears of violent (*,<?. devouring, cutting, castrating) objectsa both external and introjected; and such fears cannot be

modified in an adequate degree at such an early stage. The difficulties small children often have in eating are

also closely connected, according to my experience, with their earliest anxiety-situations and invariably have para-

1 The child’s belief in imaginary, helpful figures, such as fairies or Father Christmas, helps it to conceal and overcome its fear of its bad imagos.

22Q THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

noid origins. In the cannibalistic phase children equate

every kind of food with their objects, as represented by their organs, so that it takes on the significance of their father’s penis and their mother’s breast and is loved, hated and feared like these. Liquid foods are likened to milk, faeces, urine and semen, and solid foods to faeces and other substances of the body. Thus food is able to give rise to all those fears of being poisoned and destroyed inside which children feel in relation to their internalized objects

and excrements if their early anxiety-situations are strongly operative.

Infantile animal phobias are an expression of early anxiety of this kind. They are based on that ejection of the terrifying super-ego which is characteristic of the earlier

anal stage, and thus represent a process, made up of several moves, whereby the child modifies its fear of its terrifying

super-ego and id. The first move is to thrust out those two institutions into the external world and assimilate the super- ego to the real object. The second move is familiar to us as the displacement on to an animal of the fear felt of the real father. But before it there is often an intermediate step which consists of choosing as the anxiety-object in the ex- ternal world a milder kind of animal in place of the wild and ferocious beasts which, in the earliest stages of ego- development, stood for the super-ego and the id. The fact that the anxiety-animal not only attracts to itself the child’s fear of its father but also its admiration of him is a

sign

that the

process

of ideal-formation is 1 taking place.

Animal phobias are already a far-reaching modification of the fear of the super-ego ; and we see here what a close

1 Abraham told me the

child’s hatred of an animal could already contain a fear of being reproved by it. He had given a picture-book to a small relative of his, a boy of not yet one and a half years of age, and was showing him the p’ctures and reading the text aloud to him. On one page there was a picture of a pig who was telling a small child to be clean. The words, and the picture too, obviously displeased the boy, for he wanted to turn the page over at once, and when Abraham later on returned to the picture he would not look at it. Later on Abraham learnt that though the boy was very fond of the picture-book he could not bear the page

with the pig on it. In telling me this story Abraham added: ‘His super-ego

must at that time have been a

following story

as a of how a small good example

pig’.

DC OBSESSIONAL NEUROSIS AND EARLY SUPER-EGO 221

connection there is between super-ego, object-relationship and animal phobias.

In his Hemmung^ Symptom und Angst Freud writes: *I thought at one time that a phobia had the character of a projection, in the sense that an inner instinctual danger

was replaced by a danger perceived as coming from with- out. This brings with it the advantage that the subject can

protect himself from external danger by running away from it or by avoiding the perception of it; whereas no

flight can help against an internal danger. But this view, though not incorrect, is too superficial. An instinctual urge is after all not a danger in itself, but only in so far as it brings a real external danger with it, /.<?. the danger of

castration. Ultimately, therefore, a phobia is simply a matter of substituting one external danger for another’ (S. 66, 67). But I venture to think that what lies at the root of a phobia is nevertheless an internal danger. It is the person’s fear of his own destructive instinct and of his

introjected parents. In the same passage, in describing the advantages of substitutive formations, Freud tells us that

The fear belonging to a phobia is after all conditioned. It

is only felt when the feared object is perceived, and rightly so, for it is only then that the danger-situation arises. There

is no need to be afraid of being castrated by a father who is not there. But a father is something that cannot be got rid of. He appears whenever he wants to. But if the child

replaces him by an animal, it has only to avoid the sight, i.e. the presence, of that animal to be free from danger and

anxiety/ Such an advantage would be even greater if by means of an animal phobia the ego could not only bring

about a displacement from one external object to another but also a projection of a much feared object, from which,

because internalized, there was no escape, on to another, external one. Regarded in this light, an animal phobia would be much more than a mere distortion of the idea of being castrated by the father into one of being bitten by a horse or eaten by a wolf, Underlying it would be not only the fear of being castrated but a still earlier fear of

222 THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

being devoured by the super-ego, so that the phobia would

actually be a modification of anxiety belonging to the earliest stages.

As an illustration of what I mean let us take two well- knowncasesofananimalphobia thatofLittleHansand that of the Wolf Man. Freud has pointed out that in spite of certain similarities these two phobias differ from one another in many respects. As regards the differences, we observe that Little Hans’s phobia contained many traits

of positive feeling. His anxiety-animal was not a terrifying one in itself, and he felt a certain amount of friendliness

towards it, as was shown by his playing at horses with his father just before his phobia came on. His relation to his parents and to his environment was on the whole very

good; and his general development showed that he had successfully surmounted the anal-sadistic stage and at-

tained the genital stage. His animal phobia exhibited only a few traces of that type of anxiety which belongs to the earliest stages, in which the super-ego is equated with a wild and terrifying animal and the child’s fear of its object is correspondingly intense. In the main he seemed to have overcome and modified that early anxiety quite well. Freud says of him, ‘Hans seems to have been a normal boy, with

a so-called positive Oedipus complex’, so that his infantile

neurosis may be regarded as a mild, even ‘normal’ one;

his anxiety, as we know, was readily dissipated by a short

piece of analysis.

The neurosis of the so-called Wolf Man, a four-year-

old boy, presents quite a different picture. The develop-

ment of this boy cannot be described as normal. To quote c

Freud again: . . . an early seduction had disturbed his

relationship to the female object. His passive feminine side was strongly accentuated, and analysis of his wolf-dream shows little intentional aggression against his father, whereas it brings forward quite definite evidence that what was re- pressed was a tender, passive attitude towards him. The first-mentioned factors may have played a part, but they

1 HemmungSymptomundAngst(1926),S.46.

IX OBSESSIONAL NEUROSIS AND EARLY SUPER-EGO

223

arenotobservable/1 The

idea of being devoured by his father was *the expression,

exposed to a regressive degradation, of a passive, tender desire towards his father aiming at being loved by him in

a erotic 2 inthe ofour

genital way’. Regarded light previous

discussion, this idea is seen not only to express a passive

tender yearning which has been degraded by regres- sion, but, over and above this, to be a relic of a very early

of 3 Ifwelook the fearof stage development. upon boy’s

being devoured by a wolf not only as a substitute by dis- tortion for the idea of being castrated by his father, but,

as I would suggest, as a primary anxiety which has per- sisted in an unchanged form along with later, modified

versions of it, then it would follow that there had been a fear of the father active in him which must have greatly

helped to shape the course of his abnormal development.

In the phase of maximal sadism ushered in by the oral-

sadistic instincts, the child’s desire to introject his father’s

penis, together with his intense oral-sadistic, hostile im-

pulses, give rise to fears of a dangerous, devouring beast which he equates with his father’s penis. How far he can

succeed in overcoming and modifying this fear of his father will in part depend on the magnitude of his destruct- ive tendencies. The Wolf Man did not overcome this early anxiety. His fear of the wolf, which stood for his fear of his father, showed that, he had retained the image of his father as a devouring wolf in subsequent years. For, as we know, he rediscovered this wolf in his later father-

imagos, and his whole development was governed by that

overwhelming fear.

boy’s analysis

showedthathis

Ibid. S. 44.

* It seems to me important not merely from a theoretical point of view, but

Ibid. S. 46.

one as well, to decide whether at the outbreak of the child’s neurosis his idea of being devoured was receiving a regressive cathexis only, or whether it had retained its original activity side by side with later modifications; for we are concerned not only with the content of an idea but, above all, with the anxiety attached to it. We cannot fully understand such an anxiety, either in its quantitative or its qualitative aspect, until we have recognized it as an anxiety which underlie* neurosis and is specific for psychosis.

4 Cf. Ruth Mack Brunswick, *A Supplement to Freud’s “History of an Obsessional Neurosis**

from a

therapeutic

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

224

In my view, this enormous fear of his father was an

underlying factor in the production of his inverted Oedipus complex. In analysing several highly neurotic boys, of

betweenfourand of 1 whoexhibited fiveyears age,

paranoid traits and in whom the inverted Oedipus complex was predominant, I became convinced that this course of de-

velopment was greatly determined by an excessive fear of their father, which was still active in the deepest mental

layers and which had been generated by extremely strong

primary impulses of aggression against him. Against a dangerous, devouring father of this sort they could not

engage in the struggle which would naturally result from a direct Oedipus attitude, and so they had to abandon their heterosexual position. I think that the Wolf Man’s passive attitude towards his father was founded on anxiety-situa- tions of this order too, and that his sister’s seduction of him merely served to strengthen and confirm him in the attitude to which his fear of his father had led him,

We are told that ‘after the decisive dream he had been

very naughty, and had tried to annoy everyone and be- haved in a sadistic way’, and that soon after he developed a

genuine obsessional neurosis which turned out in analysis to be a very severe one. These facts seem to bear out my view that even at the time of his wolf phobia he was en- gaged in warding off his aggressive tendencies.2 That in

Hans’s phobia his defence against the aggressive impulses should be so clearly visible while in that of the Wolf Man

it should be so deeply concealed, seems to me to be ex- plained by the fact that in the latter the much greater anxiety- orprimarysadism hadbeendealtwithinafar more abnormal way. And the fact that Hans’s neurosis showed no obsessional traits, whereas the Wolf Man

quickly developed a regular obsessional neurosis, agrees with my idea that if obsessional features appear too

1 Myanalysesofadultshavecorroboratedthesefindings.

that a defence against sadistic impulses may also have played a part, though not a manifest one, in the structure of the Wolf Man’s illness.

In the last passage quoted above, Freud seems to leave open the possibility

IX OBSESSIONAL NEUROSIS AND EARLY SUPER-EGO

strongly and too early in an infantile neurosis we must infer that very serious disturbances are going on.1

In those analyses of boys on which my present conclu- sions are based, I was able to trace their abnormal develop- ment back to an over-strong sadism, or rather to sadism which had not been successfully modified and which had led to excessive anxiety in a very early stage of life. The result of this had been a very extensive exclusion of reality and the production of severe obsessional and paranoid traits. The reinforcement of the libidinal impulses and homosexual components that took place in these boys

served to ward off and modify the fear of their father which had been aroused so early in them. This mode of dealing

with anxiety is, I think, a fundamental aetiological factor

in the of 2 and the fact that the homosexuality paranoics,

Wolf Man developed paranoia in later life tends to support my view.3

In his The Ego andthe Id( 1923), in speaking about the love- relations of the paranoic, Freud seems to bear out my line of thought. He says: ‘There is another possible mechan- ism, however, which we have come to know of by analytic

investigation of the processes concerned in the change in paranoia. An ambivalent attitude is present from the out-

set and the transformation is effected by means of a re-

active shifting of cathexis, by which energy is withdrawn from the erotic impulses and used to supplement the hostile energy’ (p. 60). In the Wolf Man’s phobia un- modified anxiety belonging to the earliest stages was clearly to be seen, I think. At the same time his object- relations were much less successful than those of Little Hans; and that his genital stage was weakly established and the influence of anal-sadistic impulses too strong was

1 Cf.ChapterVI.onthispoint.

* In Chapter III., in discussing a case with paranoid traits, I have tried to establish a similar theory of the origin of female homosexuality. The reader may also remember what was said in connection with Egpn’s analysis (Chapter IV.). I shall return to the subject in Chapter XII. Robeim comes to the same con- clusion on the basis of his ethnological data (cf. his paper, ‘Psycho-Analysis and

the Folk-Tale’, 1922).

3 Cf.RuthMackBrunswick,

op.

cit.

226 THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

evident from the severe obsessional neurosis that so soon

made its appearance. It would appear that Little Hans

had been better able to modify his threatening and terrible

super-ego into a less dangerous imago and to overcome

his sadism and anxiety. His greater success in this respect

also found expression in his more positive object-relation- ship to both his parents and in the fact that in him the

active and heterosexual attitude was the predominating

one and that he had satisfactorily attained the genital stage

of 1 development.

Let us briefly summarize what has been said about the evolution of phobias. In the suckling the earliest anxiety- situations find expression in certain phobias. In the earlier

anal stage, with its animal phobias, objects of an intensely terrifying nature are still involved. In the later anal stage,

and still more in the genital stage, these anxiety objects are greatly modified.

The process of modification of a phobia is, I believe, linked with those mechanisms upon which the obsessional

neuroses are based and which begin to be active in the later anal stage. It seems to me that obsessional neurosis is an attempt to cure the psychotic conditions which underlie it, and that in infantile neuroses both obsessional mechan- isms and mechanisms belonging to a previous stage of

elements of obsessional neurosis play an important role in the clinical picture presented by infantile neuroses is at variance with what Freud has said concerning the

starting-point of obsessional neurosis. Nevertheless, I be- lieve that the disagreement can be explained away in one important point at least. It is true that according to my

1 Li his Hemmung, Symptom und Angst (1926) Freud says: ‘A case like Little

Hans’s does not help us to arrive at any decision. Here an aggressive impulse

is dealt with by repression, it is true, but not until the genital organization has

already been reached* (S. 65).

ego in order to overcome this early infantile psychotic anxiety. Another method will be discussed in Chapter XII.

are 2 already operative.

development

At first glance it would seem that this idea that certain

Obsessional neurosis is only one of the methods of cure attempted by the

IX OBSESSIONAL NEUROSIS AND EARLY SUPER-EGO 22J

findings the origins of obsessional neurosis lie in the first

period of childhood; but the isolated obsessional traits

which emerge in that period are not organized into that

whole which we regard as an obsessional neurosis until the

second period of childhood, that is, until the beginning of

the latency period. The accepted theory is that fixations at the anal-sadistic stage do not come into force as factors in

obsessional neurosis until later on, as the result of a regres- sion to them. My view is that the true point of departure for obsessional neurosis the point at which the child de- velops obsessional symptoms and obsessional mechanisms

is situated in that period of life which is governed by the later anal stage. The fact that this early obsessional ill- ness presents a somewhat different picture from the later full-blown obsessional neurosis is understandable if we re- collect that it is not until later, in the latency period, that the more mature ego, with its altered relationship to reality, sets to work to elaborate and synthesize those obsessional features which have been active since early childhood,1 Another reason why the obsessional traits of the small child are often not easily discernible is that they do not

stand out so clearly in the general picture presented by an infantile neurosis as compared to an adult one, owing to the obtrusion of other earlier disorders which have not yet been overcome and of the various defensive mechanisms

that are still being employed against them.

Nevertheless, as I have tried to show, even quite young

children frequently exhibit symptoms of a distinctly ob- sessional type, and there exist infantile neuroses in which

a true obsessional neurosis dominates the 2 already picture.

1 We shall consider these changes in greater detail In Chapter X,, where I have tried to show that in the latency period the child is enabled^by its obsessional neurosis to meet the requirements or its ego, super-ego and id, whereas at an earlier age, when its ego is still immature, it is not as yet able to master its anxiety in this way.

* Cf.ChapterVI.,andalsothecaseofRita(ChapterIII.),whocametoanalysis when she was two and three-quarter years old and already had a number of marked obsessional symptoms, chief among which were a complicated bed- ceiemonial and an exaggerated love of order and cleanliness. The latter found expression in a great many habits that betrayed the obsessional bent of her character and the way in which it pervaded bier whole personality. Moreover,

228 THE PSYCHOANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

When this is the case it means that the early anxiety-situa- tions are too powerful and have not been sufficiently modi- fied and that the obsessional neurosis is a very grave one.

In thus distinguishing between the early emergence of single obsessional traits and, later, true obsessional neu-

roses I have, I hope, been able to bring the view put for- ward here concerning the genesis of obsessional neurosis more into line with the accepted theory. In his Hemmung,

Symptom und Angst Freud says that *the point of departure of obsessional neurosis is the necessary defence against

the libidinal demands arising from the Oedipus complex’, and that *the genital organization of the libido is a feeble one and has too little power of resistance. When the ego begins its defensive struggle, the first effect is to throw the

genital organization (of the phallic stage) back, in part or

altogether, on to the earlier anal-sadistic stage. This regres- 5

sion is decisive for everything which follows (S. 47). If we regard as a regression that fluctuation between the various libidinal positions which is, in my opinion, a characteristic

of the early stages of development and in which the already

cathected genital position is continually being abandoned for a time until it has been properly strengthened and established, and if my contention that the Oedipus situa- tion begins very early is correct, then the view here main- tained about the point of departure of the obsessional neu- rosis would not only not be in contradiction with Freud’s view as quoted above, but would go to bear out another

suggestion of his which he has only put forward quite

tentatively. He says: ‘Perhaps regression is the result not of a constitutional factor but of a temporal one, and is made

possible not because the genital organization of the libido is too weak but because the struggle of the ego has begun

these habits were already of long standing. Her bed-ceremonial, for instance, had begun some time in her second year and had steadily grown ever since. Erna (ChapterIIL),whocametomeattheageofsix,hadcertainobsessionalsymptoms which also went back to the end of her second year. In this rery severe case

the neurosis very early on showed many similarities with an adult obsessional neurosis.

ix OBSESSIONAL NEUROSIS AND EARLY SUPER-EGO

229

too soon, while the sadistic phase is still at its

arguing against this idea he continues: ‘Although I do not trust myself to make a definite pronouncement on this point either, I may say that analytic observation does not favour such a supposition. It tends to show that the indi- vidual does not enter upon an obsessional neurosis until after he has attained the phallic stage. Moreover, the age at which this neurosis breaks out is later than in hysteria, falling as it does in the second period of childhood after

the latency period has set in. . . /2 These objections would in part be overcome if we adopt the view put

forward here that obsessional neurosis has its point of departure in the first period of childhood but does not set in in its full form till the beginning of the latency

period.

The view that obsessional mechanisms begin to come

into action very early in childhood, towards the end of the

second year, is part of my general thesis that the super-ego is formed in the earliest stages of the child’s life, being first

felt by the ego as anxiety and then, as the early anal- sadistic stage gradually comes to a close, as a sense of guilt as well. This thesis once more differs from orthodox theory. In the first part of this book I have given the empirical data upon which it is based; now I should like to adduce a theoretical reason in support of it. To turn to Freud once more. ‘The motive force of all later symptom-formations’, he writes, ‘is here’ (in obsessional neurosis) ‘clearly the fear

3 feltbytheegotowardsthesuper-ego.’ Mycontention

that obsessional neurosis is a means of modifying early

anxiety-situations and that the severe super-ego which figures in it is no other than the unmodified, terrifying

super-ego belonging to early stages of the child’s develop- ment, brings us, I think, nearer to a solution of the prob- lem of why the super-ego should in fact be such a severe

one in this neurosis.

The child’s feelings of guilt which are bound up with

1 Hemmungy Symptom und Angst (1926), S. 53.

Loc. cit. Ibid., S, 69.

height*.

1 In

23O

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

its urethral- and anal-sadistic tendencies are derived, I have found, from the imaginary attacks it makes on its mother’s

bodyduringthephaseofmaximalsadism.1 Inearlyanalysis we get to know the child’s fear of its unkind mother who

demands back from it the faeces and children it has stolen from her. Thus the real mother (or nurse) who makes de- mands of cleanliness upon it becomes at once a terrifying person to it, one who not only insists upon its giving up its faeces, but, as its terrified imagination tells it, who in- tends to tear them by force out of its body. Another, yet more overwhelming, source of fear arises from its intro- jected imagos from whom, in virtue of its own destructive

phantasies directed against external objects, it anticipates attacks of an equally savage kind inside itself.

In this phase, in consequence of likening excrement with dangerous substances which poison and burn and

with weapons of offence of every kind, the child becomes terrified of its own excreta as something which will de- stroy its body. This sadistic equation of excreta with

destructive substances, together with its phantasies of at- tacks undertaken with their help, furthermore lead the child to fear that attacks by similar means may be made against it both by its external and its internal objects and to feel a terror of excreta and of dirt in general. These sources of anxiety, all the more overwhelming because they are so manifold, are, in my experience, the deepest causes of the child’s feelings of anxiety and guilt in connection with its training in cleanliness.

The child’s reaction-formations of disgust, order arid cleanliness arise, therefore, from the anxiety, fed from

1 The generally accepted view, that what happens is that the sense of guilt which is aroused in the genital stage is associated by regression with training in cleanliness, does not take into account the severity of the feelings of guilt in question nor the closeness of their union with the pre-genital trends. The per- manent impression made on the adult by his early training and the way in which itinfluencesthewholeofhislaterdevelopment asweseeoverandoveragain inanalysesofgrown-uppersons pointstotheexistenceofadeeperandmore direct connection between that early training and severe feelings of guilt. In his ‘Psycho-Analysis of Sexual Habits* (1925) Ferenczi suggests that there is a more direct connection between the two and that there may be a. kind of physiological precursor of the super-ego which he calls ‘sphincter morality*.

IX OBSESSIONAL NEUROSIS AND EARLY SUPER-EGO

various sources, which originates in its earliest danger- situations. Its reactive feelings of pity come more especi-

ally to the fore, as we know, at the beginning of the second anal stage, when its relations to its objects have developed,

In this stage, moreover, as we have already seen, the

approval of its objects is also a guarantee of safety and a safeguard against destruction from without and from

within, and their restoration is a necessary condition for

the intactness of its own 1 The to body. anxiety belonging

the early danger-situations is, as I think, closely associated with the beginnings ofobsessions and obsessional neuroses.

It is concerned with manifold injuries and acts of destruc- tion done inside the body, and therefore it is inside the body that restitution has to be made. But the child cannot know anything for certain about the inside of the body, whether its own or that of its objects. It cannot ascertain how far its fear of internal injuries and attacks is well founded, nor how far it has succeeded in making them good by means of its obsessional acts. The consequent state of uncertainty it is in becomes allied to, and increases, its intense anxiety and gives rise to an obsessive desire for knowledge. It tries to overcome its anxiety, whose

imaginary nature defies critical inspection, by laying extra

emphasis upon reality, by being over-precise, and so on. Thus we see that the doubt which results from this un-

certainty plays a part not only in creating an obsessional character, but in arousing inclinations towards exactness

and order and towards the observance of certain rules and

1 Theviewthatreaction-formationsandfeelingsofguiltsetinataveryearly

period of ego-development as early as in the second year is supported by Abraham in one or two passages. In his ‘Short Study of the Development of th* Libido’ (1924) he says: *In the stage of narcissism with a cannibalistic sexual aim the first evidence of an instinctual inhibition appears in the shape of morbid anxiety. The process of overcoming the cannibalistic impulses is intimately associated with a sense of guilt which comes into the foreground as a typical

inhibitory phenomenon belonging to the third stage* (p. 496).

1 In his “Notes upon a Case of Obsessional Neurosis* (1909) Freud remarks:

‘The compulsion, on the other hand, is an attempt at a compensation for the doubt and at a correction of the intolerable conditions of inhibition to which the doubt bears witness* (p. 378).

rituals, etc.

232

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

Another element which belongs to the anxiety arising

from early anxiety-situations and which has an important bearing on the character of obsessions is its intensity and

multiplicity multiplicity because of the many sources it springs from which produce a correspondingly strong impulsion to set the defensive mechanisms in motion. The

child feels urged to clean and put together in an obsessive manner whatever it has dirtied or broken or spoiled in any

way. It has to beautify and restore the damaged thing in all manner of ways in accordance with the variety of its sadistic phantasies and the details contained in them.

The coercion which the obsessional neurotic often ap- plies to other people as well is, I should say, the result of a manifold projection. In the first place he is trying to throw off the intolerable compulsion under which he is

suffering by treating his object as though it were his id or

his super-ego and displacing upon it the coercion they

exercise upon him. In doing this he is, incidentally, satisfy-

ing his primary sadism by tormenting and subjugating his object. In the second place he is turning outward on to his

external objects what is ultimately a fear of being de-

stroyed or attacked by his introjected objects. This fear has aroused in him a compulsion to control and rule his imagos,

and since he can never in fact do this he tries to tyrannize over his external objects instead.

If I am correct in my view that the magnitude and intensity of obsessional activities and the severity of the neurosis are equivalent to the extent and character of the

anxiety arising from the earliest danger-situations, we shall be in a better position to understand the close connection

which we know to exist between paranoia and the severer forms of obsessional neurosis. According to Abraham, in paranoia the libido regresses to the earlier of the two anal- sadistic stages. From what I have been able to discover I should be inclined to go further and say that in the early anal-sadistic stage the individual, if his early anxiety-situa- tions are strongly operative, actually passes through rudi-

IX OBSESSIONAL NEUROSIS AND EARLY SUPER-EGO

233

mentary paranoid states which he normally overcomes in the next stage (the second anal-sadistic one), and that the severity of his obsessional illness depends on the severity of the paranoid disturbances that have immediately pre- cededit. Ifhisobsessionalmechanismscannotadequately overcome those disturbances his underlying paranoid traits will come to the surface, or he may even succumb to a

regular paranoia.

We know that the suppression of obsessive acts arouses

anxiety and that therefore those acts serve the purpose of mastering anxiety. If we assume that the anxiety thus over- come belongs to the earliest anxiety-situations and culmin- ates in the child’s fear of having its own body and that of its object destroyed in a number of ways, we shall, I be- lieve, be better able to understand the deeper meaning of many obsessive acts. The compulsive accumulation of

things and giving away of them becomes more intelligible as soon as we are able to recognize more clearly the nature

of the anxiety and sense ofguilt which underlie an exchange

of goods on the anal level. In play analysis compulsive taking and giving back again finds very diverse expression.

It occurs, together with anxiety and guilt, as a reaction to representations of acts of theft and destruction. Children

will, for instance, transfer the whole or part of the contents of one box to another and carefully arrange them there and

preserve them with every show of anxiety, and will if they areoldenough countthemoveronebyone.Thecontents

are very varied and include burnt matches, whose ash the child will often go to the trouble of rubbing off, paper

patterns, pencils, bricks for building, bits of string and so on. They represent all the things the child has taken out

ofhismother’sbody hisfather’spenis,children,pieces

of stool, urine, milk, etc. He may behave in the same way

with writing blocks, tearing out the leaves and preserving

them carefully somewhere else. In consequence of his rising

anxiety, putting back what he has symbolically taken out of his mother’s body often does not satisfy his compulsion

to give, or rather to restore. He is incessantly compelled,

234

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

in all sorts of ways, to give back more than he has taken, and yet in doing so his primary sadistic tendencies con- tinually break through his reactive ones.

For instance, my little patient John, aged five, a very neurotic child, developed in this stage of his analysis a countingmania asymptomwhichhadnotbeenmuch noticed, as it was such a usual occurrence at his age. In his

analysis he used carefully to mark the position of his toy men and other playthings on a sheet of paper on which he

had placed them, before transferring them on to another sheet. But he not only wanted to know exactly where they had been before, so as to be able to replace them in identic- ally the same place; he would also count them over and over again in order to make sure of the number of things

(/.<?. the bits of faeces, his father’s penis and the children) which he had taken (out of his mother’s body) and which he

had to give back. While he was doing this he would call me stupid and naughty and say: ‘One can’t take thirteen from ten or seven from two’. This fear of having to give back more than they possess is typical in children and can be ex- plained partly by the difference in size between them and

grown-up people and partly by the greatness of their sense of guilt. They feel that they cannot give back out of their

own small body all that they have taken out of their mother’s

body which is so huge in comparison ; and the weight of their guilt, which reproaches them ceaselessly with robbing

and destroying their mother or both parents, strengthens their feeling of never being able to give back enough. The

feeling of ‘not knowing* which they have at a very early age

adds considerably to their anxiety. This is a subject I should like to return to later on.

Very often children will be interrupted in their repre-

sentations of ‘giving back’ by having to go to the lavatory to defaecate. Another small patient of mine, also a five-

year-old boy, used sometimes to have to go to the lavatory four or five times during his hour at this stage of his analysis. When he came back he would count obsessively, in order to convince himself by getting up to high numbers

IX OBSESSIONAL NEUROSIS AND EARLY SUPER-EGO

that he possessed enough to pay back what he had stolen. Viewed in this light, the anal-sadistic heaping up of posses- sions which seems to arise simply from the pleasure of amassing for its own sake takes on another aspect. Analyses of adults, too, have shown me that the wish to have ready

a sum of money for any contingency is really a desire to be armed against an attack on the part of the mother

theyhaverobbed amotherwhowasasoftenasnotin pointoffactlongsincedead bybeingabletogiveher back what they have stolen. The fear of being deprived of the contents of their body compels them to be continu- ally accumulating more money so as to have ‘reserves* to fall back on. For instance, after John and I had agreed that his fear of not being able to give his mother back all the stool and children he had stolen from her was obliging

him to go on cutting things up and stealing them, he gave me further reasons why he could not restore everything he

had taken. He said that his stool had melted away in the

meanwhile; that, after all, he had been passing it out all the time, and even if he were to go on and on making new bits he couldn’t ever make enough now. And, besides, he did not know if it would be ‘good enough’. By ‘good enough’ he meant in the first instance equal in value to what he had stolen out of his mother’s body. (Hence, by the way, his care in choosing the shapes and colours he used in his scenes of restitution.) But in a deeper sense it

meant free from innocuous,

poison.

1 On the other his hand,

frequent constipation was due to his need of storing up his faeces and keeping them inside so that he should not him-

self be empty. These many conflicting tendencies, ofwhich I have only mentioned a few, aroused very severe anxiety in him. Whenever his fear was increased of not being able to produce the right kind of faeces or enough of them, or of not being able to repair what he had damaged, his primary destructive tendencies once more broke out in full

1 In his paper, ‘Fear, Guilt and Hate* (1929)9 Ernest Jones has pointed out that the word ‘innocent* denotes *not hurting*, so that to be innocent means to do no harm.

235

236

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

force and he would tear, cut to pieces and burn the things

he had made when his reactive tendencies were upper-

most theboxwhichhehadstucktogetherandfilledup

and which represented his mother, or the piece of paper

onwhichhehaddrawnaplanofatown andhisthirstfor

destruction would be insatiable. His behaviour at the same

time brought out to the full the primitive sadistic signifi-

cance of urinating and defaecating. Tearing, cutting up

and burning paper, wetting things with water, smearing them with ashes or smudging with a pencil all these

actions served the same destructive purposes. Wetting and

smearing meant melting away, drowning or poisoning. Wet paper squashed into balls, for instance, represented especially poisonous missiles on account of being a mixture of urine and stool. The various details of his representa- tions showed that the sadistic significance attached to urin-

ating and defaecating was the most deeply seated cause of his sense of guilt and underlay that impulse to make restitution which found expression in his obsessional mechanisms.

The fact that an increase of anxiety will lead to a regres- sion to the defensive mechanisms of earlier stages shows how fateful is the influence exerted by the overwhelmingly

powerful super-ego belonging to the earliest period of

development. The pressure exerted by this early super-ego increases the sadistic fixations of the child, with the result

that it has constantly to be repeating its original destruc- tive acts in a compulsive way. Its fear of not being able to

put things right again arouses its still deeper fear of being exposed to the revenge of the objects whom, in its imagina- tion, it has killed and who keep on coming back again, and sets in motion the defensive mechanisms that belong to

its earlier stages; for the person who cannot be placated or satisfied must be put away. The weak ego of the child cannot come to terms with such a savage and menacing super-ego, and it is not until a rather more advanced stage has been reached that its anxiety is also felt as a sense of guilt and sets the obsessional mechanisms in motion. One

IX OBSESSIONAL NEUROSIS AND EARLY SUPER-EGO

237

is amazed to discover that at this period of its analysis the

child, in obeying its sadistic phantasies, is not only acting under an intense pressure of anxiety, but that the mastering

of anxiety has become its greatest pleasure.

Directly the child’s anxiety increases, its desire for pos-

session is overshadowed by its need to have the where-

withal to meet the threats of its super-ego and objects, and

becomes a desire to be able to give back. But this desire

cannot be fulfilled if its anxiety and conflict are too great,

and so we see the very neurotic child labouring under a

constant compulsion to take in order to be able to give.

(This psychological factor, it may be remarked, enters into all the functional disturbances of the bowels that we meet

with and into many bodily ailments as well.) Conversely, as the violence of its anxiety decreases, its reactive tenden-

cies also lose their character of violence and compulsion and become steadier in their application and make their effect felt in a more moderate and continuous way with less liability to interruption from destructive tendencies. And now the child’s idea that the restoration of its own person depends on the restoration of its objects comes out more and more strongly. Its destructive tendencies have

not, indeed, become inoperative, but they have lost their character of violence and have become more adaptable to the demands of the super-ego. And though they enter into the reaction-formations themselves into the second of the two successive stages of which the obsessional act is

composed theyyieldmoreeasilytotheguidanceofthe

super-ego and ego and are at liberty to pursue aims sanc- tioned by those institutions.

There is, as we know, a close connection between ob- sessive acts and the ‘omnipotence of thoughts’. Freud has pointed out that the primitive obsessive actions of back-

ward peoples are essentially magical in character. He says :

‘If not magical, they are at least contra-magical and are intended to ward off the expectation of evil with which the

neurosis is wont to begin’; and again: ‘The protective formulae of obsessional neurosis have their counterpart,

238

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

too, in magical incantations. In describing the evolution of obsessive actions we may note how they begin as magic

against evil wishes, as far removed as possible from any- thing sexual, only to end up as a substitute for forbidden

sexual activities which they imitate as faithfully as they can.’ 1 From this we see that obsessive acts are a counter-

a shield evil wishes 2 and against (i.e. death-wishes),

magic,

at the same time sexual acts.

We should expect to find that these elements which have united in a defensive action would also be present in those phantasies and deeds which have aroused a sense of guilt in the first place and thus called that defensive action into being. A mixture of this kind of magic, evil wishes and sexual activities is to be found, I think, in a situation which has been described in detail in the last chapter in the masturbatory activities of the infant. I pointed out there that the masturbation phantasies which accompany the

beginning of the Oedipus conflict are, like the Oedipus conflict itself, completely dominated by the sadistic instin cts, that they centre round copulation between the parents and are concerned with sadistic attacks on them, and that they thus become one of the deepest sources of the child’s sense of guilt. And I came to the conclusion that it is the sense of

guilt arising from destructive impulses directed against its parents which makes masturbation and sexual behaviour in

general something wicked and forbidden to the child, so that its guilt is actually attached to its destructive instincts and not to its libidinal and incestuous ones.3

1 Totem und Tabu (1912), S. 108.

1 Concerning the obsessional neurotic, Freud says, in Totem und Tabu (1912); *And yet his sense of guilt is justified; it is based upon the intense and frequent death-wishes which are unconsciously being aroused in him against his fellow- men” (S. 145).

In Chapter I. I have already pointed out the agreement between my own views on this subject and some conclusions that Freud has come to in his Ctwtization and its Discontents (1930). He says there; ‘So then it is, after all, only the aggression which is changed into guilt, by being suppressed and made over to the super-ego. I am convinced that very many processes will admit of much simpler and clearer explanation if we restrict the findings of psycho-analysis in

resjict of the^origin of the sense of guilt to the aggressive instincts* (p. 131). And again: ‘One is now inclined to suggest the following statement as a possible

IX OBSESSIONAL NEUROSIS AND EARLY SUPER-EGO

239

The phase in which, according to my view, the Oedipus conflict and its accompanying sadistic masturbation phan-

tasies begin is the phase of narcissism a phase in which

thesubjecthas,toquoteFreud,’. . . ahighestimationof his own psychic acts . . . what from our point of view is an overestimation of them’.1 This phase is characterized by a sense of omnipotence on the part of the child in regard to the functions of its bladder and bowels and a

primitive peoples to retain or regress to their original feeling of omnipotence. When their sense of guilt sets in motion obsessive actions as a defence, they will employ that feeling for the purpose of making restitution. But they now have to sustain it in a compulsive and exaggerated way, for it is essential that the acts of restitution they make should be based on omnipotence, just as their original acts of destruction were.

Freud has said: *It is hard to decide whether these first obsessive and protective actions follow the principle of similarity (or contrast), for within the framework of the

neurosis they are usually distorted by displacement on to some trifle, some action which in itself is quite insig-

this principle of similarity (or contrast) both in degree and kind on every single point. If a child has retained very

formulation: when an instinctual trend undergoes repression its libidinal ele-

ments are transformed into symptoms and its aggressive components into a sense

ofguilt* (p. 152).

1 Totem undTabu (1912), S. no.

* Ferenczi has drawn attention, in his ‘Stages in the Development of a Sense of Reality* (191 3), to the connection between anal functions and the omnipotence of words and gestures. Cf. also Abraham, “The Narcissistic Evaluation of Excretory Processes in Dreams and Neurosis* (1920).

belief in the

the result of this it feels guilty on account of the manifold assaults on its parents which it carries out in its imagina- tion. But this excess of guilt which results from a belief in the omnipotence of their excrements and thoughts is, I think, one of the very factors which cause neurotics and

consequent

omnipotence

nificant*.3

of the fact that the restitutive mechanisms are ultimately based on

Early analysis brings complete proof

* Totem undTabu (1912), S. 108.

of its 2 As thoughts.

24O

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

strong primary feelings of omnipotence in association with its sadistic phantasies, it follows that it will have to have a

very strong belief in the creative omnipotence that is to help it to make restitution. Analysis of children and adults

shows very clearly how large a part this factor plays in promoting or inhibiting such constructive and reactive be-

haviour. The subject’s sense of omnipotence with regard to his ability to make restitution is by no means equal to his

sense of omnipotence in regard to his ability to destroy; for we must remember that his reaction-formations set in

at a stage of ego-development and object-relationship in which his knowledge of reality is in a much more advanced

state. Thus where an exaggerated sense of omnipotence is a necessary condition for making restitution his belief in

the possibility of being able to do so will be handicapped from the outset.1

In some analyses I have found that the inhibiting effect

which resulted from this disparity between destructive

powers and restitutive ones was reinforced by an added

factor. If the patient’s primary sadism and sense of omni-

potence had been exceptionally strong his reactive tenden-

cies were correspondingly powerful, and his phantasies of restitution were based on megalomanic phantasies of

great magnitude. In his childish imagination the havoc

he had wrought was something unique and gigantic, and therefore the restitution he had to make must be unique

and gigantic too. This in itself would be a sufficient im- pediment to the carrying out of his constructive tend- encies (although it may be mentioned that two of my patients did undoubtedly possess unusual artistic and creative gifts). But side by side with these megalomanic phantasies he had very strong doubts as to whether he

possessed the omnipotence necessary for making restitu- tion on this scale. In consequence he tried to deny his

to restore things is also hindered by its early experience of the fact that it is easy

to^ break things but exceedingly difficult to put them together again. Factual evidence of this kind must, I think, contribute to increase its doubts about its creative powers.

In a discussion on this subject Miss Searl pointed out that the child’s impulse

IX OBSESSIONAL NEUROSIS AND EARLY SUPER-EGO

24!

omnipotence in his acts of destruction as well. But every indication that he was using his omnipotence in a positive sense would be proof of his having used it in a negative sense and must therefore be avoided until he could bring forward absolute proof that his constructive omnipotence fully counterbalanced its opposite. In the two adult cases I have in mind, the ‘all or nothing’ attitude which resulted from these conflicting tendencies led to severe inhibitions in their capacity to work; whilst in one or two child- patients it helped severely to inhibit the formation of sub- limations.

This mechanism does not seem to be typical for obses- sional neurosis. The patients in whom I have observed it

presented a clinical picture of a mixed type, not a purely obsessional one. In virtue of the mechanism of ‘displace-

ment on to trifles’, which plays so great a part in his neurosis, the obsessional patient can seek in very slight achievements a proof of his constructive omnipotence and his success in making complete restitution. The doubts

he have on this head* may

an incentive to repeat his actions in an obsessive way.

are,

in his

case,

important

It is well known what close ties there are between the epistemophilic and the sadistic instincts. Freud writes,2 ‘the desire for knowledge in particular often gives one the impression that it can actually take the place of sadism in the mechanism of the obsessional neurosis*. From what I have been able to observe, the connection between the two

is formed in a very early stage of ego-development, during the phase of maximal sadism. At this time the child’s

epistemophilic instincts are activated by its incipient Oedipus conflict and, to begin with, subserve its oral-

sadistic trends.3 It seems that their first object is the interior of its mother’s body, which the child first of all

regards as an object of oral gratification and then as the

1 In his ‘Notes upon a Case of Obsessional Neurosis’ (1909)* P- 37$* remarks that doubt is in reality a doubt of one’s own love and that *a man who doubts his own love may, or rather must, doubt every lesser thing*.

* “The Predisposition to Obsessional Neurosis* (1924).

* Cf.Abraham,Tsycho-AnalyticalStudiesonCharacter-Formation*(1925).

242

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

scene where coition between its parents takes place and

where the father’s penis and children are situated. At the

same time as it wants to force its way into its mother’s body

in order to take possession of the contents and to destroy

them, it wants to know what is going on and what things

look like in there. In this way its wish to know what there

is in the interior of her body is assimilated in many ways

with its wish to force a way inside her, and the one desire

reinforces and stands for the other. Thus the beginnings

of the epistemophilic instinct become linked with the sad-

istic tendencies at their maximal strength, and it is easier

to understand why that bond should be so close and why

the epistemophilic instinct should arouse feelings of guilt in the individual.

We see the small child oppressed by a crowd of ques-

tions and problems which its intellect is as yet utterly unfit

to deal with. The typical reproach, which it makes against

its mother principally, is that she does not answer these

questions, and no more satisfies its desire to know than she

has satisfied its oral desires. This reproach plays an im-

portant part both in the development of the child’s char-

acter and of its epistemophilic instincts. How far back such

an accusation goes can be seen from another reproach

which the child habitually makes in close association with

it, viz. that it could not understand what grown-up people

were saying or the words they used; and this second com-

plaint must refer to a time before it was able to speak.

Moreover, the child attaches an extraordinary amount of

affect to these two reproaches, whether they appear singly or in combination; and at these moments it will talk in its

analysis in such a way as not to be understood and will at the same time reproduce the reactions of rage which it originally felt at being unable to understand words,1 It cannot put the questions it wants to ask into words, and would not be able to understand any answer that was given in words. But, in part at least, these questions have never

1 My two-and-three-quarter-year-old patient, Rita, used to do this to me in

her

analysis (cf. Chapter II.)-

IX OBSESSIONAL NEUROSIS AND EARLY SUPER-EGO

243

been conscious at all. The disappointment to which the first stirrings of the epistemophilic instinct in the earliest

stages of ego-development are doomed is, I think, the deepest source of severe disturbances of that instinct

in general.

We have seen that it is in the first place sadistic im-

pulses against its mother’s body which activate the child’s epistemophilic instinct But the anxiety which soon follows as a reaction to such impulses gives a further very im- portant impetus to the increase and intensification of that instinct. The urge the child feels to find out what is inside its mother’s body and its own is reinforced by its fear of the dangers which it supposes the former to contain and

also by its fear of the dangerous introjected objects and occurrences within itself. Knowledge is now a means of

mastering anxiety; and its desire to know becomes an im-

portant factor both in the development of its epistemo- philic instincts and in their inhibition. Anxiety plays the

same role of a promoting and retarding agency here as it does in the development of the libido. We have had occa-

sion in earlier pages to discuss some examples of severe

2 and have seen how the child’s terror of knowing anything about the fear- ful destruction it had done to its mother’s body in imagina- tion and the consequent counter attacks and perils it was exposed to was so tremendous that it set up a radical dis- turbance of its desire for knowledge as a whole, so that

its original, intensely strong and unsatisfied desire to get informationabouttheshape,sizeandnumberofitsfather’s

penises, excrements and children inside its mother had gone over into a need to measure, add up and count things

in a compulsive way.

As the libidinal impulses of children grow stronger and

their destructive ones weaker, qualitative changes con-

and the experienced in learning a foreign language seem to me to be derived from these

earliest disappointments of the epistemophilic instinct.

* Cf. the cases of Erna (Chapter III.), Kenneth (Chapter IV.) and I3se

disturbances of the

epistemophilic instinct,

1 The hatred felt for who people

speak

another

language

difficulty

Chapter V.).

244

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH. ix

tinually take place in their super-ego, so that it makes itself more and more felt by the ego as an admonitory influence. And, as their anxiety diminishes, their restitutive mechan- isms become less obsessive in character and work more

steadily and efficiently and with better results; and there emerge more clearly the reactions which we recognize as

belonging to the genital stage. That stage would thus be characterized by the fact that in the interactions which

take place between projection and introjection and be- tween super-ego formation and object-relations, and which, to my mind, dominate all the early stages of the child’s

development, the positive elements have gained the day.

CHAPTER X

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF EARLY ANXIETY- SITUATIONS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE EGO

of the main problems presented by Psycho- Analysis is that of anxiety and its modification.

The various ONE

illnesses to which the individual is liable can be looked upon as more or less un- successful attempts to master anxiety. But side by side with these methods of modifying anxiety, which may be considered as pathological, there are a number of normal methods, and they have an enormous importance for the development of the ego. It is to some of these that we shall

turn our attention in the following pages.

At the beginning of its development the ego is sub-

jected to the pressure of early anxiety-situations. Weak as it still is, it is exposed on the one hand to the violent urges

of the id, and on the other, to the threats of a cruel super- ego, and it has to exert its powers to the utmost to satisfy- both sides. Freud’s description of the ego as *a poor creature owing service to three masters and consequently menaced

psycho-neurotic

three several 1 is true of the feeble and dangers’ especially

immature ego of the small child, whose principal task it is

to master the pressure of anxiety it is under.2

1 TheEgoandtheId(1923),p.82.

2 Insomeextremecasesthispressurecanbesoforcibleastoarrestcompletely

the development of the ego. But even in less abnormal cases it can act not only

as a promoting agency but as a retarding one in that development. In order for it to have a favourable effect, as in all developmental processes, a certain optimum relation between the co-operating factors is required.

245

246

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

In its play, even the quite small child will attempt to

overcome its unpleasurable experiences. Freud has de- scribed how a small boy of one and a half tried to get over

the unpleasurable event of his mother’s temporary absence

by throwing away a wooden reel tied to a piece of string so that it disappeared, and then pulling it back into sight

formance and changes pain into pleasure by giving its

originally painful experiences a happy ending.

Early analysis has shown that in play the child not only

this over and over 1 Freud has re- again.

and

cognized in this behaviour a function of general import- ance in the play of children. By means of it the child turns the experiences it has passively endured into an active per-

again,

doing

overcomes 2 but is assisted in painful reality,

mastering its instinctual fears and internal dangers by projecting

them into the outer world.3

The endeavour made by the ego to displace intra-

psychic processes into the outer world and let them run their course there is allied to another mental function, one which Freud has made known to us in connection with the dreams of neurotics about the traumas they have experi- enced. He says: ‘These dreams are attempts at restoring

control of the stimuli by developing apprehension, the pre- termission of which caused the traumatic neurosis. They

thus afford us an insight into a function of the psychic

apparatus, which without contradicting the pleasure-prin- ciple is nevertheless independent of it, and appears to be of earlier origin than the aim of attaining pleasure and

4 The child’s ever-renewed to avoiding pain.’ attempts

Beyond the Pleasure-Principle (1920), p. 12.

* In the two previous chapters we have seen that in the earliest stages of the

development of the individual his ego is not sufficiently able to tolerate his in- stinctual anxiety and his fear of his internalized objects, and tries to protect

itself in part by scotomizing and denying psychological reality.

3 Freud regards the origins of projection as a ‘shaping of behaviour towards such excitations as bring with them an overplus of-pain. There will be a tendency to treat them as though they were acting not from within but from without, in order for it to be possible to apply against them the defensive measures of the barrier against stimuli (Reixschutz). This is the origin of projection, for which so important a part is reserved in the production of pathological states’ (Beyond the

Pleasure-Principle, 1920, p. 33). Ibid. p. 37.

x ANXIETY-SITUATIONS IN DEVELOPMENT OF EGO 247 master anxiety in its play also seem to me to involve a *con~

trolofstimuli 1A by developing apprehension’.

displace- ment of this kind of instinctual and internal dangers into the

outer world enables the child not only to master its fear of them better but to be more fully prepared against them.

The displacement of the child’s anxiety arising from intra-psychiccausesintotheexternalworld adisplace-

ment which goes along with the deflection of its destructive

instinct outwards has the further effect of

the importance of its objects, for it is in relation to those objects that both its destructive impulses and its positive and reactive tendencies will now be activated.2 Thus its

objects become a source of danger to the child, and yet, in so far as they are felt to be kindly, they also represent a

refuge from anxiety.

Besides the relief it gives by enabling internal instinctual

stimuli to be dealt with as though they were external

stimuli, the mechanism of projection, through displacing anxiety relating to internal dangers on to the outer world, affords additional advantages. The child’s epistemophilic instincts, which, together with its sadistic impulses, have been directed towards the interior of its mother’s body, are intensified by its fear of the dangers and acts of destruction which are going on there and inside itself and which it has no means of knowing about. But when the dangers it is exposed to are real and external, it is able to find out more about their nature and to know whether the measures it has adopted against them have been successful ; and it thus has a better chance of overcoming them. This testing by reality which is so necessary to the child is a strong incen-

tive for the development of its epistemophilic instinct as well as many other sorts of activity. In fact, I think we may

1 Concerning the close relations between dreams and play, cf. Chapter I. of this book; as also my paper, ‘Personification in the Play of Children* (1929).

the incident of the child and the wooden reel Freud has inter- preted its action of throwing away the reel as being the expression of sadistic impulses and of impulses of revenge. Its subsequent action of making the reel reappear (*>. making its mother come back) was, I think, no kss the expression of a magical restoration of the object (its mother) which it had symbolically killed by throwing it away.

* In

relating

increasing

248

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

say that all those activities which help the child to defend itself from danger, which disprove its fears and which enable it to make restitution to its object, have as their

purpose the mastering of anxiety in regard to dangers both from without and within, both real and imaginary, no less than have the early manifestations of its impulse to play.

In consequence of the interaction of introjection and

a process which corresponds to the interaction

formation and 1 the child object-relationship

projection

the same time allays its anxiety by introjecting its real, ‘good’ objects. Since the presence and love of its real

objects also help to lessen the small child’s fear of its intro- jected objects and its sense of guilt, its fear of internal dan- gers strengthens its fixation upon its mother and increases its need for love and help. Freud has explained that those expressions of anxiety in small children which are intelli- gible to us have ultimately only one cause ‘the absence

was entirely dependent on its mother. Being lonely without the loved or longed-for person, experiencing a loss of

love or a loss of object as a danger, being frightened of beinginthedarkaloneorwithanunknownperson all

these things are, I have found, modified forms of early anxiety-situations, that is, of the small child’s fear of dangerous internalized and external objects. At a some- what later stage of development there is added to this fear of the object a fear on behalf of it; and the child now fears that its mother will die in consequence of its imaginary attacks upon her and that it will be left all alone in its helpless state. Freud says, concerning this: *It* (the infant) ‘cannot as yet distinguish between tempo- rary absence and permanent loss. Whenever its mother fails to appear it behaves as though it were never .going to see her again; and only repeated experience teaches it

Cf. Chapter IX.

1 Hemmung, Symptom und Angst (1926), S. 77.

finds a refutation of its fears in the outer world, and at

super-ego

of the loved or

anxiety back to a stage in which the immature individual

longed-for person’

2 and he traces that

X ANXIETY-SITUATIONS IN DEVELOPMENT OF EGO 249 that a disappearance of this kind is followed by her safe

According to my observations, the reason why the child needs to have its mother always with it is not only to con- vince it that she is not dead but that she is not the *bad’,

attacking mother. It requires the presence of a real object in order to combat its fear of its terrifying introjected

objects and of its super-ego. As its relationship to reality advances the child makes increasing use of its relations

to its objects and its various activities and sublimations as

points of support against its fear of its super-ego and its destructive impulses. It has already been said that anxiety

stimulates the development of the ego. What happens is that in its efforts to master anxiety the child’s ego summons to its assistance its relations to its objects and to reality. Those efforts are therefore of fundamental importance for

the child’s adaptation to reality and for the development of its ego.

The small child’s super-ego and object are not identical; but it is continually endeavouring to make them inter- changeable, partly so as to lessen its fear of its super-ego, partly so as to be better able to comply with the require- ments of its real objects, which do not coincide with the

1 Ibid. S. 113. But the small child will only allow itself to be convinced by

comforting experiences of this kind provided that its earliest anxiety-situations do not predominate and that in the formation of its super-ego its relations to its

real objects are sufficiently brought into play. I have over and over again found that in older children also the absence of their mother reactivated the earliest

anxiety-situations under whose pressure they had, as small children, felt her temporary absence as a permanent one. In my paper, ‘Personification in the Play of Children* (1929), I have reported the case of a boy of six who made me play the part of a ‘fairy mother* who was to protect him against his *bad* combined parents and kill them. I had, furthermore, to change over and over again from the ‘fairy mother’ to the *bad mother* all at once. As the *fairy mother* I had to heal the fatal wounds he had received from a huge wild animal (the ‘bad* combined parents)} but the next moment I had to go away and come back as the ‘bad mother’ and attack him. He said: ‘Whenever the fairy mother goes out of the room you never know if she won’t come back all of a sudden as the bad mother*. This boy, who had had an unusually strong fixation on his mother since his earliest years, lived in the perpetual belief that some harm had befallen his parents and his brothers and sisters. It came out that even if he had only just seen his mother the minute before he felt no security that she had not died in the meanwhile.

return/

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

unrealistic commands of its introjected objects. Thus .we see that on top of the conflict between the super-ego and the id and the opposition between the various require- ments made by the super-ego itself, composed as it is of quite different imagos that have been formed in the course of development, the ego of the small child is burdened with this difference between the standards of its super-ego and the standards of its real objects, with the result that

it is constantly wavering between its introjected objects anditsrealones betweenitsworldofphantasyandits

world of reality.

The attempt to effect an adjustment between the super-

ego and id cannot be successful in early childhood, for the

pressure of the id and the corresponding severity of the super-ego absorb as yet the whole energy of the ego. When,

at the onset of the latency period, the development of the libido and the formation of the super-ego have reached

completion, the ego is stronger and can approach the task of making an adjustment on a broader basis between the

factors concerned. The strengthened ego joins with the super-ego in setting up a common standard which includes above all the subjection of the id and its adaptation to the demands of real objects and the external world. At this

period of its development the child’s ego-ideal is the well- behaved, ‘good* child that satisfies its parents and teachers.

This stabilization is, however, shattered in the period

just before puberty and, more especially, at puberty itself. The resurgence of libido which takes place at this period

strengthens the demands of the id, while at the same time the pressure of the super-ego is increased. The ego is once more hard pressed and finds itself faced with the

necessity of arriving at some new adjustment; for the old one has failed and the instinctual impulses can no longer

be kept down and restricted as they were before. The child’s anxiety is increased by the fact that its instincts

might now more easily break through in reality and with more serious consequences than in early childhood.

The ego, in agreement with the super-ego, therefore

X ANXIETY-SITUATIONS IN DEVELOPMENT OF EGO 25!

sets up a new standard. This is that the individual should liberate himself from the original objects of his love. We see the adolescent often at odds with those around him and on the look-out for new objects. Such a need once again harmonizes to a certain extent with reality,

which imposes different and higher obligations upon him at this age; and in the further course of his development

this flight from the original objects leads to a partial detach- ment from personal objects in general and to the substitu- tion of principles and ideals in their stead.

The final stabilization of the individual is not achieved

until he has passed through the period of puberty. At the termination of this period his ego and super-ego are able to work together in creating adult standards. Instead of being dependent on his immediate environment the indi- vidual now adapts himself to the larger world about him,

and acknowledges its claims, but as something that

corresponds more to his own internal, independent and self-imposed standards which no longer show obvious signs

of having been set up for him by his objects. An adjustment of this kind rests on his recognition of a new reality and is

effected with the assistance of a stronger ego. And once

more, as in the first period of expansion of his sexual life, the pressure arising from the menacing situation created by the exaggerated demands of the id on the one side and the super-ego on the other contributes much towards

this strengthening of his ego. The contrary, inhibiting effect of such a pressure is seen in the fresh limitation of his

personality, usually a permanent one, which overtakes him at the close of this period. The enlargement of his imagin-

ative life which accompanies, though to a milder degree than in the first period of childhood, this second emergence

of his sexuality is as a rule once again severely curtailed at the close of puberty. And we now have before us the ‘normal’ adult.

One more point. We have seen that in early childhood the super-ego and the id cannot as yet be reconciled with each other. In the latency period stability is achieved by

THE PSYCHO-ANAtYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

the ego and super-ego uniting in the pursuit of a common aim* At puberty, a situation similar to the early period is

created, and this is once more followed by a mental stabil- ization of the individual. We have already discussed the differences between these two kinds of stabilization; and we can now see what they have in common. In both cases

an adjustment is reached by the ego and super-ego agree- ing upon a common standard and setting up an ego-ideal

that takes into account the demands of

In the earlier chapters of this book I have tried to show

that the development of the super-ego ceases, along with that of the libido, at the onset of the latency period. I would

now like to emphasize as a point of central importance that what we have to deal with in the various stages that follow the decline of the Oedipus conflict are not changes in the super-ego itself but a growth of the ego, which involves a consolidation of the super-ego. The general process of stabilization which occurs in the child during the latency period is effected, I think, not by any actual alteration of its super-ego but by the fact that its ego and super-ego are

pursuing the common aim of achieving an adaptation to

its environment and adopting ego-ideals belonging to that environment.

We must now pass from our discussion of the develop- ment of the ego to a consideration of how this process

stands in relation to that mastering of anxiety-situations which has been mentioned as such an essential factor

in it.

I have said that the small child’s play activities, by

bridging the gulf between phantasy and reality, help it to master its fear of internal and external dangers. Let us take

the typical ‘mother’ games of little girls. Analysis of normal

1 InhisHemmung,SymptomundAngst(1926)Freudsays:’Theegocontrols the approach to consciousness and the translation of impulses into action in the external world; in its repressive function, it exercises its power in both directions*. On the other hand he says: *We have shown its* (the ego’s) ‘dependence on the id and the super-ego and its helplessness and apprehension in the face of them’ (S. 32). My theory of the growth of the ego is in agreement with these two

statements, for it shows how the forces of the super-ego and ego react on each other and determine the whole course of the individual’s development.

reality.

X ANXIETY-SITUATIONS IN DEVELOPMENT OF EGO 253

children shows that these games, besides being wish ful-

filments, contain the deepest anxiety belonging to early anxiety-situations, and that beneath the little girl’s ever- recurring desire for dolls there lies a need for consolation and reassurance. The possession of her dolls is a proof that she has not been robbed of her children by her mother,, that she has not had her body destroyed by her and that she is able to have children. Moreover, by nursing and dress- ing her dolls, with whom she identifies herself, she obtains proof that she has a loving mother, and thus lessens her fear of being abandoned and left homeless and mother- less. This purpose is also served to some extent by other games which are played by children of both sexes, as, for

instance, games of furnishing houses and travelling, both ofwhichspringfromthedesiretofindanewhome Le.

to re-discover their mother.

A typical boys’ game, and one which brings out the

masculine components very clearly, is playing with carts, horses and trains. This symbolizes forcing a way into

the mother’s body. In their play boys enact over and over again, and with every kind of variation, scenes of fighting with their father inside her and copulating with her. The boldness, skill and cunning with which they defend themselves against their enemies in their games of fighting assure them that they can successfully combat their castrating father, and this lessens their fear of him.

By this means and by repeatedly representing himself as copulating with his mother in various ways and showing

his prowess in it, the boy tries to prove to himself that he

possessesapenisandsexualpotency twothingswhose

loss his deepest anxiety-situations have led him to await. And, since along with his aggressive tendencies his restora-

tive ones towards his mother come out as well in these games, he also proves to himself that his penis is not de-

and in this he his sense of 1 way allays guilt

structive;

The intense pleasure which children who are not in-

hibited in their play get from games proceeds not only from 1 This subject will be more fully discussed in Chapter XII.

254

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN” CH.

the gratification of their wish-fulfilling impulses, but also from the mastery of anxiety which their games help them

to achieve. But in my opinion it is not merely a question of two separate functions being carried out side by side;

what happens is that the ego employs every wish-fulfilling mechanism to a large extent for the purpose of mastering

anxiety as well. Thus by a complicated process which utilizes all the forces of the ego, children’s games effect a

transformation of anxiety into pleasure. We will examine later how this fundamental process affects the economy of the mental life and ego-development of the adult.

Nevertheless, as far as small children are concerned, the

ego can only very partially achieve the aim of mastering

anxiety by means of play. Their games do not completely help them to overcome their fear of internal dangers.

Anxiety is always operative in them. As long as it is latent it makes itself felt as a continual impulsion to play; but as

soon as it becomes manifest it puts a stop to their game. With the onset of the latency period the child masters its anxiety better and at the same time shows a greater

capacity to come up to the requirements of reality. On the other hand its games lose their imaginative content and

their place is gradually taken by school-work. The child’s preoccupation with the letters of the alphabet, arithmetical numbers and drawing, which has at first the character of

play, largely replaces its games with toys. Its interest in

the way in which letters are joined together, in getting their shape and order right and in making them of even

size, and its delight in achieving correctness in each of these details, all flow from the same internal causes as its former activity in building houses and playing with dolls. A beauti- ful and orderly exercise-book has the same symbolic mean- ing for the girl as house and home, namely, that of a healthy, unimpaired body. Letters and numbers represent

parents, brothers and sisters, children, genitals and excre- ments to her and are vehicles for her original aggressive tendencies as well as for her reactive ones. The re- futation of her fears, which she formerly obtained from

X ANXIETY-SITUATIONS IN DEVELOPMENT OF EGO 255

playing with dolls and furnishing houses, she now gets by the successful performance of her school-work. Analyses of children in this period show that not only every detail of their book-work, but all their various activities in handi-

crafts, drawing and so on, are utilized in imagination to restore their own genitals and body, as well as their mother’s

body and its contents, their fathers penis, their brothers and sisters, etc. In the same way every single item of their own or their dolPs clothing, such as collars, cuffs, shawl,

hasa 1 cap, belt, stockings, shoes, symbolic signification.

In the normal course of their development the care which younger children lavish on the ‘drawing’ of letters and numbers is extended, as they grow older, to intellectual achievement as a whole. But even so, their satisfaction in

such achievements is largely dependent on the apprecia- tion they receive from the people about them ; it is a means

of gaining the approval of their elders. In the latency period, therefore, we see that the child finds a refutation of its danger-situations to a great extent in the love and

approval of its real objects, and that it lays exaggerated stress upon those objects and upon its world of reality.

In the boy, writing is the expression of his masculine

2 His to write words and the stroke of ability

components.

the pen with which he forms his letters represent an active

performance of coitus, and are a proof of his possession of a penis and of sexual potency. Books and exercise-books

stand for the genitals or body of his mother or sister.3 To a six-year-old boy, for instance, the capital letter *L* meant

a man on a horse (himself and his penis) riding through

an archwaVy (his mother’s genitals); T was the penis and

his mother’s and his mother himself, genitals herself,

and *ie’ the union of himself and her in coitus.4 The active 1 Cf.Fliigel,ThePsychologyofClothes(1930).

In girls, too, writing and other activities of the kind are mainly derived from masculine components.

In connection with his feminine components, his exercise-book stands for his own body, and the accomplishment of his school task an attempt to restore it. 4 Cf. mypaper,’TheRoleoftheSchoolinthelibidinalDevelopmentofthe Child* (1923). Capitals and small letters generally stand for parents and

children

respectively.

256

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

copulation phantasies of boys come out also in active games and in sport, and we find the same phantasies ex- pressed in the details of these games as in their lessons. The boy’s wish to surpass his rivals and so to obtain an assurance against the danger of being castrated by his father behaviour which corresponds to the masculine

mode of dealing with anxiety-situations and which is of so muchimportancelateronattheageofpuberty makesits

appearance while he is still in the latency period. In gen- eral the boy is less dependent than the girl on the approval of his environment even in this period, and achievement for its own sake already plays a much greater part in his psychological life than in hers.

We have described the stabilization which takes place

in the latency period as being founded upon an adaptation

to reality effected by the ego in agreement with the super- ego. The attainment of such an aim depends upon a com-

bined action of all the forces engaged in keeping down and restricting the id-instincts. It is here that the child’s struggle to break itself of masturbation comes in a

struggle which, to quote Freud, ‘claims a large share of its

energies’ during the latency period and whose full force is directed against its masturbation phantasies as well. And

these phantasies, as we have repeatedly seen, not only enter into all its games as a child but into its activities in learning

and all its later sublimations as well.1

The reason why, in the latency period, the child stands

1 In my paper, ‘The Rdle of the School in the Libidinal Development of the Child* (1923), I have discussed the unconscious significance of certain articles used at school and have examined the underlying causes of inhibitions in learning and in school life. In consequence of an excessive repression of its masturbation phantasies the child suffers from an inhibition of its imaginative life which affects both its play and work. During the latency period this inhibition is very conspicuous in the whole characer of the child. In his Frage der Laien-

analyse (1926) Freud writes: ‘I have an impression that at the onset of the latency

period they’ (children) ‘also become more inhibited mentally and stupider; many, too, lose some of their physical charm’. It is indeed true that the ego maintain, its position of superiority over the id at great cost to the individual. In those periods of life when it is not so completely successful in subduing the id (i.e. during the first and second periods of sexual expansion) it enjoys a much fuller

imaginative activity, and this expresses itself in an instability of mind on the one hand and greater richness of personality on the other.

X ANXIETY-SITUATIONS IN DEVELOPMENT OF EGO 257

in such great need of the approval of its objects is because

it wants to lessen the opposition of its super-ego (which at this stage tends to adapt itself to its objects) to its de- sexualized masturbation phantasies. Thus in this period it has to fulfil the requirement on the one hand of giving up masturbation and of repressing its masturbation phan- tasies, and on the other of putting into effect successfully and to the satisfaction of its elders those same masturbation phantasies in their desexualized form of everyday interests and activities; for it is only with the help of such satis-

factory sublimations that it can procure the comprehensive refutation of its anxiety-situations needed by its ego. On

its successful escape from this dilemma will depend its

stabilization in the latency period. Its mastery of anxiety is not achieved until it obtains the sanction of those in

authority over it; and yet unless it has already ob- tained that sanction it cannot proceed to make the at-

tempt.

This brief review of such very complicated and widely

ramified processes of development must of necessity be a schematic one. In actual fact, the boundary between the

normal and the neurotic child is not very sharply drawn,

especially during the latency period. The neurotic child may be a good scholar; nor is the normal child always so

very eager to learn, since he often seeks to disprove his

anxiety-situations in other ways, for example, by display-

ing physical prowess. In the latency period the normal girl will often master her anxiety in pre-eminently masculine

ways, and the boy can still be described as normal even though he chooses more passive and feminine modes of behaviour for the same purpose.

Freud has brought to our notice the typical ceremonials which set in in the latency period and which are a result

of the child’s masturbation.1 He struggles against

says that this period ‘is furthermore marked by the erection of

ethical and aesthetic barriers within the ego’, and that ‘the reaction-formations ofobsessional neurotics are only normal

1 Cf.HemmungtSymptomundAngst(1926),S.55.

258

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

character-formationscarriedtoexcess’.1 Thusthelineof demarcation between obsessional reactions and the charac-

terological development expected of the normal child by his educational environment is, except in the most extreme

cases, not easily fixed in children in the latency period.

It will be remembered that I have put forward the view

that the point of departure for obsessional neurosis is situ- ated in early childhood. But I have said that in this period of development only isolated obsessional traits crop up. They do not in general become organized so as to form an obsessional neurosis until the latency period sets in. This systematization of obsessional traits, which goes along with a consolidation of the 2 and a of

oftheir erection ofa commonstandard.3 Astandard thus upheld by both institutions is the keystone of their power over the id. And although the suppression of the child’s instincts is undertaken at the instance of his objects and carried through to a large extent by his obsessional mech- anisms, it will not be successful unless all the factors op- posed to the id are acting in concert. In this comprehensive process of organisation, the ego manifests what Freud has called its ‘inclination towards a 4

Thus in the latency period the requirements of the child’s ego, super-ego and objects are united and find their

common satisfaction in an obsessional neurosis. One reason

why the strong aversion usually shown by grown-ups to a child’s affects is so successful is because that aversion

answers at this age to the child’s own internal require- ments.6 And, again, we often find in analysis that a child

1 Hemmungy Symptom und Angst (1926). S. 54.

* In this process the child’s various identifications become more synthesized, the requirements made by its super-ego more unified and its internalized objects better adjusted to the external situation. Cf. also my paper, ‘Personification in the Play of Children* (1929).

1 InHemmungiSymptomwidAngst(1926),S.52,Freudsaysthatinobsessional

neurosis ‘The ego and the super-ego have a large share in the formation of the

symptoms*,

52,

* The child*s environment can also directly affect its neurosis. In some analyses

super-ego strengthening the ego, is effected by the super-ego and ego on the basis

Ibid. S.

I have found that the favourable influence exerted on the patient by a change in

making synthesis’.

X ANXIETY-SITUATIONS IN DEVELOPMENT OF EGO 259

is being made to suffer and having conflicts set up in its mind because the people in charge of it have identified themselves too strongly with its naughty behaviour and aggressive tendencies. For its ego only feels equal to the task of keeping down the id and opposing forbidden impulses so long as its elders assist its efforts. The child needstoreceiveprohibitionsfromwithout,sincethese3 as

we know, lend support to prohibitions from within. It needs, in other words, to have representatives of its super-

ego in the outer world. This dependence upon objects in order to be able to master anxiety is much stronger in

the latency period than in any other phase of development. Indeed it seems to me to be a definite prerequisite for a

successful transition into the latency period that the child’s

mastery of anxiety should rest upon its object-relations

and adaptation to reality.

Nevertheless it is necessary for the child’s future sta-

bility that this mechanism of mastering anxiety should not predominate to excess. If the child’s interests and achieve- ments and other gratifications are too completely devoted to its endeavours to win love and recognition from its

objects, if, that is, its object-relations are the pre-eminent means of mastering its anxiety and allaying its sense of guilt, its mental health in future years is not planted in firm soil. If it is less dependent on its objects and if the interests andachievementsbymeansofwhichitmasters its anxiety and allays its sense of guilt are done for their own sake and afford it interest and pleasure in themselves, its anxiety will undergo a better modification and a wider distribution will be levelled down, as it were. As soon as the people about him was attributable to the fact that it had led him to exchange

one set of symptoms, which had been very tiresome, for another which, though equally important in the structure of his neurosis, was less noticeable. Another thing which may make the child’s symptoms disappear is an increase of his fear

of his objects. I once had a boy patient, aged fourteen (cf. my paper, Zur Genese des Tics*, 1925), who had done very well in “his kssons at school but had been very inhibited in games and sport, until his father, who had been away for a long time, came home and brought pressure to bear on him to overcome his inhibition. The boy did in fact do so to some extent, out of fear of him; but at the same time he was overtaken by a severe inhibition in learning, which still

persisted “when he came to me for analysis.

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH,

its anxiety has thus been reduced, its capacity for libidinal

gratification will grow, and this is a pre-condition for the

successful mastering of anxiety. Anxiety can only be mas- tered where the super-ego and id have come to a satisfac-

tory adjustment and the ego has attained a sufficient degree

of 1 strength.

Since the mental support which even normal children

get from their object-relations is so great in the latency period, we cannot always at the time detect those frequent

cases in which they rely upon it too much. But in the period of puberty we can easily do so, for now the child will no longer be able to master its anxiety if its chief

means of doing so is its dependence upon its objects. This

is partly why, I think, psychotic illnesses usually do not break out till later childhood, during or after the age of puberty. But if we make our criterion of health not only

an adaptation to the standards of this period of develop- ment but also the strength of the ego, based on a lessening

of the severity of the super-ego and a greater degree of instinctual freedom, we shall not be in danger of over-

rating the factor of adaptability in the latency period as an indication of the successful development and real mental

well-being of the child,2

1 If due attention is paid to the indications, we shall be able to observe the

beginnings of later illnesses and impairments of development much more clearly in the first period of childhood than in the latency period. In a great many cases ofpersonswhohavefallenillatpubertyorlater,ithasbeenfoundthattheysuffered from great difficulties in early childhood but were well adapted during latency, atwhichperiodtheyshowednomarkeddifficultiesandwereamenable often alltooamenable totheireducationalenvironment. Incaseswheretheanxiety belonging to the earliest stages is too intense or has not been properly modified, the process of stabilization in the latency period, which rests upon obsessional mechanisms, does not take place at all.

* If the requirements of the latency period have been too successfully imposed and the child’s docility is too great, its character and its ego-ideals will remain in a state of subservience to its environment for the rest of its life. A weak ego the result of maladjustment between super-ego and id runs the, risk of being unable to carry out the task of detaching the individual from his objects at the age of puberty and of setting up independent internal standards, so that he will fell from a characterological point of view. A lessened dependence upon its objects on the part of the child works in quite well with the educational demands made upon it at that time. In none of my latency-period analyses has a child become detached from its objects in the sense in which children at the age of puberty do. All that has happened is that its fixations become less strong and

X ANXIETY-SITUATIONS IN DEVELOPMENT OF EGO 26l

Freud says that ‘puberty marks a decisive period in the development of obsessional neurosis’, and that at that time

‘the aggressive impulses of the early period are reawakened on the one hand; and on the other, a greater or smaller

proportionofthenewlibidinalimpulse inbadcasesthe whole of them are driven to take the predestined path

of regression and reappear as aggressive and destructive

impulses. Owing to this disguising of the erotic impulses and to powerful reaction-formations in the ego, the battle

against sexuality is now continued in the guise of an ethical

1 problem.*

In the boy, the erection of new idealized father-imagos

and new principles, together with the heightened demands that the child makes upon himself help him to move away

from his original objects. This results in his being able to take up his original positive attachment to his father and increase it3 and in his running less risk of coming into collision with him. This event goes hand in hand with a dividing-up of the imago of his father. He can now love and admire his father’s exalted imago and visit the very strong feelings of hatred he has at this period of his de-

velopmentonhisfather’sbadimago oftenrepresented by his real father or by a substitute such as a schoolmaster.

In his relation to the admired imago he can satisfy himself

that he possesses a powerful and helpful father, and can also identify himself with him, and thus fortify his belief in

his own constructive capacities and sexual potency; while in his aggressive relation to the hated imago he proves to himself that he is his father’s match and need not be afraid of being castrated by him.

It is here that his activities and achievements come in. By means of those achievements, whether in the physical

ambivalent. In this period of life, in becoming less dependent on its objects it becomes better able to find other objects, and thus prepares itself for the

subsequent detachment it must make from its objects at puberty. Analysis does not increase but lessens the difficulties the child has in adapting itself to its environment and coming to terms with it; for the more internal freedom it has the better will it be able to do this.

1 Hemmimg, Symptom und Angst (19*6), S. 56.

262 THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

or the mental field, which call for courage, endurance,

strength and enterprise he proves to himself, among other things, that the castration he dreads so much has not hap-

pened to him and that he is not impotent. His achieve-

ments also gratify his reactive tendencies and allay his

sense of guilt. They show him that his constructive capaci-

ties outweigh his destructive tendencies, and they repre-

sent restitution done towards his objects. By giving him

these assurances they greatly add to the gratification they

afford him.1 The of his and sense of allayment anxiety

guilt, which in the latency period he has found in the suc- cessful pursuit of his activities in so far as they are made

cgo-syntonic by the approval of his environment, must in the period of puberty to a much greater extent come from the value which his performances and achievements have for him in themselves,

We must now give a brief consideration to the way in

which the girl deals with her anxiety-situations at puberty. At this age she normally preserves the aims of the latency period and the modes of mastering anxiety that belong to it more strongly than the boy does. Very often, too, she adopts the masculine mode of mastering anxiety. We shall see in the next chapter why it is more difficult for her to establish the feminine position than it is for the boy to establish the masculine one. The erection of standards and ideals which takes place in the boy at puberty plays an

important part in her development also, but it takes a more subjective and personal form and she sets less store by ab-

stract principles. Her desire to please her objects extends to mental pursuits as well and plays a part even in her highest intellectual achievements. Her attitude to her work, in so far as the masculine components are not predomin- antly involved, corresponds to her attitude towards her own body; and her activities in relation to these two in-

the boy makes extensive use of the feminine mode of mastering anxiety. He

utilizes books and work, in their significance of bodies, fertility, children, etc.,

as a refutation of the destruction of his body which, in the feminine position, he awaits at the hands of the mother who is his riral.

In many of his sublimations, particularly his intellectual and artistic efforts,

X ANXIETY-SITUATIONS IN DEVELOPMENT OF EGO

263

terests are largely concerned with dealing with her specific

anxiety-situations. A beautiful body or a perfect piece of work provide the growing girl with the same counter-

proofs as she had need of as a child namely, that the in- side of her body has not been destroyed by her mother, and that the children have not been taken out of it. As a grown woman, her relation to her child, which often takes the place of her relation to her work, is a very great help to her in dealing with anxiety. To have it and nurse it and watch

it grow and thrive these things provide her, exactly as in the case of the little girl and her dolls, with ever-

renewed proofs that her possession of a child is not en-

dangered,

andserveto

allay

hersenseof

guilt.

1 The

danger-

situations, both great and small, which she has to deal with

in the process of bringing up her children are calculated,

if things go well, to supply an effective refutation of her anxiety. Similarly, her relation to her home, which is

equivalent to her own body, has a special importance for the feminine mode of mastering anxiety, and has, besides, another and more direct connection with her early anxiety-

situation. As we have seen, the little girl’s rivalry with her

mother finds utterance, among other things, in phantasies of driving her out and taking her place as mistress of the

house. An important part of this anxiety-situation for chil- dren of both sexes, but more especially for girls, consists

in the fear of being turned out of the house and being left homeless.2 Their contentment with their own home is always partly based on its value as a refutation of this

element in their anxiety-situation. It is indispensable to the normal stabilization of the woman that her children,

her work, her activities, and the care and adornment of her person and home should furnish her with a complete

refutation of her 3 Her relation to danger-situations.

men, 1 Cf. the next chapter for a discussion of the more underlying factors in her

relations to her child.

* Thefearofbecomingabeggarchildorahomelessorphanappearsinevery child analysis. It plays a large part in fixating the child to its mother, and is one of the forms taken by its fear of loss of love.

1 In some women I have been able to establish the fact that when they have completed their morning toikt they have had a feeling of freshness and energy

264

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

furthermore, is largely determined by her need to convince herself through their admiration of the intactness of her

body. Her narcissism, therefore, plays a great part in her mastery of anxiety. It is as a result of this feminine mode

of mastering anxiety that women are so much more de-

pendentontheloveandapprovalofmen andofobjects in general than men are upon women. But men, too, extract from their love-relations a tranquillization of their anxiety which contributes no little to the sexual gratifica- tion they get from them.

The normal process of mastering anxiety seems to be conditional upon a number of factors, in which the specific

methods employed act in conjunction with quantitative elements, such as the amount of sadism and anxiety pre-

sent and the degree of capacity possessed by the ego to tolerate anxiety. If these interacting factors attain a certain

optimum, it appears that the individual is able to modify

quite successfully even very large quantities of anxiety, to develop his ego in a satisfactory manner and even well above the average, and to achieve mental health. The con- ditions under which he can master anxiety are as specific as the conditions under which he can love, and are, as far as can be

with them.1 In some cases, best typified in the age of puberty, the condi- tion for mastering anxiety is that the individual shall face

seen, very intimately

especially difficult circumstances, such as give rise to strong fear; in others, it is that he shall avoid as far as he can

andeven,inextremecases,inaphobicway allsuchcir- cumstances. Between these two extremes is situated what

can be regarded as a normal impulsion to obtain pleasure

from the overcoming of anxiety-situations that are associ- ated with not too much and not too direct (and therefore

better apportioned) anxiety.

In this chapter I have tried to show that all the activities,

interests and sublimations of the individual also serve to master his anxiety and allay his guilt, and that their motive

in contrast to a previous mood of depression. Washing and dressing stood for restoringthemselvesinmanyways. i Cf.ChapterXI.

bound

X ANXIETY-SITUATIONS IN DEVELOPMENT OF ECO 265

force is not only to gratify his aggressive impulses but to make restitution towards his object and to restore his own

body

and sexual

parts.

We have also seen * that in a

very

early stage of his development his sense of omnipotence is enlisted in the service of his destructive impulses. When

his reaction-formations set in, this sense of negative, de- structive omnipotence makes it necessary for him to believe in his constructive omnipotence; and the stronger his sense of sadistic omnipotence has been, the stronger must his sense of positive omnipotence now be, in order that he may be able to come up to the requirements of his super-ego in respect of making restitution* If the restitu- tion required of him necessitates a very strong sense of constructiveomnipotence as,forinstance,thatheshall make complete restitution towards both parents and to-

wards his brothers and sisters, etc., and, by displacement, towardsotherobjectsandeventheentireworld then, whether he will do great things in life and whether the development of his ego and of his sexual life will be suc- cessful, or whether he will fall a victim to severe inhibi-

tions, will partly depend upon the strength of his ego and the degree of his adaptation to reality which regulates

those imaginary requirements, and partly upon whether the tasks laid upon him are too exacting and the dis-

crepancy between his destructive and constructive omni- potence exceeds a certain limit.2

To sum up what has been said: We have tried to get

some insight into the complicated process, involving all the energies of the individual, by means of which the ego

attempts to master his infantile anxiety-situations. The success of this process is of fundamental importance for

the development of his ego, and a decisive factor in secur- ing his mental health. For with the normal person it is thismanifoldreassuranceagainsthisanxiety areassur- ance which is constantly being renewed and flows from many sources and which he derives from his activities and

* In Chapter XII. we shall discuss a case in point.

Cf. Chapter IX.

266 THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

interests and from his social relations and erotic gratifica- tions that enables him to leave his original anxiety- situations far behind and to distribute and weaken the full force of their impact upon him. 1

Finally, we must examine how the account given in these pages of the normal method of dealing with anxiety- situations compares with Freud’s view on the subject.

In his Hemmung) Symptom und Angst (S. 89) he writes:

‘During the course of development to maturity, then, con- ditions for anxiety must have been given up and danger-

situations must have lost their significance*. This state- ment, however, is qualified by his subsequent remarks.

After the sentence just quoted he goes on: ‘Moreover, some of these danger-situations manage to survive into

later periods by modifying their anxiety-conditions to suit the circumstances of later life*. I think that my theory of

the modification of anxiety helps us to understand by what

means the normal person gets away from his anxiety- situations and modifies the conditions under which he feels

anxiety. For that even a wide removal from his anxiety- situations such as the normal individual achieves does not

amount to a relinquishment of them, analytic observation strongly inclines me to believe. To all intents and purposes

those anxiety-situations, it is true, have no direct effects upon him; but in certain circumstances such effects will reappear. If a normal person is put under a severe internal or external strain, or if he falls ill or fails in some other way, we may observe in him the full and complete opera-

tion of his deepest anxiety-situations. Since, then, every healthy person may succumb to a neurotic illness, it follows that he can never have entirely given up his old anxiety- situations.

The following remarks by Freud would seem to bear out this view. In the passage just quoted he writes:

This mechanism of mastering anxiety plays a part in the most unimportant actions, so that the mere overcoming of everyday difficulties affords a person a means of mastering his anxiety of no small economic importance. And if he is neurotic he will often find such actions very burdensome and may be unable to perform them.

X ANXIETY-SITUATIONS IN DEVELOPMENT OF EGO

‘The neurotic differs from the normal in that he exagger- ates his reactions to these dangers. Even being grown-up

offers no complete protection against the return of the originaltraumaticsituation; foreveryonetheremustbea

limit beyond which his mental apparatus cannot manage to master the quantities of excitation demanding discharge/

CHAPTER XI

THE EFFECTS OF EARLY ANXIETY-SITUA- TIONS ON THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE GIRL

investigation has thrown much less light on the psychology of women than on that of

men. Since the fear of castration was the first PSYCHO-ANALYTIC thing

that was discovered as an underlying motive force in the

formation of neurosis in men, analysts naturally began by studying aetiological factors of the same kind in women. The results obtained in this way held good in so far as the psychology of the two sexes was similar but not in so far as it differed. Freud has well expressed this point in a

. . . and besides, is it quite cer- tain that castration anxiety is the only cause of repression (or defence)? When we think of neuroses in women we must feel some doubts. True enough, a castration com- plex is always to be found in them; but we can hardly speak of a castration anxiety where castration is already an

accomplished fact/

When we consider how important every advance in our

knowledge of castration anxiety has been both for under-

standing the psychology of the male individual and for

effecting a cure of his neuroses, we shall expect that a

knowledge of whatever anxiety is its equivalent in the female individual will enable us to perfect our therapeutic

treatment of her and help us to get a clear idea of the lines along which her sexual development moves forward.

1 Htmmung, Symptom vnd Angst (192.6), S. 63. 268

passage in which he says :

CH. XI THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE GIRL

269

The Anxiety-Situation of the Girl

In my Early Stages of the Oedipus Conflict* (1928)

I have endeavoured to throw some light on this still un- solved problem and have put forward the view that the

girl’s deepest fear is of having the inside of her body robbed and destroyed. As a result of the oral frustration

she experiences from her mother, the female child turns away from her and takes her father’s penis as her object of gratification. This new desire urges her to make further

important steps in her development. She evolves phan- tasies of her mother introducing her father’s penis into her

body and giving him the breast; and these phantasies form the nucleus of early sexual theories which arouse feelings of envy and hatred in her at being frustrated by both

parents. (Incidentally, at this stage of development children of both sexes believe that it is the body of their mother

which contains all that is desirable, especially their father’s penis.) This sexual theory increases the small girl’s hatred of her mother on account of the frustration she has suffered from her, and contributes to the production of sadistic

phantasies of attacking and destroying her mother’s inside and depriving it of its contents. Owing to her fear of

retaliation, such phantasies form the basis of her deepest

anxiety-situation

In his paper on ‘The Early Development of Female Sexu-

ality’ (i 927), Ernest Jones gives the name aphanisis to the destruction of the capacity to obtain libidinal gratification

of which the girl stands in dread; and he considers that this

dread constitutes an early and dominating anxiety-situa- tion for her. It seems to me that the destruction of the girl’s

capacity to obtain libidinal gratification implies a destruc- tion of those organs which are necessary for the purpose.

And she expects to have those organs destroyed in the course of the attacks that will be made, principally by her mother, upon her body and its contents. Her fears con-

cerning her genitals are especially intense, partly because her own sadistic impulses against her mother are very

27O

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

strongly directed towards her genitals and the erotic plea- sures she gets from them, and partly because her fear of

being incapable of enjoying sexual gratification serves in its turn to increase her fear of having her genitals damaged.

Early Stages of the Oedipus Conflict

According to my experience, the girl’s Oedipus ten- dencies are ushered in by her oral desires for her father’s

penis. These desires are already accompanied by genital impulses. Her wish to rob her mother of her father’s penis

and incorporate it in herself is, I have found, a fundamental factor in the development of her sexual life. The resent- ment her mother has aroused in her by withdrawing the nourishing breast from her is intensified by the further wrong she has done her in not granting her her father’s

penis as an object of gratification; and this double griev- ance is the deepest source of the hatred the female child feels

towards her mother as a result of her Oedipus tendencies. These views differ in some respects from accepted psycho-analytical theory. Freud has come to the conclu- sion that it is the castration complex that introduces the girl’s Oedipus complex, and that what makes her turn away from her mother is the grudge she bears her for not ofherown.1 The be-

penis

hera

tween Freud’s view and the one put forward here, how- ever, becomes less great if we reflect that they agree on two

having given

divergence

important points namely, that the girl wants to have a penis and that she hates her mother for not giving her one.

But, according to my view, what she primarily wants is not to possess a penis of her own as an attribute of masculinity, but to incorporate her father’s penis as an object of oral gratification. Furthermore, I think that this desire is not an outcome of her castration complex but the most funda-

mental expression of her Oedipus tendencies, and that

consequently she is brought under the sway of her Oedipus

1 ‘Some Psychological Consequences of the Anatomical Distinction between the Sexes’ (1927).

XI THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE GIRL 2JI

impulses not indirectly, through her masculine tendencies and her penis-envy, but directly, as a result ofher dominant

feminine instinctual

When the girl turns to her father’s penis as the wished-

for object, several factors concur to make her desire for it

very intense. The demands of her oral-sucking impulses, heightened by the frustration she has suffered from her

mother’s breast, create in her an imaginary picture of her father’s penis as an organ which, unlike the breast, can provide her with a tremendous and never-ending oral

components.

2 To this her urethral-sadistic im- phantasy

gratification.

pulses add their contribution. For children of both sexes

attribute far greater urethral capacities to the penis where, indeed, they are more visible than to the female organ of micturition. The girl’s phantasies about the urethral capacity and power of the penis become allied to her oral phantasies, in virtue of the equation which small children make between all bodily substances; and in her

1 In her paper, *On the Genesis of the Castration Complex* (1924), Karen Homey has supported the view that what gives rise to the girl’s castration com- plex is the frustration she has suffered in the Oedipus situation, and that her desire to possess a penis springs primarily from her Oedipus wishes and not

from her wish to be a man. She looks upon the desired penis as a part of her father and as a substitute for him,

* In her Zur Psyckologie der <weiblichen Sexualfunktionen (1925), Helene Deutsch has pointed out that already very early on in her life the small girl, in taking her father as the object of her affections next in order to her mother, directs towards him a great part of that true sexual libido, attached to the oral zone, with which she has cathected her mother’s breast, since *in one phase of her development her unconscious equates her father’s penis with her mother’s breast as an organ for giving suck\ I also agree with the writer in her view that in this equation of the penis with the breast the vagina takes on the passive role of tbe sucking mouth ‘in the process of displacement from above downwards”, and that this oral, sucking activity of the vagina is implied by its anatomical

structure as a whole (S. 54). But whereas according to Helene Deutsch these phantasies do not become operative until the girl has reached sexuaJ maturity and

has experienced the sexual act, in my opinion the early equation of the penis with the breast is ushered in by the frustration she has suffered from the breast

in early childhood, and at once exerts a powerful influence on her and greatly

affects the whole trend of her development. I also believe that this equation of 1

penis and breast, accompanied as it is by a Misplacement from above downwards , activates the oral, receptive qualities of the female genital at an early age, and prepares the vagina to receive the penis. It thus clears the way for the little girl’s Oedipus tendencies though these, it is true, do not unfold their full power until much later and lays the foundation of her sexual development.

272

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

imagination the penis is an object which possesses magical

powers of providing oral gratification. But since the oral frustration she has suffered from her mother has stimul-

ated all her other erotogenic zones as well and has aroused her genital tendencies and desires in regard to her father’s

penis, the latter becomes the object of her oral, urethral, anal and genital impulses all at the same time. Another factor which serves to intensify her desires in this direction is her unconscious sexual theory that her mother has in-

corporated her father’s penis, and her consequent envy of her mother.

It is the combination of all these factors, I think, which endows her father’s penis with such enormous virtue in the eyes of the small girl and makes it the object of her most ardentadmirationanddesire.1 Ifsheretainsapredomin- antly feminine position, this attitude towards her father’s penis will often lead her to assume a humble and sub- missive attitude towards the male sex. But it can also cause her to have intense feelings of hatred for having been de- nied the thing which she has so passionately adored and longed for; and if she takes up a masculine position it can

give rise to all the signs and symptoms of penis-envy in her. But since the small girl’s phantasies about the enor-

mous powers and huge size and strength of her father’s

penis arise from her own oral-, urethral- and anal-sad-

istic impulses, she will also think of it as having extremely

dangerous attributes. This aspect of it provides the sub-

stratum of her terror of the ‘bad* penis, which sets in as a

reaction to the destructive impulses which, in combina-

tion with the libidinal ones, she has directed towards it. If

her oral sadism is what is strongest in her she will regard

her father’s penis within her mother principally as a thing

to be envied and 2 and the hate-filled hated, destroyed;

1 She invests her mother with some of this glory and will in some cases only value her as the possessor of her father’s penis.

1 She will have the same attitude towards the children in her mother’s body. We shall later on return to this subject and consider in what way her hostility to the children inside her mother affects her relations to her own brothers and sisters, to her own imaginary children, and, in after years, to her real ones.

XI THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE GIRL

273

phantasies which she centres upon her father’s penis as

something that is giving her mother gratification will in some cases be so intense that they will cause her to displace

her deepest and most powerful anxiety her fear of her mother ontoherfather’spenisasahatedappendageof

her mother. If this happens, she will suffer severe im-

pairments in her development and will be led into a

distorted attitude towards the male sex. She will also have

a more or less defective relationship to her objects and be

unable to overcome, or overcome completely, the stage of

In virtue of the omnipotence of thoughts the girl’s oral desire for her father’s penis makes her believe that she has

in fact incorporated it; and now her ambivalent feelings towards it become extended to this internalized penis. As

we know, in the stage of partial incorporation the object isrepresentedbyapartofhimselforherselfandthefather’s

penis stands for his whole person. That is why, I think, the child’s earliest father-images the nucleus of the paternal

super-ego are represented by his penis. As I have tried to show, the terrifying and cruel character of the super-ego

in children of both sexes is due to the fact that they have

begun to introject their objects at a period of development when their sadism is at its maximum. Their earliest imagos

assume the phantastic aspect which their own dominant

1 Cf.Abraham,’AShortStudyoftheDevelopmentoftheLibido*(1924). My patient Erna, whose case-history has been related in Chapter III., was a typical instance. Her father was in her eyes mainly the bearer of the penis which gratified her mother and not herself. It turned out that her penis-envy and her

castration wishes, which were exceedingly strong-, were ultimately based upon the frustration she had experienced in regard to his penis in her oral position. Since, in focussing her hatred on his penis, she imagined that her mother had possession of it, the feeling she entertained towards her mother, though filled with hatred, was a more personal one than what she felt for her father. It is true that another reason why she turned away from him was to protect him from her own sadism. And the concentration of her hatred on his penis also helped to make her spare him as an object (cf. Abraham in this connection). Analysis was able to bring out in her a more friendly and human attitude towards her father, and this advance was accompanied by favourable changes in her relations with her mother and her objects in general. Concerning this relationship to the father’s penis and the father himself, I should like to draw attention to the points of similarity that exist between my patient and two cases that Abraham has reported on p. 482 of his above-mentioned work.

love. partial

274

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

pre-genital impulses have imparted to them.1 But this im- pulsion to introject the father’s penis, that is, the Oedipus object, and to keep it inside is much stronger in the girl than in the boy. For the genital tendencies which accom-

pany her oral desires have a receptive character too, so that under normal circumstances her Oedipus tendencies are to a far greater extent under the influence of oral incorpor- ative impulses than are those of the boy. It is a matter of decisive importance for the formation of the super-ego and the development of the sexual life of both boys and girls

whether their prevailing phantasies are those of a ‘good’ penis or of a ‘bad’ one. But again the girl, being more sub-

ordinated to her introjected father, is more at the mercy of his powers for good or evil than is the boy in relation to

his 2 And her super-ego.

anxiety

gard to her mother serve to complicate still further her

divided feelings about her father’s penis.

In order to simplify our survey of the whole situation

we will first of all follow out the development of the girl’s attitude to her father’s penis and then try to discover how far her relations with her mother affect her relations with her father. In favourable circumstances the girl believes in

the existence not only of a dangerous, introjected penis, but of a beneficent and helpful one. As a result of this ambi-

valent attitude she will strive to counteract her fear of the introjected ‘bad’ penis by continually introjecting a ‘good’

3 and this will be a further incentive to her

one in

to undergo sexual experiences in early childhood and to

Cf. Chapter VIII.

coitus,

indulge in sexual activities in later life, and will add to her libidinal desires for a penis.

Moreover, her sexual acts, whether in the form of/<?/- tatio, coitus per anum or normal coitus, help her to ascertain

1 The girl’s super-ego is

consequently

more potent than the

boy’s;

and we

later on discuss the effect this has

shall^ upon ego-development object-

relations.

* As we have^already seen in an earlier part of this book, the child’s fear of the

*bad* things inside itself, such as its internalized ‘bad’ objects, dangerous excre-

ments and bodily substances, usually encourages it to try every kind of process of introjection and ejection and is thus a fundamental factor in its development.

and sense of in re- guilt

her and

XI THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE GIRL

275

whether the fears which play such a dominant and funda-

mental role in her mind in connection with copulation are

well grounded or not. The reason why copulation has be-

come fraught with so much peril in the imagination of children of both sexes is that their sadistic wish-phantasies

have transformed that act, as done between their father

and into a 1 We mother, very threatening danger-situation,

have already gone into the nature of these sadistic mastur- bation phantasies in some detail, and have found that

they fall into two distinct, though interconnected, cate- gories. In those of the first category the child employs

various sadistic means to make a direct onslaught upon its

parents either separately or joined in coitus; in those of the second, which are derived from a somewhat later period of the phase of maximal sadism, its belief in its sadistic

omnipotence over its parents finds expression in a more indirect fashion. It endows them with instruments of

mutual destruction, transforming their teeth, nails, geni- tals, excrements and so on, into dangerous weapons and animals, etc., and pictures them, according to its own de- sires, as tormenting and destroying each other in the act of copulation.

Both categories of sadistic phantasies give rise to anxiety from various sources. Turning once more to the girl,

we see that in connection with the first category she is afraid of being counter-attacked by one or both parents, but more particularly by her mother as the more hated one of the two. She expects to be assailed from within as well

as from without, since she has introjected her objects at the same time as she has attacked them. Her fears on this head are very closely connected with sexual intercourse, be- cause her primary sadistic actions have to a very great

1 The child’s wish that its should parents

in a sadistic

is in experience an important factor in the production and maintenance of its sexual theories, so that the latter not only owe their character to the influence which

its pre-genital impulses have upon the formation of its phantasies but are the 1

result of the destructive wishes it directs against its copulating parents. In analysing the child’s sexual theories, therefore, I have found it important from a therapeutic point of view to pay attention to the fact that they spring from its sadistic desires and so give rise to a strong sense of guilt in its mind.

copulate

way

276

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

extent been directed against her parents as she imagined

them 1 But it is more in copulating together. especially

phantasies belonging to the second category that copula- tion, in which, according to her sadistic desires, her mother is utterly destroyed, becomes an act fraught with immense danger to herself. On the other hand, the sexual act, which her sadistic phantasies and wishes have transformed into a situation of such extreme danger, is for this very

reason also the superlatiye method of mastering anxiety the more so because the libidinal gratification that accom-

panies it affords her the highest attainable pleasure and thus lessens her anxiety on its own score.

These facts throw a new light, I think, on the motives which urge the individual to perform the sexual act and on the psychological sources from which the libidinal gratification he obtains from that act receives addition. As

we know, the libidinal gratification of all his erotogenic

zones implies a gratification of his destructive components as well, owing to the fusion of his libidinal and destructive

impulses that has taken place in those stages of his de- velopment which are governed by his sadistic tendencies. Now, in my opinion, his destructive impulses have aroused anxiety in him as early as in the first months of his life. In

consequence, his sadistic phantasies become bound up with anxiety, and this tie between the two gives rise to

specific anxiety-situations. Since his genital impulses set inwhileheisstillinthephaseofmaximalsadism orso,

at least, I have found and copulation represents, in his

sadistic phantasies, a vehicle of destruction for his parents,

these anxiety-situations which are aroused in the early

stages of his development become connected with his

genital activities as well. The effect of such a connection

is that, on the one hand, his anxiety intensifies his libidinal

needs, and, on the other, the libidinal gratification of his

various erotogenic zones helps him to master anxiety by diminishing his aggressive tendencies and with it his

1 These phantasies also give rise to danger-situations which are not in them- selves attached to the sexual act.

XI THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE GIRL

277

anxiety. In addition, the pleasure he gets from such grati- fication seems in itself to allay his fear of being destroyed

by his own destructive impulses and by his objects, and to militate against his dread of aphanisis (Jones), /.<?. his

fear of losing his capacity to obtain sexual gratification. Libidinal gratification, as an expression of Eros, reinforces his belief in his helpful imagos and diminishes the dangers which emanate from his death-instinct and his super-ego.

The more anxiety the individual has and the more neurotic he is, the more the energies of his ego and his instinctual forces will be absorbed in the endeavour to overcome anxiety; and the more, too, will the libidinal

gratification he obtains be employed for that purpose. In the normal person, who is further removed from his early

anxiety-situations and has modified them more success- fully, the effect of those situations upon his sexual activities

is, of course, far less; but it is never entirely absent, I

think.1 The he feels to impulsion

his

situations to the test in his relations to his partner in love

strengthens and gives colour to his libidinal fixations also, and the sexual act always in part helps him to master

anxiety. And the anxiety-situations which predominate in

him and the quantities of anxiety present are specific determinants of the conditions under which he is able to

love.

If, in making the sexual act a criterion of her anxiety-

situations and thus submitting them to a test by reality,

the girl is supported by feelings of a confident and opti- mistic kind, she will be led to take as her object a person

who represents the ‘good’ penis. In this case, the allevia-

tion of anxiety which she obtains through having sexual

intercourse will give her a strong enjoyment which con-

siderably adds to the purely libidinal gratification she ex- periences and lays the foundations for lasting and satis-

factory love relationships. But if the circumstances are unfavourable and her fear of the introjected ‘bad’ penis predominates, the necessary condition for her ability to

i Cf.ChapterX.

put

specific anxiety-

278

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

love will be that she shall make this reality-test by means of a ‘bad’ penis i.e. that her partner in love shall be a sadistic person. The test she makes in this case is meant to inform her of what kind of damage her partner will inflict on her through the sexual act. Even her antici-

pated injuries in this respect serve to allay her anxiety and are of importance in the economy of her mental

life; for nothing she may suffer from any external agency can equal what she is already suffering under the strain

of her constant and overwhelming fear of phantastic

and fromwithin,1 Herchoiceofasadistic dangers

injuries

partner is also based upon an impulsion once more to in- corporate a sadistic ‘bad’ penis (for that is how she views

the sexual act) which shall destroy the dangerous objects within her. Thus the deepest root of feminine masochism

would seem to be the woman’s fear of the dangerous

objects she has internalized, in especial her father’s penis;

and her masochism would ultimately be no other than her

sadistic instincts rurned inwards against those internalized

2 objects.

According to Freud,3 sadism, although it first becomes

apparent in relation to an object, was originally a de- structive instinct directed against the organism itself

(primal sadism) and was only later diverted from the ego by the narcissistic libido; and erotogenic masochism is

1 The tendency the individual has to secure from the external world a tran-

q utilization of his fears of imaginary dangers from within and from without is,

I think, an important factor in the repetition-compulsion (cf. Chapter VII.}. The more neurotic he is, the more this tendency will be coloured by his need for

punishment. The conditions to which the securing of such a tranquillization from external sources is attached will be increasingly unfavourable in proportion

as the anxiety connected with his early danger-situations is powerful and his optimistic trend of feeling weak. In extreme cases only very severe punishments, or rather unhappy experiences which he feels as punishments, are able to fill the place of the imaginary punishments which he dreads.

{*93)> Helene Deutsch expresses views on the origins of masochism which

differ widely from my own and which are based on the assumption, equally at

variance with mine, that the Oedipus complex of the girl is introduced by her

castration-wishes and castration-fears.

In her paper, ‘The Significance of Masochism in the Mental Life of Women*

in Masochism*

Cf. his Eeyond the Pkasure-Prmciple, 1920, and ‘The Economic Problem (1924).

XI THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE GIRL

279

that portion of the destructive instinct which has not been able to be turned outward in this way and has remained within the organism and been libidinally bound there. He furthermore thinks that in so far as any part of the de- structive instinct which has been directed outward is once more turned inwards and drawn away from its objects, it gives rise to secondary or feminine masochism. As far as I can see, however, when the destructive instinct has reverted in this way it still adheres to its objects; but now they are internalized ones, and, in threatening to destroy them, it also threatens to destroy the ego in which they are situated. In this way in feminine masochism the de- structive instinct is once more directed against the organism itself. Freud says in his ‘Economic Problem in Masochism* (1924): *. . . in the manifest content of the masochistic

phantasies a feeling of guilt comes to expression, it being assumed that the subject has committed some crime (the

nature of which is left uncertain) which is to be expiated by

his undergoing pain and torture’ (p. 2 5 9). There seem tome

to be certain points in common between the self-torment-

ing behaviour of the masochist and the self-reproaches of

the melancholiac, which, as we know, are in fact directed

towards his introjected object. It would seem, therefore, that feminine masochism is directed towards the ego as

well as towards the introjected objects. Moreover, in de- stroying his internalized object the individual is acting in theinterestsofself-preservation; andinextremecaseshis ego will no longer be able to turn his death-instinct out- wards, for both life and death-instincts have united in a common aim and the former has been withdrawn from its

proper function of protecting the ego.

We will now briefly consider one or two other typical

forms which may be assumed by the sexual life of women

in whom fear of the is introjected penis

1 Of course, these various forms overlap in many cases. In dealing; with such a wealth and complication of material I can do no more than give a schematic account of one or two such forms, main 1 to describe a few of

my object being

the consequences that arise from this most fundamental anxiety in the female

individual.

paramount.

28O THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

Women who, besides having strong masochistic inclina-

tions, are buoyed up by more hopeful currents of feeling, often tend to entrust their affections to a sadistic partner

and at the same time to make endeavours of every kind endeavours which often take up all the energies of

their ego to turn him into a friendly and ‘good’ person. 7

Women of this kind, in whom fear of the ‘bad penis and 1

belief in the ‘good one are evenly balanced, often fluctuate betweenthechoiceofa’good’externalobjectanda’bad’one. Not seldom the woman’s fear of the internalized penis

urges her to be always renewing the process of testing her anxiety-situation, with the result that she will be under a

constant compulsion to perform the sexual act with her

object, or, as a variant to this, to exchange that object for another. In differently constituted cases, again, the same fear will have an opposite outcome and the woman will

become

frigid.

1 As a child, her hatred of her mother has

made her view her father’s penis no longer as a desirable

and bountiful thing but as something evil and dangerous,

and has made her transform the vagina into an instrument of death and her mother into a source of danger to her father in his sexual relations with her. Her fear of the sexual act is thus based both on the injuries she expects to receive from the penis and on the injuries she will herself inflict on her partner. Her fear that she will castrate him is due partly to her identification with her sadistic mother and partly to her own sadistic impulses.

As we have already seen, if the girl’s sadistic tendencies are directed towards her internalized objects, she will adopt a masochistic attitude. But should her fear of the internal-

1 Suchanoutcomedependsgreatly,Itwouldseem,upontheextenttowhich the ego is able to overcome anxiety. As we learnt in the last chapter, it some- times happens that the individual can master his anxiety (or rather, transform it into pleasure) only on condition that the reality-situations which he has to surmount are of a particularly difficult or dangerous nature. We sometimes find similar conditions laid down for his love-relations, in which case copulation itself represents the danger-situation. Hence frigidity in women would in part be due to a phobic avoidance of an anxiety-situation. As far as can be seen, there is a close relation between specific conditions of mastering anxiety and of obtaining sexual gratification.

XI THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE GIRL 281

ized penis impel her to defend herself against its threats from within by projection, she will direct her sadism to- wards the external object towards the penis which is con-

tinually being introjected afresh in the act of coitus, and thus towards her sexual partner. In such cases, the ego has once more succeeded in turning the destructive instinct away from itself and from the internalized objects and in directing it towards an external object. If the girl’s sadistic

tendencies predominate, she will still regard copulation as

a test by reality of her anxiety, but in an opposite way. Her phantasies that her vagina and body as a whole are

destructive to her partner and that in fellatio she will bite off his penis and tear it to pieces are now the means of over-

coming her fear of the penis she has incorporated and of her real object. In employing her sadism against her ex-

ternal object she is in imagination also waging a war of extermination against her internalized objects.

The Omnipotence of Excreta

In connection with what has just been said we come to a factor which is of considerable importance for the de-

velopment of the girl. In the sadistic phantasies of both boy and girl the excreta play a large part. The child’s belief

in the omnipotence of the function of the bladder and the bowels1 is closely connected with paranoid mechanisms.* These mechanisms are in full swing in that phase in which, in its sadistic masturbation phantasies, the child destroys

its copulating parents in secret ways by means of its urine,

faeces and 3 and become reinforced and em- flatus; they

ployed in a secondary way for defensive purposes on account of its fear of being counter-attacked/

1 Cf.Freud,TotemundTabu also,Ferenczi, (1912);

inthe

ment of a Sense of Reality* (1913)? and Abraham, ‘The Narcissistic Evaluation

of Excretory Processes in Dreams and Neurosis* (1917).

* For the connection between paranoia and anal functions, cf. Freud,

Ferenczi, Von Ophuijsen, Starcke and others. Cf. Chapter X.

4 Sadistic omnipotence of this kind, used primarily to destroy the parents or one of them by means of the excreta, becomes modified in the coune of the

‘Stages

Develop-

282 THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

As far as I can judge, the girl’s sexual life and ego are more strongly and permanently influenced in their de- velopment than are those of the boy by this sense of omnipotence of the function of the bladder and bowels. In children of both sexes the attacks they make with their excreta are levelled at their mother, in the first instance at her breast and then at the interior of her body. Since the

girl’s destructive impulses against her mother’s body are more powerful and enduring than the boy’s3 she will evolve secret and cunning methods of attack^ based upon the magic of excrements and other products of her body and

upon the omnipotence of her thoughts, in conformity with the secret and hidden nature of that world within her

mother’s body and her own ;* whereas the boy will concen- trate his feelings of hatred not only on his father’s penis,

supposedly inside his mother, but on his real one, and thus directs them to a larger extent towards the external world and what is tangible and visible. He also makes greater use of the sadistic omnipotence of his penis, with the result thathehasothermodesof as 2 while

child’s development and is often employed to inflict moral pain on the object or to control and dominate it intellectually. Owing to this modification and because

the child now makes its attacks in a secret and Insidious fashion and has to

an equal watchfulness and mental ingenuity in guarding- against counter- attacks of a corresponding character, its original sense of omnipotence becomes of fundamental importance for the growth of its ego. In his paper referred to above, Abraham takes the view that the omnipotence of the functions of the bladder and bowels is a precursor of the omnipotence of thoughts; and in his paper, *The Madonna’s Conception through the Ear’ (1923), Ernest Jones has shown that thoughts are equated to flatus. I too think that the child equates its faeces, and more especially its invisible flatus, with that other secret and in-

visible substance, its thoughts, and furthermore that it imagines that in its covert

attacks on its mother’s body it has put them inside her by magic means. (Cf V

Chapter VIII. of this book.)

1 that the woman attaches her narcissism to her as a whole The_fact body

must be in part due to her connecting her sense of omnipotence with her various bodily functions and excretory processes, and thus distributing it to a greater extent over the whole of her body, whereas the man focusses it more upon his genitals. After all, in the last analysis it is through her body that she captures and controls her real objects by magic means.

2 In this chapter and in the next we shall consider how the anatomical differ-

ences between the sexes contribute to separate the lines along which the sense

of omnipotence and consequently the modes of mastering anxiety develop in each sex.

mastering anxiety well,

display

XI THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE GIRL

the woman’s mode of mastering anxiety remains under the dominion of her relation to an inner world, to what is con- cealed, and therefore to the unconscious.1

As has already been said, when the girl’s sadism is at

its greatest height she believes that the sexual act is a

means of destroying the object and that she is also carrying

on a war to the knife against the internalized objects. She

endeavours through the omnipotence of her excrements

and thoughts to overcome the terrifying objects inside her own body and originally inside her mother’s. If her belief

in her father’s ‘good’ penis inside her is strong enough she

will make it the vehicle of her sense of

omnipotence,

2 If her

belief in the magical power of her excreta and thoughts

preponderates, it will be through their power that she will

in imagination govern and control both her internalized and her real objects. Not only do these different sources of magical power operate at the same time and reinforce one another, but her ego makes use of them and plays them off

against one another for the purpose of mastering anxiety.

Early Relations to the Mother

The girl’s attitude to the introjected penis is strongly influenced by her attitude to her mother’s breast. The first

objects that she introjects are her ‘good’ mother and her ‘bad’ one, as represented by the breast.3 Her desire to suck or devour the penis is directly derived from her desire to do the same to her mother’s breast, so that the

1 In my ‘Contribution to the Theory of Intellectual Inhibition* (1931) I have shown that in his unconscious the individual regards his penis as the representative of his ego and his conscious, and the interior of his body what is invisible as the representative of his super-ego and his unconscious. (Cf. also Chapter XII. of this book.)

2 Inherpaper,”TheRoleofPsychoticMechanismsinCulturalDevelopment*

(1930), Melitta Schmideberg has shown that the introjection of his father’s penis (=his father) greatly enhances the individual’s narcissism and sense of omni-

potence.

3 InChapterVIII.wesawhowthe’good*breastbecomesturnedintoa’bad*

one in consequence of the child’s imaginary attacks upon it (for the child directs all the resources of its sadism in the first instance against the breast for not giving it enough gratification), so that a primary introjection of both a good and a bad mother-imago takes place before any other imagos are formed.

284

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

frustration she suffers from the breast prepares the way for the feelings which her later frustration in regard to the penis arouse. Not only do the envy and hatred she feels towards her mother colour and intensify her sadistic

phantasies against the penis, but her relations to the mother’s breast affect her subsequent attitude towards

men in other ways as well. As soon as she begins to be afraid of the ‘bad* introjected penis she also begins to run back to her mother, from whom, both as a real person and as an introjected figure, she hopes for assistance. If her primary attitude to her mother has been governed

by the oral-sucking position, so that it contains strong

currents of positive and optimistic feeling, she will be able to take shelter to some extent behind her good mother-

imago against her bad mother-imago and against the ‘bad’ penis; if not, her fear of her introjected mother will in-

crease her fear of the internalized penis and of her terrify-

ing parents united in copulation.

The importance which the girl’s mother-imago has for her as a ‘helping* figure and the strength of her attachment

to her mother are very great, since in her imagination her mother is the possessor of the nourishing breast and the father’s penis and children and thus has the power to gratify all her needs. For when the small girl’s early anxiety-situations set in, her ego makes use of her need for nourishment in the widest sense to assist her in over- coming anxiety. The more she is afraid that her body is poisoned and exposed to attack, the more she craves for the ‘good’ milk, ‘good’ penis and children x over which she believes her mother has unlimited command. She needs

these ‘good’ things to protect her against the ‘bad’ ones, and to establish a kind of equilibrium inside her. In her

imagination her mother’s body is therefore a kind of store- house which contains the gratification of all her desires and the appeasement of all her fears. It is these phantasies,

child inside the body represents a helpful object.

1 We shall in presently enquire

detail into the

attached to the possession of children. It suffices here to remark that the imaginary

greater

deeper significance

XI THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE GIRL 28$

leading back to her mother’s breast as her earliest source of gratification and as the one most fraught with conse-

quences, which are responsible for her immensely strong attachment to her mother. And the frustration she suffers

from her mother in this connection causes her, under the rising pressure of her anxiety, to feel renewed resentment against her and to redouble her sadistic attacks upon her

body.

At a somewhat later stage of her development, however,

at a time when her sense of guilt is making itself felt in

1 this

contents of her mother’s body, or rather her conviction that she has done so and thus exposed her mother, as it were, to its ‘bad’ contents, arouses a most severe sense of

guilt and anxiety in her. In having thus destroyed her mother she has, she believes, completely demolished that

reservoir from which she draws the satisfaction of all her moral and physical needs. This fear, which is of such tre- mendous importance in the mental life of the small girl,

to strengthen still further the ties that bind her to foeersmother. It gives rise to an impulsion to make restitu- tion and give her mother back all that she has taken from her an, impulsion which finds expression in numerous sublimations of a specifically feminine kind.

But this impulsion runs counter to another impulsion, itself stimulated by the same fear, to take away everything her mother has got so as to save her own body. At this

stage of her development, therefore, the girl is governed

by a compulsion both to take away and to give back, and

this as has elsewhere been 2 is compulsion, said, important

in the aetiology of obsessional neurosis in general. For instance, we see small children drawing little stars or crosses, which signify faeces and children, or older ones writing letters and numbers, on a sheet of paper that stands

1 Itmustberememberedthatinherimagination,besideshaving-attackedher parents, the girl has injured or killed her brothers and sisters inside her mother. Her fear of retaliation and her sense of guilt on account of this give rise to dis-

turbances in her relation to her real brothers and sisters and consequently in her

capacity for social adaptation in general.

every quarter,

very

desire to

get

hold of the

‘good*

Cff. Chapter IX.

286 THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

for their mother’s body or their own, and taking great care

to leave no empty spaces. Or else they will pile up pieces of paper neatly in a box until it is quite full. Very fre-

quently they will draw a house to represent their mother, and then put a tree in front of it for their father’s penis and some flowers beside it for children. Older girls will draw or sew or make dolls and dolls’ dresses or books, etc.; and these things typify their mother’s reconstituted

body (either as a whole or each damaged part individually), their father’s penis and the children inside her, or their

father and brothers and sisters in person.

While they are engaged in these activities or after they

have completed them, children will often show “rage, de- pression or disappointment, or even reactions of a destruc- tive kind. Anxiety of this kind, which is an underlying obstacle to all constructive tendencies, arises from various

sources.1 The girl has in imagination taken possession of her father’s penis and faeces and children, and then, owing

to the fear of penis, children and excrements that sets in with her sadistic phantasies, she loses faith in their right- ness. The questions in her mind now are: will the things she gives back to her mother be ‘good’, and can she give

them back properly as regards quality and quantity and even as regards the order in which they should be arranged

inside (for that, too, is a necessary part of the act of resti- tution)? Again, if she does believe that she has well and duly given her mother back the ‘good* contents of her body she becomes afraid of having endangered her own person by -so doing.

These sources of anxiety give rise, furthermore, to a special attitude of distrust in the girl towards her mother.

On entering my room many of my girl patients will look suspiciously at the stock of paper and pencils in the drawer reserved for them, in case they should not belong to them or be smaller in size or fewer in number than on the day

If anxiety is so strong that it cannot be bound by obsessional mechanisms, the violent mechanisms belonging to earlier stages will be brought into play, together with the more primitive defensive mechanisms employed by the ego.

XI THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE GIRL

287

before; or they will want to make sure that the contents of their drawer have not been disarranged, and that all is in good order and no article is missing or exchanged for

something

else.1 From time to time

they

will their wrap up

drawings or paper patterns, or whatever is symbolizing the penis or children for them at the time, tie them up and

carefully deposit them in their drawer of toys, with every sign of the deepest suspicion towards me. On these occa-

sions I am not allowed to come near the parcel or even the drawer and must move away or not look on while it is being done up. Analysis shows that the drawer and the parcels inside represent their own body and that they are

afraid not only that their mother will attack and despoil it but 7

will put ‘bad things inside it in exchange for the ‘good’ ones. In addition to these many sources of anxiety the girl child is under certain further disabilities compared to the

boy, owing to physiological reasons. Her feminine position

gives

her no

support against

her

anxiety,

2 since her

posses-

sion of children, which would be a complete confirmation

and fulfilment of that position, is, after all, only a prospect-

ive one.3 Nor does the structure of her body afford her any possibility of knowing what the actual state of affairs inside her is; whereas the boy finds support in his masculine

position, for, thanks to his possession of a penis, he has the means of convincing himself by a reality-test that all is well within. It is this inability to know anything about her con-

dition which aggravates what, in my opinion, is the girl’s deepest fear namely, that the inside of her body has been

injured or destroyed and that she has got no children or

only damaged ones.4

1 Imaymentionthateachchildhasadrawerofitsowninwhichthetoys,

paper and pencils, etc., which I put out for it at the beginning of its hour and

renew from time to time, are put away, together with the things it brings from home.

Cf. my ‘Early Stages of the Oedipus Conflict’ (1928).

1 Inherpaper,’TheSignificanceofMasochismintheMentalLifeofWomen*

(1930), Helene Deutsch points out this fact as an obstacle to the maintenance of the feminine position.

4 This is partly the reason why female narcissism extends over the whole body. Male narcissism is focussed upon the penis because the boy’s chief fear is of being castrated.

288 THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

The Role of the Vagina in Infantile Sexuality

The fact that the female child’s anxiety concerns the

inside of her body explains to a large extent, I think, why in

her early sexual organization the part played by the vagina should be overshadowed by the activity of the clitoris. In

her very earliest masturbation phantasies, in which she transforms her mother’s vagina into an instrument of de- struction, she shows an unconscious knowledge about the

vagina. For although, owing to the predominance of her oral and anal tendencies, she likens it to the mouth and to

the anus, she nevertheless thinks of it in her unconscious,

as many details of her phantasies clearly demonstrate, as a cavity in the genitals which is meant to receive her

father’s penis.

But besides this general unconscious realization of the

existence of the vagina the small girl often possesses a quite

conscious knowledge of it. Analysis of a number of small

girls has convinced me that, in addition to those quite

special cases mentioned by Helene Deutsch 1 in which the

patient has undergone sexual assault and defloration and

has in consequence obtained a knowledge of this sort and

been led to indulge in vaginal masturbation, many small

girls are consciously aware that they have an opening in their genitals. In some instances they have got this

knowledge from mutual investigations made during sexual gameswithotherchildren,whetherboysorgirls; inothers, they have discovered the vagina for themselves. They un-

doubtedly have a specially strong inclination to deny or re- presssuchknowledge aninclinationwhichspringsfrom

the anxiety they feel in regard to this organ and to the inside of their body. Analyses of women have shown that the fact that the vagina is a part of the interior of their body, to which so much of their deepest anxiety is attached, and that it is the organ which they regard as pre-eminently dangerous and endangered in their sadistic phantasies

about copulation between their parents, is of fundamental

Loc.ctt.

XI THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE GIRL

289

importance in giving rise to sexual disturbances and frigid-

ity in them and, in particular, in inhibiting vaginal

excitability.

There is a good deal of evidence to show that the vagina

does not enter upon its full functions until the sexual act

has been 1 as we performed. And,

it often

that the woman’s attitude to copulation is completely altered after she has experienced it and that her inhibition in regard to it and, before the event, such an inhibition is sousualastobepracticallynormal isoftenreplacedbya strong desire for it. We may infer from this that her pre- vious inhibition was in part maintained by anxiety and that

the sexual act has removed that

clined to attribute this reassuring effect of sexual inter- course to the fact that the libidinal gratification which she receives from copulation confirms her in the belief that the

penis she has incorporated during the act is a ‘good* object and that her vagina does not have a destructive effect upon

it. Her fear of the internalized and external penis a fear

which has been all the greater from being unverifiable is

thus removed by the real object. In my view, the girl’s

fears concerning the inside of her body contribute, in addi-

tion to the operation of biological factors, to prevent the

emergence of a clearly discernible vaginal phase in her early childhood. Nevertheless I am convinced, on the

strength of a number of analyses of small girls$ that the

psychological representatives of the vagina exert their full share of influence, no less than the psychological repre- sentatives of all the other libidinal phases, upon the in-

fantile genital organization of the female child.

The same factors which tend to conceal the psychologi- cal function of the vagina in the girl go to intensify her fixation on the clitoris. For the latter is a visible organ and one which can be submitted to reality tests. I have found that clitoral masturbation is accompanied by phantasies of

1 Helene Deutsch supports this view in her book, Zttr Psychologic ckr woeib- Ucken Sexualfunktionen (1925).

1 We have

considered the structure of those cases in which the sexual act fails to reduce anxiety and even increases it.

already

know,

happens

anxiety.

2 I should be in-

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH. various descriptions. Their content changes extremely

29O

rapidly,

in accordance with the violent fluctuations which

take place between one position and another in the early

stages of the girPs development. They are at first for the

most part of a pre-genital kind; but as soon as the girl’s desires to incorporate her father’s penis in an oral and

genital manner grow stronger they assume a genital and vaginal character (being often already accompanied, it would seem, by vaginal sensations) and thus, to begin with,

take a feminine direction.

Since the little girl begins to identify herself with her

father very soon after she has identified herself with her

mother, her clitoris rapidly takes on the significance of a penis in her masturbation phantasies. All her clitoral mas-

turbation phantasies belonging to this early stage are gov- erned by her sadistic tendencies, and that is why, I think, they, and her masturbatory activities in general, diminish

or cease altogether when her phallic phase comes to an end,

at a period when her sense of guilt emerges more strongly. Her realization of the fact that her clitoris is no substitute

for the penis she desires is, in my opinion, only the last link in a chain of events which orders her future life and in many cases condemns her to frigidity for the rest of her

days,

many steps.

3 In

examining

someofthemore of important

The Castration Complex

The identification with her father which the

plays so clearly in the phallic phase, and which bears every

of and castration 2 as far as my sign penis-envy complex, is,

own observations go, the outcome of a process comprising

1 In his paper, *One of the Motive Factors in the Formation of the Super- Ego in Women’ (1928), Hanns Sachs has suggested the possibility that, since a vaginal phase cannot establish itself at that age, the girl displaces her obscure sensations in the vagina on to the mouth.

Cf. Abraham, ‘Manifestations of the Female Castration Complex* (1921). * Karen Homey has been the first psycho-analyst to bring the castration com- plex of the woman into relation with her early feminine position as a small girl. In her paper, *On the Genesis of the Castration Complex in Women’ (1923),

girl

dis-

XI THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE GIRL

29!

these steps we shall see in what way her identification with her father is affected by anxiety arising from her feminine position and how the masculine position she adopts in each

of her phases of development is superimposed upon a mas-

culine position belonging to an earlier phase.

When the female infant gives up her mother’s breast

and turns to her father’s penis as an object of gratification she identifies herself with her mother. But as soon as she suffers frustration in this position too, she very speedily identifies herself with her father, who, she imagines, ob- tains satisfaction from her mother’s breast and entire body, that is, from those primary sources of gratification which she herself has been so painfully forced to relinquish. Feel- ings of hatred and envy towards her mother as well as libidinal desires for her go to create this earliest identifica- tion of the girl with her father (whom she regards as a sadistic figure); and in this identification enuresis plays

an important role.

Children of both sexes regard urine in its positive aspect

as equivalent to their mother’s milk, in accordance with

the unconscious, which equates all bodily substances with one another. My observations go to show that enuresis,

in its earliest signification both as a positive, giving act and as a sadistic one, is an expression of a feminine

in as well as in 1 It would seem that position boys girls.

the hatred children feel towards their mother’s breast for having frustrated their desires arouses in them, either at the same time as their cannibalistic impulses or very soon this writer has pointed out certain factors which she believes are material in

establishing in the girl an envy of the penis based on pre-genital cathexes. One of these is the gratification of scoptophilic and exhibitionistic tendencies which she notices that the boy obtains from urinating; another is her belief that possession of a penis affords a greater amount of gratification of urethra! erotism; while others are derived from the difficulties that beset her in regard to her feminineposition suchasenvyofhermotherforhavingchildren andin- crease her tendency to identify herself with her father as well as intensifying her penis-envy. Dr. Horney believes, moreover, that the same factors which induce the girl to take up a homosexual attitude lead, though in a minor degree, to the production of a castration complex in her.

1 According to Helene Deutsch enuresis is the expression of a. feminine position in the boy and a masculine one in the girl (Psychoanalyse der Nzurosen, 1930, S. 51).

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH. after, phantasies of Injuring and destroying her breast

with their urine.

As has already been said, in the sadistic phase the girl

puts her greatest belief in the magical powers of her ex- creta, while the boy makes his penis the principal executant

of his sadism* But in her, too, belief in the omnipotence of her urinary functions leads her to identify herself though to a lesser extent than does the boy with her sadistic father, to whom she attributes special urethral-sadistic

powers

in virtue of his

of a 2 Thus incon- penis,

possession

tinence from having been primarily the expression of a

feminine position very soon comes to represent a masculine one for children of both sexes; and in connection with the

earliest identification with her sadistic father it be- comes a means of destroying her mother; while at the same time she gets hold of her father’s penis in her imagination

by castrating him.

The identification which the female child makes be-

tween herself and her father on the basis of his introjected

girl’s

a follows, in my experience, upon the primary sadistic

penis

1 In doing this they make use of a mechanism which is, I think, of general

importance in the formation of sadistic phantasies. They convert the pleasure they give their object into its opposite by adding destructive elements to it. As a revenge for not getting enough milk from their mother they will produce in imagination an excessive quantity of urine and so destroy her breast by flooding it or melting it away; and as a revenge for not getting ‘good* milk from her they will produce a harmful fluid with which to burn up or poison her breast and the milk it contains. This mechanism also gives rise to phantasies of tormenting and injuring people by giving them too much good food. In this case the subject may suffer, as I have found in more than one instance, from the re- taliatory anxiety of being suffocated or of being too full, etc., in connection with taking food. One patient of mine could hardly control his rage if he was offered,

even in the friendliest way, food, drink or cigarettes a second time. He would immediately feel ‘stuffed up* and would lose all desire to eat, drink or smoke any more. Analysis showed that his behaviour was ultimately caused by phantasies of the early sadistic character described above.

* In her paper, *On the Genesis of the Castration Complex in Women* (1923), Karen Homey states that one of the factors which encourage the girl’s primary penis-envy in connection with her urethral-eroric impulses is that her sadistic phantasies of omnipotence which are based on urinary functions are especially closely associated with the stream of urine which the boy is able to produce.

In considering the origins of homosexuality in women, Ernest Jones in his paper, ‘The Early Development of Female Sexuality” (1927), has come to certain very fundamental conclusions which my own findings fully endorse. Briefly,

they are to the effect that the presence of very strong phantasies offellatio in the

XI THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE GIRL

293

identification she has made with him through her urin- ary incontinence. In her earliest masturbation phantasies she has identified herself alternately with each of her

parents. When she occupies the feminine position she be- comes afraid of her father’s ‘bad* penis which she has in-

ternalized. In order to counter this fear she activates the defensive mechanism of identification with the anxiety-

1 and thus identifies herself more with him. strongly

object

Her imaginary ownership of the penis she has stolen from

him arouses a sense of omnipotence which increases her feeling that she wields destructive magic through her ex- creta. In this position her hatred and sadism against her mother becomes intensified and she has phantasies of de- stroyingherbymeansofherfather’spenis; whileatthe same time she satisfies her feelings of revenge against the father who has frustrated her and finds in her sense of omnipotence and in her power over both parents a defence

against anxiety. I have found this attitude . especially

strongly developed in one or two patients in whom para-

noid traits 2 but it is also in predominated; very powerfiil

women whose homosexuality is deeply coloured by feel- ings of rivalry and antagonism towards the male sex. It would thus apply to that group of female homosexuals, described by Ernest Jones, to which I have referred below in a footnote.

At this juncture the possession ofan external penis helps

female, allied to a powerful oral sadism, prepares the way for a belief that she has taken forcible possession of her father’s penis and puts her into a special relation of identification with him. In her homosexual attitude, derived in this way, she will show a want of interest in her own sex and a strong- interest in men. Her endeavour will be to win recognition and respect from men, and she will have strong feelings of rivalry, hatred and resentment against them. As regards character-formation, she will exhibit in general marked oral-sadistic traits; and her identification with her father will be employed to a great degree in the service of her castration wishes.

1 Cf. Chapter VII.

2 Thereadermaybereferredingeneraltothecase-historyofErnainChapter III.; DUt one characteristic point may be cited from it here. At the age of six Erna suffered from severe insomnia. She had a terror of burglars and thieves which she could only overcome by lying on her stomach and banging her head on the pillows. This meant having sadistic coitus with her mother, in which she played the part of her supposedly sadistic father.

294

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

to convince the girl in the first place that she has in reality got that sadistic power over both her parents without which she cannot master her 1 in the second

place, that by having this sadistic power over her objects she can overcome the dangerous penis and objects intro-

jected within her; so that having a penis ultimately serves the purpose of protecting her body from destruction.

While her sadistic position, reinforced as it is by her

anxiety, thus forms the basis of a masculinity complex in her, her sense of guilt also makes her want to have a

penis. She wants a penis in order to make restitution to- wards her mother. As Joan Riviere has observed in the

paper referred to below, the girl’s wish to compensate her mother for having deprived her of her father’s penis furnishes important additions to her castration complex

and penis-envy. When the girl is obliged to give up her rivalry with her mother out of fear of her, her desire to

placate her and make up for what she has done leads her to

long intensely for a penis as a means of making restitution. In Joan Riviere’s opinion the intensity of her sadism and the extent of her capacity to tolerate anxiety are factors which will help to determine whether she will take up a heterosexual line or a homosexual one.

We must now examine more closely why it is that in some cases the girl cannot make restitution to her mother unless she adopts a masculine position and is in possession of a

2 has demonstrated the existence in the unconscious of a fundamental principle governing all reactive and sublimatory processes, by which restitutive acts must adhere in every detail to the imaginary damage that has been done. Whatever wrongs the child has done

penis. Early analysis

in phantasy in the way of stealing, injuring, and destroying

In her paper, ‘Womanliness as a Masquerade* (1929), p. 303, Joan Riviere has pointed out that in her anger and hatred against her parents for giving one

another sexual gratification the girl has phantasies of castrating her father and taking possession of his penis and thus getting her father and mother into her

power and killing them.

* On this, as on many other important points, my analytic observations are in full agreement with those of M. N. Searl.

anxiety, and,

XI THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE GIRL

it must make good by giving back, putting to rights, and

restoring, one by one. This principle also requires that the same instruments that have been used to commit the

bad actions shall also be used to undo them. The child must transform its excretions, penis, etc., which in its sadistic

phantasies are dangerous and destructive substances, into beneficent and remedial ones. Whatever harm the *bad’

penis and ‘bad’ urine have done, the ‘good* penis and

urine must 1 put right again.

*good*

Let us suppose that a girl has centred her sadistic phan-

tasies more especially around the indirect destruction of her mother by her father’s dangerous penis and that she has identified herself very strongly with her sadistic father. As soon as her reactive tendencies and her desires to make restitution set in in force, she will feel urged to restore her mother by means of a beneficent penis and thus her homosexual tendencies will become reinforced. An important factor in this connection is the extent to which she believes that her father has been incapacitated from making restitution, either because she has castrated him or has put him out of the way or has made his penis too ‘bad’, and that she must therefore give up hope of restoring him.2 If she believes this very strongly she will

have to play his part herself, and this again will tend to make her adopt a homosexual position.

The disappointment and doubts and the sense of in- feriority which overtake the girl when she realizes that she

1 In her ‘Psychotic Mechanisms in Cultural Development* (1930) Melitta

Schmideberg traces the part played in the history of medicine by a belief

in the magical qualities of the ‘good’ penis, as symbolized by medicine, and of the *bad* one, as symbolized by the demon of illness. She attributes the

psychological effects of physical remedies to the following causes. The person’s original attitude of aggression against his father’s penis an attitude which has turnedthatorganintoanextremelydangerousone issucceededbyanattitude of obedience and submission towards him. If he takes the medicines he is given in this latter spirit, they, as representing the ‘good* penis, will counteract the *bad* objects inside him.

* Ifherhomosexualityemergesinsublimatedwaysonly,shewill,forinstance,

protect and take care of other women (z>. her mother), adopting in these respects a husband*s attitude towards them, and will have but little interest in the male sex. Ernest Jones has shown that this attitude develops in female homosexuals in whom the oral-sucking fixation is very strong.

296

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

has not got a penis, and the fears and feelings of guilt which her masculine position gives rise to (in the first place to- wards her father because she has deprived him of his penis and of the possession of her mother, and in the second place towards her mother because she has taken her father away from her), combine to break down that position.

Moreover, her original grievance against her mother for having prevented her from getting her father’s penis as a

libidinal object joins forces with her new grievance against her for having withheld from her the possession of a penis as an attribute of masculinity; and this double grievance leads her to turn away from her mother as an object of genital love. On the other hand, her feelings of hatred against her father and her envy of his penis, which arise from her masculine position, stand in the way of her once more adopting a feminine role.

According to my experience, the girl, after having left the

phallic phase, passes through yet another phase, a post- phallic one, in which she makes her choice between retain-

ing the feminine position and abandoning it. I should say that by the time she has entered upon the latency period her

feminine position, which has attained the genital level and

passive

1 and maternal in character and which involves the

functioning of her vagina, or at least of its psychological representatives, has been established in all its fundamen-

tals. That this is so becomes still more probable when we

consider how frequently small girls take up a genuinely feminine and maternal position. A position of this kind

would be unthinkable unless the vagina was behaving as

a receptive organ. Of course, as has already been pointed out, important alterations take place in the functions of

the vagina as a result of the biological changes the girl

undergoes at puberty and of her experience of the sexual act; and it is these alterations which bring the girl’s de-

velopment to its final stage from a psychological point of

Helene Deutsch also believes that the true passive feminine attitude of the vagina is to be found in its oral and sucking activity (Zur Psychologic der wibtichen Sextudfunhionen^ 1925).

XI THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE GIRL

297

view as well and which make her a woman in the full sense of the word.

In this connection I find myself in agreement on many

points with Karen Horney’s paper, ‘The Flight from Womanhood’ (1926), in which she comes to the conclu-

sion that the vagina plays a part in the early life of the female child as well as the clitoris. She points out that it would be reasonable to infer from the appearance of frigid- ity in women that the vaginal zone is more likely to be strongly cathected with anxiety and defensive affects than the clitoris. She believes that the girTs incestuous wishes and phantasies have been correctly referred by her uncon- scious to the vagina and that her frigidity in later life is

the manifestation of a defensive measure undertaken

against them by her ego on account of the great danger they involve for it I also share Karen Horney’s opinion that

the girl’s inability to obtain any certain knowledge about the conformation of her vagina or, unlike the boy who can

inspect his genitals, to submit it to a reality test in order to find out whether it has been overtaken by the dreaded consequences of masturbation tends to increase her genital anxiety and makes her more likely to adopt a masculine

position. Karen Horney furthermore distinguishes between

the girl’s secondary penis-envy, which emerges in the

phallic phase, and her primary penis-envy, which rests

upon certain pre-genital cathexes such as scoptophilia and urethral erotism. She believes that the girl’s secondary

penis-envy is used to repress her feminine desires; and that when her Oedipus complex is given up she invariably

though not always to the same degree relinquishes her father as a sexual object and moves away from the

feminine role, regressing at the same time to her primary

penis-envy.

The views I put forward a few years ago concerning 1

the final stage of the girl’s genital organization agree in many essentials with those which Ernest Jones came to

at about the same time. In his paper, ‘The Early Develop- 1 Cf*my”EarlyStagesoftheOedipusConflict*(19*8).

298

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

ment of Female Sexuality’ (1927), he suggests that the vaginal functions were originally identified with the anal, and that the differentiation of the two a still obscure process takes place in part at an earlier stage than is generally supposed. He assumes the existence of a mouth- anus-vagina stage which forms the basis of the girl’s heterosexual attitude and represents an identification with her mother. According to his view, too, the normal girl’s phallic phase is only a weakened form of the identification made by homosexual females with the father and his penis,

and is, like it, pre-eminently of a secondary and defensive character.

thing as a vaginal phase at all, and that it is the exception for her to know anything about the existence of her vagina

or to have any sensations there, and that therefore when she has finished her infantile sexual development she cannot take up a feminine position in the genital sense. In con-

sequence, her libido, even though maintaining a feminine

position, is obliged to retrogress and cathect earlier posi- tions dominated by her castration complex (which in

Helene Deutsch’s view precedes her Oedipus complex); and a backward step of this kind would be a fundamental

factor in the production of feminine masochism.

Restitutive Tendencies and Sexuality

We have already examined the part played by the girl’s restitutive tendencies in consolidating her homosexual

position. The consolidation of her heterosexual position,

too, depends upon that position being in conformity with

the requirements of her super-ego.

As we saw in an earlier part of this chapter, even where

Helene Deutsch, ‘The Significance of Masochism in the Mental Life of Women* (1930).

Helene Deutsch is of a different 1 She opinion.

assumes, it is true, the existence of a post-phallic phase which influ- ences the final outcome of the girl’s later genital organiza- tion. But she believes that the girl does not have any such

XI THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE GIRL

299

the normal individual is concerned, the sexual act, in ad- dition to its libidinal motivation, helps him to master anxiety. His genital activities have yet another motive force, which is his desire to make good by means of copulation the he has done

damage

his sadistic 1 phantasies.

through

When, as a result of the stronger emergence of genital im-

pulses, his ego reacts to his super-ego with less anxiety and more guilt, he finds in the sexual act a pre-eminent means

of making reparation to the object, because of its connec-

tion with his early sadistic phantasies. The nature and ex-

tent of his restitutive phantasies, which must correspond

to the imaginary damage he has done, will not only be an important factor in his various activities and in the forma-

tion of his sublimations but will very greatly influence the

course and outcome of his sexual

Turning to the girl, we find that such considerations as

the contents and composition of her sadistic phantasies, the magnitude of her reactive tendencies and the structure and strength of her ego will affect her libidinal fixations and help to decide whether the restitution she makes shall have a masculine or a feminine character or be a mixture of the two.3

Another thing which seems to me to be of importance for the final outcome of the girl’s development is whether the restitutive phantasies which she builds up upon her specific sadistic ideas can impose themselves upon her ego as well as upon her sexual life. Ordinarily they work in both directions and reinforce one another, and thus help to

establish a libido-position and an ego-position which are

1 Inher unbewussteMechanismenim Sexual- paper, ‘Einige pathologischen

leben* (1932), Melitta Schmideberg has also come to the conclusion that restitu- tive tendencies are of great importance as an incentive to heterosexual and homosexual activities.

* If his sense of guilt is excessive, the fusion of his sexual activities and his reactive tendencies may give rise to severe disturbances of his sexual life. We shall reserve for the next chapter a discussion of the effect which the desire to make restitution has upon the sexual development and potency of the male individual.

* Evenwherehersadismremainsdominant,themeanssheemploystomaster her anxiety will influence her sexual life and may either lead her to maintain a homosexual attitude or adopt a heterosexual one, both positions being based upon her sadistic tendencies.

development.

3<DO

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

compatible with each other. If, for instance, the small girl’s

sadism has been strongly centred in phantasies of damag- ing her mother’s body and stealing children and her father’s penis from it, she may be able, when her reactive tenden- cies set in in force, to maintain her feminine position under certain conditions. In her sublimations she will give effect to her desire to restore her mother and give her back her father and children, by becoming a nurse or a masseuse or

I and if at the same time she has sufficient belief in the possibility of her own body being restored by having children or performing the sexual act with a ‘beneficent* penis, she will also employ her heterosexual position as an aid to mastering anxiety. More- over, her heterosexual tendencies support her sublimatory ones which aim at the restoration of her mother’s body, for they show her that copulation between her parents cannot have injured her mother, or at any rate that it can restore her; and this belief, in turn, helps to consolidate her in her

heterosexual position.

What the girl’s final position is going to be will also de-

pend, given the same underlying conditions, upon whether her belief in her own constructive omnipotence comes up to the strength of her reactive tendencies. If it does, her ego can set up a further aim to be fulfilled by her restitutive tendencies. This is that both her parents should be restored and should once more be united in amity. It is now her father who3 in her phantasies, makes restitution to her

mother and gratifies her by means of his health-giving

penis; whilsthermother’svagina,originallyimaginedasa dangerous thing, restores and heals her father’s penis which

1 In my Infantile Anxiety-Situations Reflected in a. Work of Art and in

the Creative Impulse* (1929) I have analysed an account by Karen Michaelis

ofa. youngwomanwhosuddenlydevelopedagreattalentforpainting-portraits of women without ever having handled a brush before. I have tried to show that what caused this sudden burst of artistic productivity was anxiety emanating from her most profound danger-situations, and that painting female portraits symbolized a sublimated restoration both of her mother’s body, which she had attacked in phantasy, and of her own, whose destruction she awaited out of dread ofretaliation5 sothatinthiswayshewasabletoallayfearsarisingfromthe deepest levels of her mind.

by pursuing intellectual interests ;

XI THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE GIRL

3OI

it has injured. In thus looking upon her mother’s vagina

as a beneficent and pleasure-giving organ, the girl is not only able to call up once more her earliest view of her

mother as the ‘good’ mother who gave her suck, but can think of herself, in identification with her, as a beneficent

and giving person and can regard the penis of her partner in love as a ‘good’ penis. Upon an attitude of this kind will

rest the successful development of her sexual life and her ability to become attached to her object by ties of sex no less than of affection and love.

As I have tried to show in these pages, the final outcome of the infantile sexual development of the individual is the result of a long-drawn-out process of fluctuation between various positions and is built up upon a great number of interconnected compromises between his ego and his super-ego and between his ego and his id. These compro- mises, being the result of his endeavours to master anxiety, are themselves to a great extent an achievement of his ego. Those of them which, in the girl, go to maintain her feminine role and which find typical expression in her later sexual life and general behaviour are, to mention only a

few, that her father’s penis shall gratify herself and her

mother

alternately;

1 that a certain number of the children

shall be allocated to her mother, and the same number, or

rather fewer, to herself; that she shall incorporate her

father’s penis, while her mother shall receive all the chil- dren, and so on. Masculine components enter into such compromises as well. The small girl will sometimes im- agine that she appropriates her father’s penis in order to carry out a masculine role towards her mother, and then

gives it back to him again.

In the course of an analysis it becomes apparent that

every change for the better which takes place in the libido- 1 Phantasies with this content play a part in the homosexuality of women

of men

their father’s penis, as an object of gratification or of hatred, inside their mother’s

body. This may be because, where the girl’s attitude is predominantly sadistic, they represent the destruction, undertaken in common by herself and her

mother, of her father’s penisj or, where it is predominantly positive, a libidinal gratification obtained in common with her from his penis.

similar to that in the played

homosexuality

by phantasies

meeting

3O2

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

position of the patient springs from a diminution of his anxiety and sense of guilt and at once takes effect in the

production of fresh compromises. The more the anxiety and guilt which the girl feels is decreased and the more

her genital stage comes to the fore, the more easily is she able to let her mother adopt, or rather, resume, a feminine and maternal role and at the same time to take on a similar role herself and sublimate her male components.

External Factors

We know that the child’s early phantasies and in- stinctual life on the one hand and the pressure of reality upon it on the other interact upon each other and that their combined action shapes the course of its mental de-

velopment. In myjudgment, reality and real objects affect

its anxiety-situations from the very earliest stages of its existence, in the sense that it regards them as so many

proofs or refutations of its anxiety-situations, which it has

displaced into the outer world, and they thus help to guide the course of its instinctual life. And since, owing to the interaction of the mechanisms of projection and introjec- tion, the external factors influence the formation of its

super-ego and the growth of its object-relationship and its instincts, they will also assist in determining what the out- come of its sexual development will be.

If, for instance, the small girl looks in vain to her father for the love and kindness which shall confirm her belief in

the *good* penis inside her and be a counter-weight to her belief in the bad’ penis there, she will often grow more firmly entrenched in her masochistic attitude and the ‘sad- istic father’ may even become an actual condition of love for her; or his behaviour to her may increase her feelings

of hatred and anxiety against his penis and impel her to abandon the feminine role or to become frigid. Actually>

whether the outcome of her development is to be favour- able or unfavourable will depend upon the co-operation of a whole number of external factors.

XI THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE GIRL

303

For instance, her father’s attitude to her is not the only

thing which helps to decide what type of person she will

fall in love with. It is not only a question, say, of whether

he favours or neglects her too much in comparison with

her mother or her sisters, but of his direct relations with

those persons. How far she will be able to maintain her

feminine position and in that position evolve a wish for a

kindly father-imago also depends very greatly upon her sense of guilt towards her mother and thus upon the nature

of the relations between her mother and father.1 Further- more, certain events, such as the illness or death of one of her parents or of a brother or sister, can assist in strength- ening in her either the one sexual position or the other, according to the way in which they affect her sense of

guilt.

Another thing which plays a very important part in the development of the child is the presence in its early life of

a person, not its father or mother, whom it looks upon as 1

a ‘helping figure and who gives it support in the external

world against its phantastic fears. In dividing its mother into a ‘good* mother and a ‘bad* one and its father into a

‘good’ father and a ‘bad’ one, it attaches the hatred it feels for its object to the ‘bad* one or turns away from it, while it directs its restorative tendencies to its ‘good’ mother

and ‘good’ father and, in imagination, makes good to- wards them the damage it has done its parent-imagos in

its sadistic 2 But phantasies.

if,

great or for realistic reasons, its Oedipus objects have not

become good imagos, other persons, such as a kindly nurse, brother or sister, a grandparent or an aunt or uncle, can, in certain circumstances, take over the role of the ‘good*

already largely determined by his or her early anxiety-situations, the same events will have different effects on different children. But there can be no doubt that the existence of happy and harmonious relations between their parents and between themselves and their parents is of underlying importance for their successful sexual development and mental health. Of course, a happy family life of this kind presupposes in general that the parents are not neuroticj so that a constitutional factor enters into the situation as well,

Since the way in which each child will receive the impressions of reality is

Cf. Chapter IX.

because its is too anxiety

304

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

mother or the ‘good’ father. 1 In this way its positive feel- ings, whose growth has been inhibited owing to its ex- cessive fear of its Oedipus objects, can come to the fore and attach themselves to a love-object.

As has been pointed out more than once in these pages, the existence of sexual relations between children in early

life, especially between brothers and sisters, is a very com-

mon occurrence. The libidinal craving of small children,

intensified as it is by their Oedipus frustrations, together

with the anxiety emanating from their deepest danger- situations, impel them to indulge in mutual sexual activi-

ties, since these, as I have more particularly tried to show

in the present chapter, not only gratify their libido but enable them to obtain many refutations of their various

fears in connection with the sexual act. I have re- peatedly found that if such sexual objects have acted in addition as ‘helping’ figures, early sexual relations of this kind exert a favourable influence upon the girl’s relations

her later sexual 2 development.

to her and objects

upon

Where an excessive fear of both parents, together with cer-

tain external factors, would have produced an Oedipus situation which would have prejudiced her attitude towards

the opposite sex and greatly hampered her in the main- tenance of her feminine position and in her ability to love,

the fact that she has had sexual relations with a brother or brother-substitute in early childhood and that that brother has also shown real affection for her and been her protector, has provided the basis for a heterosexual position in her and developed her capacity for love. I have one or two cases in mind in which the girl had had two types of love-object, one representing the stern father and the other the kind brother.3 In other cases, she had developed an

ofa

toy animal, to which they often assign the function of protecting them while they are asleep.

Cf. Chapter VII.

* Each type had become important at different periods of her life. Analysis

showed thai whenever her anxiety increased in amount and certain external factors became operative she was led to choose the more sadistic type of person

1A animal also pet may

the

of children and thus assist in diminishing their anxiety. And so may a doll or a

play

part

‘helping* object

inthe

imagination

XI THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE GIRL

305

imagowhichwasamixtureofthetwotypes; andhere,too, her relations to her brother had lessened her masochism.

In serving as a proof grounded upon reality of the exist- ence of the ‘good* penis, the girl’s relations with her brother

fortify her belief in the ‘good* introjected penis and moder- ate her fear of ‘bad* introjected objects. They also help her

to master her anxiety in those respects, since in performing sexual acts with another child she gets a feeling of being in league with him against her parents. Their sexual- rela- tions have made the two children accomplices in crime, by reviving in them sadistic masturbation phantasies that were originally directed against their father and mother

and causing them to indulge in them together. In thus sharing in that deepest guilt each child feels relieved of

some of the weight of it and is also less frightened, because it believes that it has an ally against its dreaded objects. As far as I can see, the existence of a secret complicity of

this sort, which, in my opinion, plays an essential part in

every relationship of love, even between grown-up people, is of special importance in sexual attachments where the

individual is of a

The girl also regards her sexual attachment to the other

child, who represents the ‘good’ object, as a disproof by means of reality of her fear of her own sexuality and that

of her object as something destructive; so that an attach-

ment of this sort may prevent her from becoming frigid or succumbing to other sexual disturbances in later life.

Nevertheless, although, as we see, experiences of this kind can have a favourable effect upon the girl’s sexual life

and object-relationships, they can also lead to grave dis- orders in that field.2 If her sexual relations with another

child serve to confirm her deepest fears either because her partner is too sadistic or because performing the sexual

or at least to be unable to resist his advances; while, as soon as she had succeeded

in detaching herself from that sadistic object, the other, kindly type, representing her brother, emerged and she became less masochistic and was able to choose a

satisfactory object.

1 For a fuller discussion of this point see the following chapter.

* Cf. Chapter VII. on this head.

paranoid type.

306

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

act arouses yet more anxiety and guilt in her on account

ofherownexcessivesadism herbeliefintheharmful-

ness of her introjected objects and her own id will become

still stronger, her super-ego will grow more severe than

ever, and, as a result, her neurosis and all the defects of her

sexual and will 1 characterological development gain ground.

Development at Puberty

The psychological upheavals which the child undergoes during the age of puberty are, as we know, to a large ex- tent due to the intensification of its impulses which accom-

panies the physiological changes that are taking place in it. In the girl the onset of menstruation gives additional

reinforcement to her anxiety. In her Zur Psychologie der weiblichen Sexualfunktionen (i 926) Helene Deutsch has dis-

cussed at length the psychological significance of puberty for the girl and the trial it imposes on her, and she has

come to the conclusion that the first flow of blood is equi-

valent in the unconscious to having actually been castrated

and having forfeited the possibility of having a child, and is,

therefore, a double disappointment. Helene Deutsch points out that menstruation also signifies a punishment for hav-

ing indulged in clitoral masturbation and, in addition, that it regressively revives the girl’s infantile view of copula- tion according to which it is nearly always a sadistic act in- volving cruelty and the flow of blood.2

My own data fully bear out Helene Deutsch’s view that the disappointments and shocks to her narcissism which the girl receives when she begins to menstruate are very great. But I think that their pathogenic effect is due to the circumstance that they reactivate past fears in her. They

are only a few items in the inventory of her anxiety-situa- tions which menstruation brings to the surface once more.

These fears, as we have seen earlier in the present chapter, are, briefly, the following :

1 This is still more the case where the child has been seduced or raped by a

grown-up person. Such an experience, as is well known, can have very serious effects upon the child’s mind. * Cf. loc cit. S. 36.

XI THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE GIRL

307

1 . In virtue of the equation of all bodily substances with one another in the unconscious, she identifies her men- strual blood with her supposedly dangerous excreta. 1 Since she has early learned to associate bleeding with being cut, her fear that these dangerous excreta have damaged her own body seems to her to have been borne out by reality.

2 . The menstrual flow increases her terror that her body will be attacked. In this connection various fears are at work: (a) Her fear of being attacked and destroyed by her mother partly out of revenge, partly so as to get back her father*s penis and the children which she (the girl) has de- prived her of. (F) Her fear of being attacked and damaged by her father through his copulating with her in a sadistic

2 either because she has had sadistic masturbation phantasies about her mother or because he wants to get back the penis she has taken from him. Her phantasy that

in thus forcibly recovering his penis from her he will injure her genitals underlies, I think, the idea she has later on that her clitoris is a wound or scar where her penis once

was. (c) Her fear that the interior of her body will be

attacked and destroyed by her introjected objects either

directly or indirectly as a consequence of their fight with one another inside her. Her phantasy that she has intro-

jected her violent parents in the act of performing sadistic coitus and that they are endangering her own inside in de- stroying each other there calls out fears of a very acute kind in her. She regards the bodily sensations which menstrua- tion often gives rise to in her, and which her anxiety aug- ments, as a sign that all the injuries she has dreaded to receive and all her hypochondriacal fears have come true.

1 Cf. Lewin, ‘Kotschmieren, Menses und weibliches Uber-Ich* (1930).

In her paper, ‘Psychoanalytisches zur Menstruation* (1931)? Melitta Schmideberg has pointed out that the girl regards menstruation, among other things, as the result of having been copulated with sadistically by her father and that she is all the more terrified since she believes that this action on his part was done in retaliation for her aggression towards both him and her mother. Just as in her sadistic phantasies as a child he was the executive of her aggressive desire against her mother, so now he is the one to carry out the punishment her mother metes out to her. In addition, his sadistic coitus with her

represents his own punishment of her for the castration-wishes she harbours against the

male sex in connecton with copulation.

way,

308

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

3. Theflowofbloodfromtheinteriorofherbodycon- vinces her that the children inside her have been injured and destroyed. In some analyses of women I have found that their fear of being childless (i.e. of having had the children inside them destroyed) had been intensified since the onset of menstruation and had not been removed until they actually did have a child. But in many cases men- struation, in adding to their fear of having damaged or abnormal children, causes them, consciously or uncon- sciously, to reject pregnancy altogether.

4. Menstruation, by confirming the girl in the know- ledge that she has no penis and in the belief that her clitoris

is the scar or wound left her castrated 1 makes it by penis,

harder for her to maintain a masculine position.

5. In being a sign of sexual maturity, menstruation activates all those sources of anxiety, mentioned earlier on in this chapter, which are connected with her ideas that

sexual behaviour has a sadistic character.

Analyses of female patients at the age of puberty show that for the reasons given above the girl feels that her

feminine position as well as her masculine one have be- come untenable. Menstruation has a much greater effect in activating sources of anxiety and conflicts in the girl than do

the parallel developmental processes in the boy. This is partly why she is sexually more inhibited than he is at puberty.

The psychological effects of menstruation are in part responsible for the fact that at this age the girl’s neu- rotic difficulties often increase very greatly. Even if she is normal menstruation resuscitates her old anxiety-situa- tions, though, since her ego and her methods of master-

ing anxiety have been adequately developed, she is better able to modify her anxiety than she was in early childhood.

Ordinarily, too, she obtains a strong satisfaction from the onset of menstruation. Provided that her feminine position has been well established during the first expansion of her

1 In my opinion, the girl’s primary phantasy, mentioned under 2 (b), to the

effect that her genitals (clitoris) have been damaged through her havinog had her introjected penis forcibly taken from her, or herlear that this will happen, forms the basis of her phantasy that her genitals have been damaged by castration.

XI THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE GIRL

309

sexual life, she will regard menstruation as a proof of being sexually mature and a woman, and as a sign that she may

put still greater confidence in her expectation of receiving sexual gratification and having children. If this is so, she will look upon menstruation as evidence against various sources of anxiety.

Relations to her Children

In describing the early sexual development of the female individual I did not go very fully into her desire to have

children, since I wanted to deal with her infantile attitude to her imaginary children at the same time as I dealt with her attitude in later life, during pregnancy, to the real child inside her.

Freud has stated that the girl’s desire to have a child

takes the of her wish to a I but accord- place possess penis;

ing to my observations, what it takes the place of is her desire for her father’s penis in an object-libidinal sense. In some cases the principal equation she makes is between children and faeces. Here her relation to the child seems to develop mainly on narcissistic lines. It is more independent of her attitude to the man and closely connected with her own body and with the omnipotence of her excrements. In other cases she mostly equates children with a penis; and here her attitude to her child rests more strongly upon her relations to her father or to his penis. There is a universal infantile sexual theory to the effect that the mother incor-

porates a new penis every time she copulates and that these penises, or a part of them, turn into children. In conse-

quence of this theory the girl’s relations to her father’s penis influence her relations first of all to her imaginary children and later on to her real ones.

In the book which I have already quoted, Zur Psycho-

analyse der weiblichen Sexualfunktionen^ Helene Deutsch, in discussing the attitude of the pregnant woman to the

1 Cf. Freud, *Some Psychological Consequences of the Anatomical Dis- tinction between the Sexes’ (1927).

3IO

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

child inside her puts forward the following view. The woman looks upon her child both as a part of her ego and as an object outside it ‘in regard to which she repeats all

the positive and negative object-relationships which she has had towards her own mother*. In her phantasies her father has been turned into her child in the act of copula-

tion, ‘which, ultimately, represents to her unconscious the oral incorporation of her father’, and he ‘retains this role

in the real or imaginary pregnancy which ensues*. After this process of introjection has taken place her child be- comes ‘the incarnation of the ego-ideal which she has

already developed earlier’ and also represents ‘the em- bodiment of her own ideals which she has not been able

to attain*. The ambivalent attitude she has towards her child is partly due to this fact that it stands for her super-

ego ofteninstrongoppositiontoherego andrevives in her those ambivalent feelings towards her father which

arose out of her Oedipus situation. But it is also partly due to her making a regressive cathexis of her earlier libidinal positions. Her identification of children with faeces, of which she has a narcissistic valuation, becomes the basis of a similar narcissistic valuation of her child; and her reaction- formations against her original over-estimation of her ex- crements awakens feelings of disgust in her and makes her want to expel her child.

This view requires, I think, to be amplified in one or two directions. The equation which the female has made

in the early stages of her development between her father’s penis and a child leads her to give to the child inside her

the significance of a paternal super-ego, since his internal- ized penis forms the nucleus of that super-ego. Thus her

attitude to her imaginary or real child is not only an ambi- valent one but is charged with a certain quantity of anxiety which exerts a decisive influence upon her relations to her child. The equation she has made between faeces and chil- dren has also, I have found, affected her relation to her im- aginary child when she is still quite small. And the anxiety which she feels on account of her phantasies about her

XI THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE GIRL 3! I

poisonous and burning excreta, and which, in my opinion, reinforces her expelling tendencies belonging to the earlier anal stage, is one of the reasons why she has feelings of hatred and fear later on towards the real child inside her.

As I have already pointed out, the girl’s fear of her bad* introjected penis induces her to strengthen her in- trojection of a *good* penis, since it offers her protection

and assistance against the ‘bad penis inside her, her bad

imagos and her excreta which she regards as dangerous substances. It is this friendly, ‘good* penis, often conceived of as a small one, which takes on the significance of a child.

This imaginary child, which affords the small girl protec- tion and help, primarily represents in her unconscious the

*good’ contents of her body. The support it gives her

against her anxiety is, of course, purely phantastic, but then the objects she is afraid of are equally phantastic; for in this

stage of her development she is mostly governed by in-

In my view it is because the possession of children is a

means of overcoming her anxiety and allaying her sense of guilt that the little girl normally feels such an intense

need to have children a need which is greater than any other desire. As we know, grown-up women often have a stronger desire to have a child than to have a sexual partner.

The small girl’s attitude towards the child is also of great importance for the creation of her sublimations. The imaginary attacks she makes upon her mother’s inside by means of her poisonous and destructive excreta bring on misgivings about the contents of her own body. Owing to her equation of faeces with children her phantasies about the ‘bad* faeces inside her lead her to have phantasies about having a ‘bad* child 2 in there, and that is equivalent to having a ‘horrible’, malformed one. The girPs reaction-

1 Recognition of internal reality is the foundation of adaptation to external reality. The child’s attitude to its imaginary objects, which, in this stage of its life, are phantastic imagos of its external, real objects, will determine its relations to those objects later on.

1 The equation of a ‘bad* penis with a child has already been discussed. The two equations exist side by side and reinforce each other.

ternal and

subjective reality.

312

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

formations to her sadistic phantasies about dangerous faeces give rise, it seems to me, to sublimations of a specifically

feminine type. In analysing small girls we can see very clearly how closely their longing to possess a ‘beautiful’ (i.e. ‘good’andhealthy)childandtheirindefatigableefforts to beautify their imaginary baby and their own body are connected with their fear of having produced in them- selves and put inside their mother ‘bad’ and horrid children whom they liken to poisonous excrement.

Ferenczi has described the changes which the child’s interest in faeces undergoes in the various stages of its de- velopment, and has come to the conclusion that its copro- philic tendencies are early sublimated in part into a

1 One element in this

of sublimation is, I think, the child’s fear of ‘bad’ and dangerous pieces of stool. From this there is a direct sub-

limatory path leading to the theme of ‘beauty’. The very strong need which women feel to have a beautiful body

and a lovely home and for beauty in general is based on their desire to possess a beautiful interior to their body in which ‘good’ and lovely objects and innocuous excrements are lodged. Another line of sublimation from the girl’s fear of ‘bad’ and ‘dangerous’ excrements leads to the idea of

‘good’ products in the sense of health-giving ones (though, incidentally, ‘good’ and ‘beautiful’ often mean the same

thing to the small child), and in this way goes to strengthen in her those original maternal feelings and desires to give

which spring from her feminine position.

If the small girl is sufficiently buoyed up by feelings of an optimistic kind she will believe not only that her in-

ternalized penis is a ‘good’ one but that the children inside her are helpful beings. But if she is filled with fear of a

‘bad* internalized penis and of dangerous excrements, her relation to her real child in later life will often be dominated

by anxiety. Not seldom, however, where her relations to her sexual partner do not satisfy her, she will establish a relation to her child which will afford her gratification and

pleasure

shining things.

process

1 Ferenczi,*TheOriginofInterestinMoney*(1914).

XI THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE GIRL

313

moral support. In these cases, in which the sexual act itself

has received too strongly the significance of an anxiety- situation and her sexual object has become an anxiety- object to her, it is her child which attracts to itself the

quality of a ‘good’ and helpful penis. Again, a woman who overcomes anxiety precisely by means of her sexual activi- ties may have a fairly good relation to her husband and a bad one to her child. In this case she has displaced her

anxiety concerning the enemy inside her for the most part on to her child; and it is her fears resulting from this

which, I have found, are at the bottom of her fear of preg- nancy and child-birth and which add to her physical suffer- ings while she is pregnant and may even render her

psychologically incapable of conceiving a child.

We have already seen in what way the woman’s fear of

the ‘bad’ penis can increase her sadism. Women who have a strong sadistic attitude to their husband usually look upon their child as an enemy. Just as they regard the sexual act as a means of destroying their object, so do they want to have a child mainly in order to get it into their power as though it was something hostile to them. They can then employ the hatred which they feel for their internal, dreaded foe against external objects against husband and child. There are also, of course, women who have a sadistic atti- tude to their husband and a relatively friendly one to their children, and vice versa. But in every case it is the woman’s

attitude to her introjected objects, especially her father’s penis, which will determine her attitude to her husband

and child.

The attitude of the mother to her children is based, as

we know, upon her early relations to her objects. Accord- ing as her child is a boy or a girl she will have towards it,

to a greater or lesser degree, those emotional relationships which she had in early childhood towards her father and

uncles and brothers, or towards her mother and aunts and sisters. If she has principally equated the idea of a child with that of a ‘good’ penis, it will be the positive ele- ments of those relationships which she will carryover to her

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH. child.1 Shewillcondenseanumberoffriendlyimagosinits

motives for the hopes she places upon its growing up well and happily is that she may be able, in retrospect, to turn her own unsatisfactory childhood into a time of happiness.

There are, I think, a whole number of factors which help to fortify the emotional relationship which the mother has towards her child. In bringing it into the world she has produced the strongest refutation in reality of all the fears that arise from her sadistic phantasies. The birth of her child not only signifies in her unconscious that the interior of her own body and the imaginary children there are un- harmed or have been made well again but invalidates all sorts of fears associated with the idea of children. It shows that the children inside her mother her brothers and sisters and her father’s penis (or her father) which she has attacked there, and also her mother, are all unharmed

or made whole again. Having a baby thus represents re- storing a number of objects even, in some cases, re-creat- ing a whole world.

Giving suck to her child is very important too, and forms a very close and special tie between her and it. In giving her child a product of her own body which is essential to its nourishment and growth she is enabled finally to dis- prove and put a happy end to that vicious circle which was started in her as an infant by her attacks upon her mother’s breast as the first object of her destructive impulses and

1 The often identifies her child in her unconscious with a small girl imaginary

and innocuous penis. It is partly in this connection that her relations with her brother or some other child help her to confirm her belief in the ‘good* penis.

As a small child she ascribes an enormous amount of sadism to her father’s

penis

and finds her brother’s small penis, if less worthy of admiration, at any rate not

so dangerous.

1 In his Civilization and its Discontents (1930) Freud says on p. 89: *It* 4

(aggression) is at the bottom of all the relations of affection and love between

humanbeings possiblywiththesingleexceptionofthatofamothertoher

male child*. Where the woman is strongly affected by the equation between the 1

child and the ‘good penis, she is especially liable to concentrate all the positive elements of her feeling upon her child, should it be a boy.

314

the ‘innocence* of and infancy

2 and it will

will be in her eyes what she would like to picture herself as having been in early childhood. And one of the ultimate

person,

represent

XI THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE GIRL

315

which contained phantasies of destroying the breast by

biting it to pieces and dirtying, poisoning, and burning it by means of her excreta. For in her unconscious she re-

gards the fact that she is giving her child nourishing and beneficial milk as a proof that her own early sadistic phan- tasies have not come true or that she has succeeded in

restoring the objects of them.1

As has already been pointed out, the individual loves

his ‘good’ object the more because, by being something to which he can devote his restitutive tendencies, it affords

him gratification and lessens his anxiety. No object pos- sesses this qualification to such an eminent degree as does

the helpless little child. Furthermore, in expending her maternal love and care upon her child she not only fulfils

her earliest desires but, since she identifies herself with it, shares the pleasures she gives it. In thus reversing the re- lationship of mother and child she is able to experience a happy renewal of her earliest attachment to her own mother and to let her primal feelings of hatred for her recede into

the background and her positive feelings come to the fore. All these factors contribute to give children a tremen-

dous importance in the emotional life of women. And we can readily see why it is that their mental balance should be so much upset if their child does not turn out well and,

especially, if it is abnormal. Just as a healthy and thriving child is a refutation of a whole number of fears, so is an

abnormal, sickly, or merely rather unsatisfactory one a confirmation of them, and may even come to be regarded

as an enemy and a persecutor.

Ego-Development

We shall now only consider briefly the relation between

the formation of the girl’s super-ego and the development

1 She also takes this as a proof in reality that her urine, which she likens to milk,isnotharmful;justas,ontheotherhand,sheoftenlooksuponhermenstrual blood as a proof in reality that her urine and other excreta are dangerous sub- stances. Moreover, the fact that her supply of milk does not give out is a refutation not only of her fear, arising from her sadistic phantasies, that her breast has been

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

of her ego. Freud has shown that some of the differences that exist between the super-ego formation of the girl and that of the boy are associated with anatomical sexual differ- ences.1 These anatomical differences affect, I think, both

the development of the super-ego and the ego in various ways. In consequence of the structure of the female geni-

tals, which marks their receptive function, the girl’s Oedi- pus tendencies are more largely dominated by her oral

impulses, and the introjection of her super-ego is more extensive than in the boy. In addition there is the absence

of a penis as an active organ. The fact that she has no penis

increases the greater dependence the girl already has upon

her super-ego as a result of her stronger introjective tend- encies.

I have already put forward the view in earlier pages of

this book that the boy’s primary sense of omnipotence is associated with his penis, which is also the representative in his unconscious of activities and sublimations proceeding from his masculine components. In the girl, who does not

possess a penis, the sense of omnipotence is more pro- foundly and extensively associated with her father’s intro- jected penis than it is in the case of the boy. This is the more so because the picture which she has formed as a child of his penis inside her and which determines the standards she sets up for herself has been evolved out of extremely highly coloured phantasies and is thus more exaggerated than the boy’s both in the direction of ‘good-

ness’ and of ‘badness’.

This view that the super-ego is more strongly operative in women than in men seems at first sight to be out of keep-

ing with the fact that, compared to men, women are often more dependent upon their objects, more easily influenced by the outer world and more variable in their moral

standards that is, apparently less guided by the require-

destroyed, but convinces her that her excrements are not harmful to her own

body. These were the weapons she used to attack her mother’s breast in her

imagination, and she now sees that have done no harm.

4 they

the Sexes

Some Psychological Consequences of the Anatomical Distinction between (1927).

XI THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE GIRL

317

ments of a super-ego. But I think that their greater de-

pendence upon objects is actually closely related to a

greater efficacy of the super-ego. Both characteristics

have a common origin in the greater propensity women

have to introject their object and set it up in themselves, so

that they erect a more powerful super-ego there. This pro-

pensity, moreover, is increased precisely by their greater

dependence upon their super-ego and their greater fear of it. The girl’s most profound anxiety, which is that some

unascertainable damage has been done to her inside by her

internalized objects, impels her, as we have already seen, to be continually testing her fears by means of her relations to real objects. It impels her, that is, to reinforce her intro-

jective tendencies in a secondary way. Again, it would seem that her mechanisms of projection are stronger than

the man’s, in conformity with her stronger sense of the omnipotenceofherexcrementsandthoughts; andthisis another factor which induces her to have stronger relations with the outer world and with objects in reality, partly for

the purpose of controlling them by magical means.

This fact that the processes of introjection and projec-

1 Along with this greater dependence upon objects goes the greater degree to which they are affected by loss of love. In his paper, ‘One of the Motive Factors in the Formation of the Super-Ego in Women’ (1928), Hanns Sachs has pointed out the curious fact that although women are in general more narcissistic than men, they feel the loss of love more. He has sought to explain this apparent contradiction by supposing that when her Oedipus conflict comes to an end the girl tries to cling to her father either through her desire to have a child by him or ‘by means of oral regression. His view agrees with mine in stressing the significance that her oral attachment to her father has for the formation of her super-ego. But according to him this attachment comes about through a re- gression after she has been disappointed in her hopes of having a penis and of obtaining genital satisfaction from her fatherj whereas in my view her oral attachment to her father, or, more correctly, her desire to incorporate his penis, is the foundation and starting-point of her sexual development and of the formation of her super-ego.

Ernest Jones attributes the greater effect which the loss of her object has upon the woman to her fear that her father will not give her sexual gratification (cf.

his paper, ‘The Early Development of Female Sexuality*, 1927). According to him, the reason why the frustration of sexual gratification is so intolerable to her andinthismatter,ofcourse,thewomanismoredependentthantheman on the other party is because it stirs up her deepest anxiety, which is her fear

of aphanisis, > of having her capacity for experiencing sexual pleasure entirely abolished.

31 8 THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

tton are stronger in the woman than in the man not only

affects, I think, the character of her object-relationships but is of importance for the development of her ego. Her

dominating and deep-seated need to give herselfup in com- plete trust and submission to the ‘good* internalized penis

is one of the things that underlies the receptive quality of her sublimations and interests. But her feminine position also strongly impels her to obtain secret control of her internalized objects by means of the omnipotence of her excrements and of her thoughts; and this fosters in her

a sharp power of observation and great psychological insight, together with a certain artfulness and inclination

towards deceit and intrigue. This side of her ego-develop- ment is brought out in the main with reference to her maternal super-ego, but it also colours her relation to her

paternal one.

In The Ego and the Id (1923) Freud writes on p. 38:

If they (the object-identifications) ‘obtain the upper hand

and become too numerous, unduly intense and incompat- ible with one another, a pathological outcome will not be far off. It may come to a disruption of the ego in conse- quence of the individual identifications becoming cut off from one another by resistances; perhaps the secret of cases of so-called multiple personality is that the various identifications seize possession of consciousness in turn. Even when things do not go so far as this, there remains the question of conflicts between the different identifica- tions into which the ego is split up, conflicts which cannot

after all be described as purely pathological.’ A study of the early stages of the formation of the super-ego and their

relation to the development of the ego fully confirms this last statement. And, as far as can be seen, any further in-

vestigation of personality as a whole, whether normal or abnormal, will have to proceed along the lines Freud has indicated. It seems that the way to extend our knowledge of the ego is to learn more about the various identifications it makes and the relations it has to them. Only by pursuing this line of enquiry can we discover in what ways the ego

XI THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE GIRL

319

regulates

the relations that exist between those identifica-

tions, which, as we know, differ according to the stage of

development in which they have been made and according

to whether they refer to the subject’s mother or father or a combination of the two.

The girl is more hampered in the formation of a super- ego in respect of her mother than the boy is in respect of his father, since it is difficult for her to identify herself with her mother on the basis of an anatomical resemblance, owing to the fact that the internal organs which subserve female sexual functions and the question of possessing or

not possessing children do not admit of any investigation or test by reality. This obstacle increases, as we have al-

ready learnt, the power of her terrifying mother-imago that product of her own imaginary sadistic attacks upon

hermother whoendangerstheinsideofherbodyand calls her to account for having deprived her of her children, her faeces and the father’s penis, and for possessing ‘bad’ and dangerous excrements.

The methods of attack, based on the omnipotence of her

excrements and of thoughts, which the girl employs against her mother influence the development of her ego not only

directly, as it seems, but indirectly too. Her reaction-forma- tions against her own sadistic omnipotence and the trans- formation of the latter into constructive omnipotence enable her to develop sublimations and qualities of mind which are the direct opposite of those traits which we have just described and which are allied to the primary omni- potence of her excrements. They incline her to be truthful,

confiding, and forgetful of self, ready to devote herself to the duties before her and willing to undergo much for their sake and for the sake of other people* These reaction- formations and sublimations tend once more to make her sense of omnipotence, based upon her internalized ‘good’ objects, and her attitude of submission to her paternal super-ego the dominating forces in her feminine attitude. 1

1 As has been already

the different kinds of

act in

and are interchangeable. They are also played off against one another by the

seen,

magic

conjunction

32O

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

Moreover, an essential part in her ego-development is

played by her desire to employ her ‘good’ urine and ‘good’ faeces in rectifying the effects of her ‘bad’ and harmful

excrements and in giving away good and beautiful things a desire which is of overwhelming importance in her acts of bearing a child and giving suck to it, for the ‘beautiful’

child and the ‘good’ milk which she produces represent sublimations of her harmful faeces and dangerous urine.

Indeed this desire forms a fruitful and creative basis for all those sublimations which arise out of the psychological

representatives of parturition and giving suck.

The characteristic thing about the development of the

woman’s ego is that in the course of it her super-ego be-

comes raised to very great heights and much magnified and that her ego looks up to it and submits itself to it. And

because her ego tries to live up to this exalted super-ego it is spurred on to all kinds of efforts which result in an ex- pansion and enrichment of itself. Thus whereas in the man

it is the ego and, with it, reality-relations which mostly take the lead, so that his whole nature is more objective and

reasonable, in the woman it is the unconscious which is the dominating force. In her case, no less than in his, the

quality of her achievements will depend upon the quality of her ego, but they receive their specifically feminine char-

acter of intuitiveness and subjectivity from the fact that her ego is submitted to a loved internal being. They represent

the birth of a spiritual child, procreated by its father ; and this spiritual father is her super-ego. It is true that even a markedly feminine line of development exhibits numerous features which spring from masculine components, but it seems as if it was the woman’s dominating belief in the

omnipotence of her father’s incorporated penis and of the growing child inside her which renders her capable of

achievements of a specifically feminine kind.

ego. The girl’s fear of having *bad’ children (faeces) inside her as a result of the magical powers of her excrements acts as an incentive to her to over-emphasize her belief in the ‘good’ penis. Her equation of the ‘good* penis with a child makes it possible for her to hope that she has incorporated *good* children and these are an offset to the children inside her which she likens to ‘bad’ faeces.

XI THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE GIRL

At this point we cannot help comparing the mental dis- position of women with that of children, who, as I main- tain, are to such a much greater degree under the dominion

of their super-ego and dependent upon their objects than is the adult. We all know that the woman is much more

akin to the child than is the man ; and yet in some re- spects she differs quite as much from it as he in her ego- development. The reason for this is, I think, that although

she has introjected her Oedipus object much more strongly than he has, so that her super-ego and id occupy a larger share in her mental make-up and there is a certain analogy between her attitude and the child’s, her ego attains a full

development in virtue of the powerful super-ego within her whose example it follows and which it also in part endea-

vours to control and outdo.

If the girl clings in the main to the imaginary possession of a penis as a masculine attribute, her development will be radically different. In reviewing her sexual history we have alreadydiscussedthevarious\ causeswhichobligeherto

adopt a masculine position. As regards her activities and sublimations which she regards in her unconscious as a confirmation in reality of her possession of a penis or as substitutes for it these are not only used to compete with

her father’s penis but invariably serve,, in a secondary way, as a defence against her super-ego and in order to weaken

it. In girls of this type, moreover, the ego takes a stronger lead and their pursuits are for the most part an expression

of male potency.

As far as the girl’s sexual development is concerned, we

have already learnt the significance which the existence of

a good mother-imago has upon the formation of a good father-imago in her. If she is in a position to entrust herself

to the internal guidance of a paternal super-ego which she believes in and admires it always means that she has good

mother-imagosaswell; foritisonlywhereshehassuffi- cient trust in a ‘good’ internalized mother that she is able

to surrender herself completely to her paternal super-ego. But in order to make a surrender of this kind she must also

where and harmony

J can she herself give

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN

CH.

322

believe strongly enough in her possession of ‘good things insideherbody offriendlyinternalizedobjects.Onlyif

the child which, in her imagination, she has had, or expects to have, by her father is a ‘good’ and ‘beautiful’ child

only, that is, if the inside of her body represents a place

beauty reign

without reserve, both sexually and mentally, to her paternal

super-ego and to its representatives in the external world. Theattainmentofastateofharmonyofthiskindis founded on the existence of a good relationship between her ego and its identifications and between those identifications themselves, and especially between her father-imago and her mother-imago.

The girl-child’s phantasies in which she tries to destroy both her parents out of envy and hatred of them are the

fountain-head of her deepest sense of guilt and also form

thebasisofhermostoverpoweringdanger-situations.They give rise to a fear of harbouring in herself hostile objects

which are engaged in deadly combat (i.e. in destructive copulation) with each other or which, because they have discovered her guilt, are allied in enmity against her ego. If her father and mother live a happy life together the im- mense gratification she obtains from this fact is to a great extent due to the relief which their good relations with each other afford the sense of guilt she feels on account of her sadistic phantasies. For in her unconscious the good under- standing between them is a confirmation in reality of her hope of being able to make restitution in every possible way. And if her restitutive mechanisms have been success- fully established she will not only be in harmony with the external world, but and this is, I think, a necessary con- dition for the attainment of such a state of harmony and of

a satisfactory object-relationship and sexual development she will be at one with her internal world and with her-

self. If her menacing imagos fade into the background and her kindly father-imago and mother-imago emerge to act in friendly co-operation and give her a guarantee of peace

1 This phantasy is also present in the boy (cf. Chapter XII.).

XI THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE GIRL

323

and security within her own body, she can work out her feminine and her masculine components under the auspices of her introjected parents, and she will have secured a basis in herself for the full development of a harmonious per-

sonality.

POSTSCRIPT

Since writing the above I note that a paper by Freud has

1 in which he more

period of time during which the girl remains attached to her mother, and endeavours to isolate that attachment from

the operation of her super-ego and her sense of guilt. This,

in my judgment, is not possible, for I think that the girl’s anxiety and sense of guilt which arise from her aggressive

impulses go to intensify her primary libidinal attachment to her mother at a very early age. Her multifarious fears of

her phantastic imagos (her super-ego) and of her ‘bad’, real mother force her, while she is still quite small, to find pro-

tection in her ‘good*, real mother. And in order to do this

she has to over-compensate for her primary aggression towards the latter.

Freud also points out that the girl feels hostility, too, towards her mother and is afraid of ‘being killed (eaten

up?) by her’. In my analysis of female patients of every age I have found that their fear of being devoured, cut to bits

or destroyed by their mother springs from the projection of impulses of their own of the same sadistic kind against

her, and that those fears are at the bottom of their earliest

anxiety-situations. Freud also states that female persons who are strongly attached to their mother have more especi-

ally reacted with rage and anxiety to enemas and anal irrigations which she has administered to them in their childhood. Expressions of affect of this sort are, as far as

my experience goes, caused by their fear of sustaining anal attacksfromher afearwhichrepresentstheprojectionof

their anal-sadistic phantasies on to her. I am in agreement 1 ‘Female Sexuality* (1932).

appeared,

especially

discusses the

long

324

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

with Freud’s view that in females the projection in early childhood of hostile impulses against their mother is the nucleus of paranoia in later life. But, according to my

as persecutors and of their mother as a terrifying figure as

a result of projection.

Freud believes that the girl’s long attachment to her

mother is an exclusive one and takes place before she has entered the Oedipus situation. But my experience of ana- lysis of small girls has convinced me that their long-drawn- out and powerful attachment to their mother is never ex-

clusive and is bound up with Oedipus impulses. Moreover, their anxiety and sense of guilt in relation to their mother

also affects the course of those Oedipus impulses; for in my view, the girl’s defence against her feminine attitude springs less from her masculine tendencies than from her fear of her mother. If the small girl is too frightened of her mother she will not be able to attach herself strongly enough to her father and her Oedipus complex will not come to light. In those cases, however, in which a strong at- tachment to the father has not been established until the post-phallic stage, I have found that the girl has neverthe-

less had positive Oedipus impulses at an early age, but that these often did not emerge to view. These early stages of

her Oedipus conflict still bear a somewhat phantastic char- acter, since they are in part centred round the penis of her father; but in part they are already concerned with her real father.

In some of my earlier papers I have adduced as primary factors in the withdrawal of the girl from her mother the

grudge she feels against her for having subjected her to oral frustration (a factor which is also noticed by Freud in

the paper under discussion) and her envy of the mutual

Cf. my papers, *Early Stages of the Oedipus Conflict (1928) and “The

1 Importance of Symbol-Formation in the Development of the Ego (1930).

1 it is the

upon the interior of their mother’s body by means of de- structive excrements that poison, burn and explode, which more particularly give rise to their fear of pieces of stool

observations,

imaginary

attacks have made they

XI THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE GIRL

325

oral gratification which, on the strength of her earliest sexual theories, she imagines that her parents obtain from

copulation. These factors, assisted by the equation of breast with penis, incline her to turn towards her father’s penisinthesecondhalfofherfirstyear; sothatherattach- ment to her father is fundamentally affected by her attach- ment to her mother. Freud, I may say, also points out that the one is built up upon the other, and that many women repeat their relation to their mother in their relation to men.

CHAPTER XII

THE EFFECTS OF EARLY ANXIETY-SITUA- TIONS ON THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE BOY

analysis shows that in its first stages the boy’s sexual development runs parallel with that of the

. case, EARLY

1 As in her the oral frustration he

experi- ences reinforces his destructive tendencies against his

irl

mother’s breast; and as in her case, his withdrawal from the breast, and the onset of his oral-sadistic impulses are followed by what I have called the period of maximal sadism, in which his aim is to attack the inside of his mother’s body.

The Feminine Phase

In this phase the boy has an oral-sucking fixation on his father’s penis, just as the girl has. This fixation is, I con- sider, the basis of true homosexuality in him. This view would agree with what Freud has said in Eine Ktndheits- erinnerung des Leonardo da Find (1910), where he comes to the conclusion that Leonardo’s homosexuality goes backtoanexcessivefixationuponhismother ultimately upon her breast and thinks that this fixation became dis-

placed on to the penis as an object of gratification. In my

experience every boy moves on from an oral-sucking fixa- tion upon his mother’s breast to an oral-sucking fixation

upon his father’s penis.

1 In so far as this is so those stages will be only very briefly alluded to here. For a more detailed discussion of them the reader is referred to Chapters VIII. and IX. of this book.

326

CH.XII THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE BOY

327

In addition to this, the boy imagines that his mother in-

corporates his father’s penis, or rather, a number of them,

inside herself; so that side by side with his relations to his

father and his father’s penis in reality he develops an im-

aginary relation to his father’s penis inside his mother.

Since his oral desires for his father’s penis are one of the

motivesofhisattacksonhismother’sbody forhewants

to take by force the penis which he imagines as being in-

sidehismotherandtoinjureherinsodoing hisattacks

in part also represent his earliest situations of rivalry

with her, and thus form the basis of his femininity com-

1 plex.

The forcible seizure of his father’s penis and of the ex- crements and children out of his mother’s body makes him into his mother’s rival and gives rise to an intense fear of retaliation. His having destroyed the interior of his mother’s body in addition to robbing it becomes, further- more, a source of deepest anxiety to him. And the more sadistic his imaginary destruction of her body has been the greater will be his dread of her as a rival.

Early Stages of the Oedipus Conflict

The boy’s genital impulses, which, though at first over- laid by his pre-genital ones and made to serve their ends,

do nevertheless substantially affect the course of his sad- istic phase, lead him to take his mother’s body and genitals as asexual object. He thus desires to have sole possession of her in an oral, anal and genital sense and attacks his father’s penis within her with all the sadistic means at his

disposal. His oral position, too, gives rise to a great amount of hatred against his father’s penis in consequence of the

frustration he has experienced from that quarter. Ordin- arily his destructive impulses towards his father’s penis are

1 For a detailed account of the phenomena that make their appearance in connection with the feminine phase of the male individual, I may refer the reader to my paper ‘Early Stages of the Oedipus Conflict* (1928). Cf. also Karen Homey, ‘The Flight from Womanhood* (1926), and Felix Boehm, ‘The

Femininity-Complex in Men* (1929).

328

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

very much stronger than the girl’s, since his longing for his mother as a sexual object induces him to concentrate

his hatred more intensely upon it. Moreover, it has already been a special object of anxiety to him in the earliest stages

of his development, for his direct aggressive impulses to- wards it have aroused a proportionate fear of it in him.

This fear once again reinforces his hatred of it and his desire to destroy it.

As we have seen in the last chapter, the girl retains her mother’s body as the direct object of her destructive im- pulses for a much longer time and in a much more intense

degree than the boy; and her positive impulses towards her father’s penis both the real one and the imaginary one

inside her mother’s body are normally much stronger and enduring than his. In his case, it is only during a cer- tain period of that early stage in which his attacks upon his mother’s body dominate the picture that his mother is the actual object of them. It is very soon his father’s penis, supposedly inside her, which to an ever greater extent draws to itself his aggressive tendencies against her.

Early Anxiety-Situations

Besides the fears which the boy feels in consequence of his rivalry with his mother, his fear of his father’s danger- ous internalized penis stands in the way of his maintaining

a feminine position. This latter fear, together, in especial,

with the growing strength of his genital impulses, cause him to give up his identification with his mother and to

fortify his heterosexual position. But if his fear of his mother as a rival and his fear of his father’s penis are ex- cessive, so that he does not properly overcome the feminine phase, that phase will be a serious bar to his becoming established in a heterosexual position.

It is, furthermore, of great importance for the final out- come of the boy’s development whether or no his early mental life has been governed by a fear of his father and

mother combined in copulation and forming an insepar-

XII THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE BOY

329

able unit hostile to himself. 1

it more difficult for him to maintain any position, and brings on danger-situations which I should be inclined to consider as the deepest causes of sexual impotence in later

life. These specific danger-situations arise from the boy’s fear of being castrated by his father’s penis inside his

mother thatis,ofbeingcastratedbyhisconjoint,*bad’

parents andhisfear,oftenstronglyevinced,ofhavinghis own penis cut off from retreat there and shut in inside his

mother’s

It has more than once been pointed out in these pages

that the anxiety-situations resulting from sadistic attacks made by children of both sexes on the inside of their

mother’s body fall into two categories. In the first, the mother’s body becomes a place filled with dangers which give rise to all sorts of terrors. In the second, the child’s own inside is turned into a place of this kind, in virtue of

the child’s introjection of its dangerous objects, especially its copulating parents, and it becomes afraid of the perils

and threats within itself. The anxiety-situations belonging to these two categories exert an influence upon one another,

and, as I say, are present in the girl as well as in the boy; and we have already examined the methods of mastering anxiety which are common to both. Briefly put, they are asfollows: Thechildcontendswithitsinternalized’bad*

objects by means of the omnipotence of its excrement, and also receives protection against them from its ‘good’ objects. At the same time it displaces its fear of internal dangers into the outer world by projection and there finds evidence to disprove their truth.

But besides this, each sex has its own essentially different modes of mastering anxiety. The boy develops his sense

body.

1 The ofsuchfearsinthe aetiological significance

psychoses

hasbeen

pointed

out in Chapters VIII. and IX.

1 This fear has a bearing, I think, on various forms of claustrophobia. It

seems certain that claustrophobia goes back to the fear of being shut up inside the mother’s dangerous body. In the particular dread of not being able to ex- tricate the penis from the mother’s body it would seem that this fear has been narrowed down to a fear on behalf of the penis.

Anxiety

of this kind makes

33O

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

of the omnipotence of excreta less strongly than the girl,

replacing it in part by the omnipotence of the penis; and in connection with this his projection of his fear of internal

dangers is different from the girl’s. The specific mechan- ism he employs for overcoming his fear both of internal and external dangers, at the same as he obtains sexual gratification, is determined by the fact that his penis, as an active organ, is used to master his object and that it is

accessible to tests by reality. In gaining possession of his mother’s body by means of his penis he proves to himself

his superiority not only over his dangerous external objects but over his internal ones as well.

Sadistic Omnipotence of the Penis

In the male child the omnipotence of excrements and

thoughts becomes partly centred in the omnipotence of the penis and, especially in the case of excrements,

partly replaced by it. In his imagination he endows his own penis with destructive powers and likens it to

ferocious and devouring beasts, death-dealing weapons, and so on. His belief that his urine is a dangerous sub-

stance and his equation of his poisonous and explosive faeces with his penis go to make the latter the executive

organ of his sadistic tendencies. Furthermore, certain physiological occurrences show him that his penis really can change its appearance, and he takes this as a proof of its omnipotence. Thus his penis and his sense of omni- potence become linked together in a way which is of under-

lying importance for his activity and his mastery of anxiety. In child analysis we often come across the idea of the.

penis as a ‘magic wand*, of masturbation as magic and of

erection and ejaculation as a tremendous heightening of

the sadistic of the 1 powers penis.

Cf. Abraham, ‘Ejaculatio Praecox* (1917). In his ‘Beitrage zur Analyse des Sadismus und Masochismus* (1913) Federn has discussed the question of how the phenomena of active sadism arise in the male individual and has come to the conclusion that *the active male organ-component that is awaking becomes transformed by means of unconscious mechanisms, of which

XII THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE BOY

331

The interior of the mother’s body, which succeeds to the breast as the child’s object, soon takes on the signifi- cance of a place which contains many objects (at first repre-

sented by the penis and excrements). In consequence the

boy’s phantasies of taking possession of his mother’s body by copulating with her form the basis of his attempts to

conquer the external world and to master anxiety along masculine lines. Both as regards the sexual act and sub-

limations he displaces his danger-situations into the outer world and overcomes them there through the omnipotence

of his penis.

In the case of the girl, her belief in her father’s *good*

penis and her fear of his ‘bad’ one fortify her introjective tendencies. Thus the test by reality against her ‘bad’ ob- jects, as carried out by the woman, is ultimately situated within herself once again. In the boy, belief in an inter- nalized *good’ mother and fear of ‘bad’ objects there assist him to displace his reality-tests outwards (i.e. into his mother’sbody). Hisinternalized*good’motheraddsto the libidinal attraction which his real mother has for him and increases his wishes and hopes of Combating and van- quishing his father’s penis inside her by means of his own penis. A victory of this kind would also be a proof that he is able to get the better of the internalized assailants in his

own body as well.1

This concentration of sadistic omnipotence in the penis

is of fundamental importance for the masculine position of the boy. If he has a strong primary belief in the omni-

potence of his penis he can pit it against the omnipotence

symbolic representation is an important one, into sadism; or more correctly, the tendencies which flow from that component are turned into sadistic desires. At the same time all the active tendencies that have already been unfolded in the child become reactivated/

1 In some instances I have been able to ascertain that the boy uses his own penis as a weapon against his father’s internalized penis as well by turning it inwards. He likens his stream of urine to his penis, and looks upon it as a stick or whip or sword with which he vanquishes his father’s penis inside himself. I have also frequently come across a phantasy in which the boy pulls out his ownpenistosuchalengththathecantakeitintohismouth inoneinstance, into his anus. This phantasy is once again actuated by his wish to engage his penis in a direct struggle with his super-ego.

33^

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

of his father’s penis and take up the struggle against that dreaded and admired organ. In order for a process of con- centration of this kind to take effect it seems that his penis must be strongly cathected by the various means of enforcement adopted by his sadism x and the capacity of

;

his ego to tolerate anxiety and the strength of his genital

ultimately

his libidinal 2 will also be of decisive impulses

importance. But if, when the genital impulses come to the fore, the ego should make too sudden and forcible a de-

fence against the destructive impulses, this process of focussing sadism in the penis will be interfered with.3

Incentives to Sexual Activity

The boy’s hatred of his father’s penis and the anxiety

arising from the above-mentioned sources incite him to

get possession of his mother in a genital way and go to increase his libidinal desire to copulate with her. More-

over, as he gradually overcomes his sadism towards her he looks upon his father’s penis inside her more and more not only as a source of danger to his own penis but as a source of danger to her body as well and feels that he must destroy it inside her for that reason. Another factor which acts as an incentive to having coitus with her (and which, in the girl, fortifies her homosexual position) is his epistemophilic instinct, which has been intensified by his

4 In this connection he

penis as an organ of perception and likens it to the

anxiety.

regards his penetrating 5

eye

According to Ferenczi (‘Attempt to Formulate a Genital Theory’, 1922) pre-genital^erotisms are displaced on to genital activities in virtue of a process of amphimixis.

* Reichhaspointedputthattheconstitutionalstrengthofthegenitalerotism of the individual is an important factor in the final outcome of his development (cf. his Die Funktion des Orgasmus, 1927).

3 Should genital feelings set in too soon and thus lead the ego to make a premature and over-strong defence against the destructive impulses, severe developmental inhibitions may result (cf. my paper, ‘The Importance of Symbol- Formation in the Development of the Egro’, 1010).

* 5

‘

Cf. Chapter VIII.

Cf. Mary Chadwick, ‘Uber die Wurzel der Wissbegierde’ (1925).

xii THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE BOY

333

or the ear or a combination of the two, and he wants by means of it to discover what sort of destruction has been done inside his mother by his own penis and excrements and by his father’s, and to what kind of perils his penis is

exposed there.

Thus we see that the boy’s impulsion to overcome anxiety

is also an incentive to him to obtain genital gratification

and is a promoting agency in his development even at a time when he is still under the supremacy of his sadism

and the measures he employs are wholly of a destructive nature. And indeed those destructive measures themselves become in part pressed into the service of his restitutive tendencies for the purpose of rescuing his mother from his father’s ‘bad’ penis inside her, although in doing so they still act in a forcible and injurious way.

‘The Woman with a Penis’

The child’s belief that its mother’s body contains the penis of its father leads, as we have already seen, to the idea of ‘the woman with a penis’. The sexual theory that the mother has a female penis of her own is, I think, the result of a modification by displacement of more deeply seated fears of her body as a place which is filled with a

number of dangerous penises and of the two parents en-

gaged in dangerous copulation. ‘The woman with a penis’ always means, I should say, the woman with the father’s

1 penis.

Normally, the boy’s fear of his father’s penises inside

1 In his ‘Odipuskomplex und Homosexualitat’ (1927) Felix Boehm has come to the conclusion that the phantasies which men often have that the woman’s

vagina conceals a big, ‘dangerous* and moving penis a female penis receive their pathogenic value from the fact that they are unconsciously con- nected with ideas of the hidden presence in the mother’s vagina of the lather’s huge and terrifying penis. In an earlier paper, ‘Homosexualitat und Polygamie* (1920), Boehm has also pointed out that men often have a desire to meet their father’s penis inside their mother and that this desire is based on aggressive im- pulses against their father’s penis. Their impulse to attack his penis inside their

mother’s vagina and the repression of that aggressive impulse are important factors, Boehm thinks, in making them homosexual.

334

TH PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

his mother decreases as his relationship to his objects de- velops and as he goes forward in the conquest of his own sadism. Since his fear of the ‘bad’ penis is to a great extent derived from his destructive impulses against his father’s penis, and since the character of his imagos depends largely on the quality and quantity of his own sadism, the reduction of that sadism and with it the reduction of his anxiety will lessen the severity of his super-ego and will thus improve the relations of his ego both towards his

internalized, imaginary objects and towards his external, real ones.

Later Stages of the Oedipus Conflict

If, side by side with the imago of the combined parents,

imagos of the single father and mother, especially the

‘good* mother, are sufficiently strongly operative, the boy’s

growing relationship to objects and adaptation to reality will have the result that his phantasies about his father’s

penis inside his mother will lose their power, and his hatred, already less in itself, will be more strongly directed to his real object. This will have the effect of separating out his imago of the combined parents still more completely; and his mother will now be pre-eminently the object of his libidinal impulses, while his hatred and anxiety will in the main go to his real father (or father’s penis) or, by displacement, to some other object, as in the case of animal phobias. The separate imagos of his mother and father will stand out more distinctly and the importance of his real objects be increased; and he will now enter upon a phase in which his Oedipus tendencies and his fear of being castrated by his real father come into pro-

minence.1

Nevertheless, the earliest anxiety-situations are, I have found, still latent in him to a greater or less degree, in spite of all the modifications they have undergone in the course

1 When this it is a happens

that the

of his combined

sign

has been modified into a neurosis.

separation

imago has been successfully achieved, and that his infantile psychotic anxiety

parent-

XII THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE BOY

335

1 and are all the defensive so, too,

of his

mechanisms and mechanisms belonging to later stages,

which arise from those anxiety-situations. In the deepest layers of his mind, therefore, it is always by the ‘bad’ father’s penis belonging to his mother that he expects to

be castrated. But so long as his early anxiety-situations are not too powerful and, above all, so long as his mother

stands for the ‘good* mother to a sufficient extent, her body will be a desirable place, though a place which can only be

conquered with greater or less risk to himself, according

to the magnitude of the anxiety-situations involved. This element of danger and anxiety, which in every normal man

allies itself to copulation, is an incentive to sexual activity and increases the libidinal gratification he gets from copu- lating; but if it exceeds a certain limit it will have a dis- turbing effect in that connection and even prevent him from being able to perform the sexual act at all. In his

deepest unconscious phantasies copulation involves over- powering or doing away with his father’s penis inside the

woman. To this struggle with his father inside his mother are attached, I think, those sadistic impulses which are

normally present when he takes possession of her in a

genital way. Thus, while his original displacement of his father’s penis to the inside of his mother’s body makes her

apermanentanxiety-objectforhim thoughthedegreeto which this is so varies very greatly from person to person

it also increases the attraction which women have for him very considerably, because it is an incentive to him to overcome his anxiety in regard to them.

In the normal course of things, as the boy’s genital tendencies grow stronger and he overcomes his sadistic

impulses, his phantasies of making restitution begin to occupy a wider field. As has already been seen, phantasies of this kind in regard to his mother already exist while his

sadis.m is still in the ascendant and take the form of de- c

stroying his father’s bad’ penis inside her. Their first and main object is his mother, and the more she has stood for 1 Cf.ChapterIX.

development;

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH. the *goocT object to him the more readily do his restitutive

1 This is

phantasies

ally clearly seen in play analyses. When the boy’s reactive tendencies become stronger he begins to play in a con-

structive way. In games of building houses and villages, for instance, he will symbolize the restoration of his

mother’s body and his own 2 in a way that corresponds in every detail with the acts of destruction he has played at in an earlier stage of his analysis, or still plays at in alterna- tion with his constructive games. He will start building a town by putting houses together in all sorts of ways, and

willsetupatoyman representinghimself asapolice- man to regulate the traffic, and this policeman will always be on the look-out to see that cars or carts do not run into

one another, or houses get damaged or pedestrians run over; whereas in former games the town was frequently

being damaged by colliding vehicles, and the people knocked down. In a still earlier period, perhaps, his sadism

took a more direct form and he used to wet, burn and cut up all sorts of articles which symbolized his mother’s inside and its contents, i.e. his father’s penis and children, while at the same time these destructive acts represented the damage he wanted his father’s penis to do there as well. As a reaction to these sadistic phantasies in which the

violent and overpowering penis (his father’s and his own), as represented by the moving cars, destroys his mother and injures the children inside, as represented by the toy people, henowhasphantasiesofrestoringherbody thetown in all the respects in which he previously damaged it.

& *; Restitutive Tendencies and Sexic&l Activities

It has repeatedly been said in these pages that the sexual act is a very important means of mastering anxiety for both

l That the boy’s restitutive tendencies are directed to the ‘good’ object, and ^

his destructive ones to the ‘bad’ object, has already been made clear in another connection.

Since the boy’s anxiety-situations in regard to his mother’s inside and his anxiety concerning his own body are inter-related and interdependent, his phan-

attach themselves to her

imago.

especi-

XII THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE BOY

337

sexes. In the early stages of the child’s development the sexual act, in addition to its libidinal purposes, serves to

destroy or injure the object (though positive tendencies are already at work behind the scenes). In later stages it serves to restore the mother*s injured body and thus to master

anxiety and guilt.

In discussing the underlying sources of the girl’s homo- sexual attitude, we have seen how important to her is the

idea of possessing a *beneficent’ penis and constructive omnipotence in the sexual act* What has been said there applies equally to the heterosexual attitude of the man. Under the supremacy of the genital stage he attributes to

his penis in copulation the function not only of giving the

woman pleasure, but of making good in her all the damage which it and his father’s penis have done. In analysing boys

we find that the penis is supposed to perform all kinds of curative and cleansing functions. If, during his period of sadistic omnipotence, the boy has used his penis in im-

aginationforsadisticpurposes suchasflooding,poison-

ing or burning things with his urine he will, in his period

of making restitution, regard it as a fire-extinguisher, a

scrubbing-brush or a container of healing medicines. Just as his former belief in the sadistic qualities of his own penis

involved a belief in the sadistic power of his father’s penis, so now his belief in his *good* penis involves a belief in his

father’s ‘good’ penis; and just as then his sadistic phantasies went to transform his father’s penis into an instrument of destruction for his mother, so now his restitutive phan- tasies and sense of guilt go to turn it into a ‘good* and bene- ficent 1 A his fear of his *bad’

v!per-ego tasiesofrestoringhismother’sbodyapplyIneveryparticulartotherestorationofhis

organ. . result,

own.Weshallpresentlygoontoconsiderthisaspectofhisphantasiesofrestitution. 1 The boy’s sense of guilt towards his mother and his fear that his father’s ‘bad’ penis may do her harm contribute in no small degree to his endeavour to restore his fathers penis as well and give it back to her, and to unite the two in an amicable fashion. In certain instances this desire can become so dominating that he will relinquish his mother as a love-object and make her over to his father entirely. This situation disposes him to go over to a homosexual position; in which case his homosexuality would serve the purpose of making restitution whose function it would then be to restore his mother

towards his father’s

and give her gratification.

penis,

338

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

derived from his father becomes lessened, and he can now give up identifying himself with his ‘bad’ father in relation to his real objects (an identification which is in part based on his identification of himself with his anxiety-object) and can identify himself more strongly with his ‘good’ father. If his ego is able to tolerate and modify a certain quantity of destructive feeling against his father and if his belief in his father’s ‘good’ penis is strong enough, he can maintain both his rivalry with his father (which is essential for the establishment of a heterosexual position) and his identifica- tion with him. His belief in his father’s ‘good’ penis in- creases the sexual attraction he feels for women, for in his phantasy they will then contain objects which are not soverydangerousandobjectswhich onaccountofhis homosexual attitude in which the ‘good’ penis is a love- object are actually desirable.1 His destructive impulses will retain his father’s rival penis as their object and his positive impulses will be mainly directed to his mother.

Significance of the Feminine Phase in Heterosexuality

The final attainment of a heterosexual position depends

upon the boy’s early feminine phase of development having run a favourable course and having been success-

overcome.Inanearlier 2 I outthatthe paper pointed

fully

boy often compensates the feelings of hate, anxiety, envy and inferiority that spring from his feminine phase by re-

inforcing his pride in the possession of a penis and that he displaces that pride on to intellectual activities.3 This

1 Where the boy’s fear of the *ba<T penis or, not infrequently, his inability to tolerate his own sadism heighten his belief in the ‘good* penis to an exaggerated

degree, not only in regard to his father’s penis inside his mother, but in regard to his super-ego, his attitude towards women may become quite distorted. The heterosexual act will serve first and foremost to satisfy his Homosexual desires, and the womb will be nothing more than something which contains the ‘good* penis.

2 of the ‘Early Stages

Conflict’

Oedipus

In her paper, *Uber die Wurzel der Wissbegierde* (1928), Mary Chadwick

considers that the boy is reconciled to his inability to have a child oy the exer- cise of his epistemophilic instinct and that scientific discovery and intellectual

(1928).

XII THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE BOY

339

displacement forms the basis of a very inimical attitude of rivalry towards women and affects his character-formation in the same way as envy of the penis affects theirs. The excessive anxiety he feels on account of his sadistic attacks on his mother’s body becomes the source of very grave disturbances in his relations to the opposite sex. But if his anxiety and sense of guilt become less acute it will be those very feelings which give rise to the various elements of his phantasies of restitution that will enable him to have an intuitive understanding of women.

This early feminine phase has yet another favourable effect on the boy’s relations to women in later life. The difference between the sexual tendencies of the man and the woman necessitates, as we know, different psychologi- cal conditions of gratification for each and leads each to seek the fulfilment of different and mutually incompatible requirements in their relations to one another. Usually, the woman wants to have the object of her love always with her in the last analysis, inside her; whereas the man,

owing to his outwardly-orientated psycho-sexual tenden- cies and his method of mastering anxiety, is inclined to

change his love-object frequently (though his desire to keep it in so far as it represents his *good’ mother makes

against that tendency). Should he, in spite of these diffi- culties, nevertheless be able to be in touch with the mental needs of the woman, it will be to a large extent because of his earliest identification with his mother. For in that phase

he introjects his father’s penis as a love-object, and it is the desires and phantasies he has in this connection which, if

his relation to his mother is a good one, help him to under-

stand the woman’s tendency to introject and preserve what she loves.1 In addition, the wish to have children by his

achievements take the place for him of having a child. It is, according to her, this displacement on to the mental plane of his envy of women for being able to have a.child which makes him take up an attitude of rivalry to them in matters of thought.

1 Edoardo Weiss, in his paper *Uber eine noch unbeschriebene Phase der Entwicklung zur heterosexuellen Liebe* (1925), states that the heterosexual choice ofobjectmadebytheadultmaleresultsfromtheprojectionofhisownfemininity.

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

father, which springs from that phase, leads him to regard the woman as his child; and he plays the part of the bounti- ful mother towards her.1 In this way he also satisfies his partner’s love-wishes arising from her strong attachment to her mother. Thus, and only thus, by sublimating his feminine instinctual components and surmounting his feel- ings of envy, hatred and anxiety towards his mother, will he be able to consolidate his heterosexual position in the

stage of genital supremacy.

We have already learnt why it is that, when the genital

stage has been fully attained, a necessary condition for sexual potency should be that the boy believes in the ‘good- ness’ of his penis that is, in his capacity to make restitu- tionbymeansofthesexualact.2Thisbeliefhasitsconcrete basis in a belief that the inside of his body is in a good state. In both sexes the anxiety-situations which arise from sup- posed destructive events, attacks and encounters inside the

subject’s body and which merge with anxiety-situations re- lating to similar events inside the mother’s body constitute

the most profound danger-situations of all. Fear of castra-

tion, which is only a part though an important part of the anxiety felt about the whole body, becomes, in the male

individual, a dominating theme that overshadows all his other fears to a greater or less extent. But this is precisely because one of the deepest sources to which disturbances in his sexual potency go back is his anxiety about the in- terior of his body. The house or town which the boy is so

keen to build up again in his play signifies not only his mother’s renewed and intact body but his own.

and he believes that it is owing to this mechanism of projection that the adult man retains in part a maternal attitude towards his female partner. He also points out that the woman attains her final heterosexual position in a corre-

sponding way, by giving up her masculinity and situating it in the man she loves.

mother’s breast, and semen, that of milk (cf. his Die Function des Orgasmus,

Reich has shown that in many patients the penis assumes the r6le of the

Such a conviction grows steadily stronger in analysis in proportion as the severity of his super-ego, anxiety and sadism diminish and the genital stage emerges more clearly, with an accompanying improvement in his relation to his object and in the relations between his super-ego, ego and id.

XII THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE BOY

34!

Secondary Reinforcement of Penis-Pride

In describing the development of the boy, I have drawn attention to certain factors which tend, as I think, to in-

crease yet more the central importance which the penis

possesses for him. They may be summed up as follows:

(i) Theanxietyarisingfromhisearliestdanger-situations his fears of being attacked in all parts of his body and

inside it which include all his fears belonging to the

feminine position, are displaced on to the penis as an ex- ternal organ, where they can be more successfully mastered. The increased pride the boy takes in his penis, and all that this involves, may also be said to be a method of mastering those fears and disappointments which his feminine posi-

to more 1 The fact that particularly. (2)

tion him lays

open

the penis is a vehicle first of the boy’s destructive and then

of his creative omnipotence, enhances its importance as a

means of mastering anxiety. In thus ministering to his

sense of omnipotence, assisting him in his task of testing by

reality and promoting his object-relationships in fact, in

subserving the all-important function of mastering anxiety the penis is brought into specially close relation with

the ego and is made into a representative of the ego and the conscious ;* while the interior of the body, the imagos and the faeces what is invisible and unknown, that is are

compared to the unconscious. Moreover, in analysing male patients, whether boys or men, I have found that as their fear of their bad imagos and faeces (i.e. the unconscious) that were supreme inside them diminished, their belief in their own sexual potency was strengthened and the de-

of their 3 This latter effect ego gained ground.

velopment

is partly due to the fact that the boy’s lessened fear of his

‘bad* super-ego and the ‘bad’ contents of his body enables him to identify himself better with his ‘good’ introjected

1 Cf. my ‘Early Stages of the Oedipus Conflict* (1928).

1 This view is supported by a well-established fact of analytic observation, namely, that the penis and male potency stand for masculine activity in general. * Cf. my paper, *A Contribution to the Theory of Intellectual Inhibition*

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

objects, and thus allows of a further enrichment of his

ego.

As soon as his confidence in the constructive omnipot-

ence of his penis is firmly enough established, his belief

in the power of his father’s ‘good’ penis inside him will

form the basis of a secondary belief in his omnipotence

which will support and strengthen the line of development already laid down for him by his own penis. And, as has

been said, the result of his growing relationship to objects will be that his unreal imagos recede into the background, while his feelings of hatred and fear of castration come into sharper relief and fix themselves on to his real father. At the same time his restitutive tendencies are increasingly directed towards external objects and his methods of mastering anxiety become more realistic. All these ad-

vances in his development run parallel with the growing supremacy of his genital stage and characterize the later

stages of his Oedipus conflict.

Disturbances of Sexual Development

Stress has already been laid on the child’s phantasy of

its parents perpetually joined in copulation as a source of very intense anxiety-situations. Under the influence of

such a phantasy its mother’s body represents above all a union of mother and father which is extremely dangerous and which is directed against itself. If the separation of this combined parent-imago does not take place to a sufficient degree in the course of its development, the child will be overtaken by severe disturbances both of its object-rela- tionships and of its sexual life. A predominance of this kind of the combined parent-imago goes back, as far as my experience goes, to disturbances in the earliest relations of small children to their mother, or rather, to her breast.1 Although its effects are very fundamental in children of both sexes, they are already different for each in the earliest

stages of development. In the following pages we shall

Cf. Chapter VIII.

XII THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE BOY

343

confine our attention to the boy and examine how these

terrifying phantasies gain the ascendancy and in what way

influence his sexual 1 development.

they

In my analyses of boys and adult men I have found that

when strong oral-sucking impulses have combined with strong oral-sadistic ones, the infant has turned away from his mother’s breast with hatred 2 His and

very early. early intense destructive tendencies against her breast have led

him to introject a ‘bad* mother for the most part; and his sudden giving up of her breast has been followed by

an exceedingly strong introjection of his father’s penis. His feminine phase has been governed by feelings of hatred and envy towards his mother, and at the same time, as a result of his powerful oral-sadistic impulses, he has come to have an acute hatred and a correspondingly acute fear of his internalized father’s 3 His oral-

sucking impulses have brought on phantasies of an unin-

terrupted and everlasting process oftaking in nourishment, while his sadistic impulses have led him to believe that in

receiving nourishment and sexual gratification by copulat- ing with his father’s penis his mother has suffered much

pain and injury and that the interior of her body is filled

to bursting point with his huge, ‘bad’ penises which are

destroying her in all sorts of ways. In his imagination she has become not only the ‘woman with a penis’ but a kind

of receptacle of his father’s penises and of his dangerous excrement which is equated with them.4 In this way he has

1 Foradescriptionoftheirapplicationtothegirlseethepreviouschapter.

* Insomeofthesecasesthesuckingperiodhasbeenshortandunsatisfactory; in others the child had only been given the bottle. But even where the period of sucking has to all appearances been satisfactory, the child may nevertheless have turned away from the breast very soon and with feelings of hatred and may have introjected his father’s penis very strongly. In this case, his behaviour must have been determined by constitutional factors.

8 The boy’s exaggerated hatred of his father’s penis is based on excessively strong destructive phantasies directed towards his mother’s breast and body; so that here, too, his early attitude to his mother influences his attitude to his father.

4 The imagos which have arisen from these phantasies are usually not only cjuite at variance with the real picture of the boy’s mother but entirely obscure it. Here cause and effect reinforce one another. Owing to the too strong operation of the boy’s earliest anxiety-situations, the growth of his object-relationship and

penis. intensely strong

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH. displaced on to his mother great quantities of hatred and

344

which attached to his frther and his father’s

Thus a strong and premature oral sadism on the one hand encourages the child to make attacks upon his parents joined in copulation and to be terrified of their imago in that aspect, and on the other prevents him from creating a good mother-imago which would have sustained him

against his early anxiety-situations, laid the foundation of

a inhim theformof 2 good super-ego (in helping figures)

and led him to adopt a heterosexual position.

Next, there are the consequences which follow when the

feminine phase is too strongly governed by sadism. The

boy’s inordinately strong introjection of his father’s huge ‘bad* penis make him believe that his body is exposed to

the same dangers from within as his mother’s is. And his

introjection of his hostile parents joined in copulation, to-

gether with his very feeble introjection of a ‘good’ mother, work in the same direction. In giving rise to an excess of

anxiety concerning his own inside, these introjective pro- cesses pave the way not only for serious mental ill-health

but for severe disturbances in his sexual development. As

we have seen, the possession of ‘good’ contents in the body

and with it, on the genital level, the possession of a ‘good’

penis are a pre-condition of sexual potency. If the boy’s attacks on his mother’s breast and body have been ex-

ceptionally intense, so that, in his imagination, she has been destroyed by his father’s penis and his own, he will have all the more need of a *good’ penis with which to restore her; and he will have to have especial confidence in his potency in order to -dissipate his terrors of his mother’s adaptation to reality have been arrested. As a consequence of this, his world of

objects and reality cannot mitigate the anxiety belonging to those earliest anxiety-situations, so that these continue to dominate his mind. I have found that in such cases the child’s relation to reality has remained permanently impaired.

1 Inthepreviouschapterwehavetracedananalogousprocessofdisplacement in the girl. Where her hatred and envy are mainly concerned with her father’s

penis which her mother has incorporated, she displaces those feelings, which

were originally mostly directed to her mother, on to his penis, with the result

that her attitude to men is open to severe disturbances.

anxiety

penis,

Cf. my paper, ‘Personification in the Play of Children* (1929).

Xii THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE BOY

345

dangerous and endangered body, filled with his father’s penises. Yet it is precisely his fear on account of his mother

and the contents of his own body which prevents him from

believing in his possession of a ‘good’ penis and sexual potency. The cumulative effect of all these factors may be

to make him turn away from women as objects of love,

and, according to what his early experiences have been, either to suffer from disturbances of potency in his hetero-

sexual position or to become homosexual.1

Adoption of Homosexuality

This process of displacement, in which all that is terrify- ing and uncanny is located in the interior of the woman’s

body, is often accompanied by another process which seems to be a necessary condition for the complete estab-

lishment of a homosexual position. In the normal attitude,

the boy’s penis represents his ego and his conscious, as

opposed to the contents of his body and his super-ego

which represent his unconscious. In his homosexual atti-

tude this significance is extended by his narcissistic choice

of object to the penis of another male, and this penis now

serves as a counter-proof against all his fears concerning the penis inside him and the interior of his body. Thus in

homosexualityonemodeofmasteringanxietyis thattheego endeavours to deny, control or get the better of the uncon-

scious by over-emphasizing reality and the external world and all that is tangible and perceptible to consciousness.

In such cases I have found that where the boy has had a homosexual relation in early childhood he has had a good

opportunity of moderating his feelings of hatred and fear of his father’s penis and of strengthening his belief in the

*good’ penis. Upon such a relation3 moreover, all his homo- sexual affairs in later life will rest. It is designed to provide him with a number of assurances, of which I will mention a few of the most common: (i) that his father’s penis, both internalized and real, is not a dangerous persecutor either

1 Inextremecaseshislibidowillbeunabletomaintainanypositionwhatever.

346

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

(a) for him or () for his mother; (2) that his own penis is not destructive; (3) that his fears, as a small child, lest

his sexual relations with his brother or brother-substitute should be discovered and he should be turned out of the house, castrated or killed 1 have no foundation, since his homosexual acts are followed by no evil consequences; (4) that he has got secret confederates and accomplices, for in early life his sexual relations with his brother (or brother- substitute) meant that the two were banded together to

destroy their parents separately or combined in copulation. In his imagination his partner in love will sometimes take on the role of his father, with whom he undertook secret attacks upon his mother during the sexual act and by

meansofit(oneoftheparentsbeingthusplayedoffagainst the other), and sometimes that of his brother who, with

himself, set upon and destroyed his father’s penis inside his mother and himself.

The feeling (based upon having sadistic masturbation phantasies in common) of being leagued with another against the parents by means of the sexual act, a feeling which is, I think, of general importance for the sexual re- lations of small children, is closely bound up with paranoic mechanisms.2 Where such mechanisms are

very strongly operative the child will have a strong bias towards finding

allies and accomplices in his libidinal position and object-

relationship* The possibility of gaining his mother on to

his side against his father ultimately, that is, of destroy- ing his father’s penis inside her by copulating with her

may become a necessary condition for his adoption of a heterosexual position; and it may enable him when he is

grown up to maintain that position in spite of his having marked paranoid traits. On the other hand, if his fear of

his mother’s dangerous body is too strong and his good

mother-imago has not been able to develop, his phantasies of allying himself with his father against his mother and of

1 Behindthisfearlurksthefearofhismotherasarivalwhotriestomakehim

responsible for the castration and theft of his father’s penis.

Cf. Chapter VII,

XII THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE BOY

347

joining with his brother against both parents, will incline him to establish a homosexual position.

The child’s impulse to play off his objects against one another and to get power over them by securing secret allies has its roots, as far as I can see, in phantasies of omnipotence in which, by means of the magical attributes of excrements and thoughts, poisonous faeces and flatus are introduced into his objects in order to dominate or destroy them. In this connection the child’s faeces are the instru- ments of his secret attacks upon the inside of his objects

and are regarded by him as evil-doing objects or animals who are acting on behalf of his ego. These phantasies of

grandeur and omnipotence play a great part in delusions of persecution and reference and in delusions of being

poisoned. They make the patient afraid of being attacked by his objects in the same secret manner as he attacked

them, 1 and sometimes, too, afraid of his own excrements, in case they should turn upon his ego in a hostile and

treacherous way. In analysing both children and adults I have also come across a fear that their faeces have in some way assumed an independent existence and are no longer under their control, and are doing harm to their internal and external objects against the will of the ego. In such in- stances the faeces were likened to all sorts of small animals and vermin such as rats, mice, flies, fleas and so on.2

Where the individual is most occupied with a paranoid

anxiety in regard to stool and penis as persecutors, his love-object of the same sex will represent first and fore-

most an ally against his persecutors. His libidinal desire

for a *good’ penis will be strongly over-compensated and will serve the purpose of concealing his feelings of hate and

fear towards the *bad* penis. Should such a compensation

i Cf.ChapterVIII.

a Myfive-year-oldpatientFranz,forinstance,whorevealedmarkedpsychotic

parents.

analysis,

was afraid in the dark of a multitude of rats and mice who

traits in his

would come out of the next-door room into his bedroom and advance upon him as he lay in bed, one lot attacking him from above, the other from below. They represented faeces coming from his parents and entering his anus and other openings of the body as a result of his own anal-sadistic attacks upon his

348

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

fail, his hatred and fear of his love-object will come out and

effect a paranoic reversal of the beloved person into the

1 persecutor.

These mechanisms, which are dominant in cases of a

paranoic character, enter, though to a lesser degree, into every homosexual activity. The sexual act between men

always in part serves to gratify sadistic impulses and to confirmthesenseofdestructiveomnipotence; andbehind

the positive libidinal relation to the ‘good* penis as an ex-

ternal love-object there lurk, to a greater or less extent, according to the Amount of hatred present, not only hatred of the father’s penis but also destructive impulses against the sexual partner and the fear of him that they give rise to.

In his ‘Homosexualitat und Odipuskomplex’ (1926) Felix Boehm has turned his attention to ‘the part played by that aspect of the Oedipus-Complex which consists of the child’s hatred of his father and of his death-wishes and active castration-wishes against him*. He has shown that in performing homosexual acts the male individual very

frequently has two aims: (i) to make his partner impotent for the heterosexual act, in which case it is mostly merely

a question of keeping him away from women, and (2) to castrate him, in which case he wants to get possession of

his partner’s penis as well so as to increase his own sexual potency with women. As regards the first aim, my own observations lead me to believe that his wish to keep other men away from women (i.e. his mother or sister) is based not only on a primary jealousy of his father but on a fear of the risks his mother incurs in copulating with him. Since those risks arise not only from his father’s penis but from his own sadistic penis, he is provided with a very strong motive for adopting a homosexual position. In this posi- tion, as I have found from analyses both of boys and men, he has in his unconscious made a compact with his father and brothers by which they shall all abstain from having

intercourse with his mother (and sisters) so as to spare her

and shall seek compensation for that abstention in one an-

Cf. Chapter IX.

XII THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE BOY

349

other. 1 As regards the second aim, I am in full agreement with Boehm’s view. The child’s desire to castrate his father so as to get his penis and be potent in sexual intercourse with his mother urges him towards a homosexual position, In some instances I have ascertained that his aim was not

only to get possession of an especially potent penis but to store up an enormous amount of semen which, according

to his phantasies, is necessary in order to give his mother

wish is heightened in the genital stage by his belief that if his inside is unimpaired he will be able to give his mother ‘good* semen and children as well a situation which goes to increase his potency in the heterosexual position. If, on the other hand, his sadistic tendencies predominate, his desire to get possession of his father*s penis and semen by means of the homosexual act will also in part have a hetero- sexualaim.Forinsatisfyinghimselfwithhissadisticfather he will have all the more power to destroy his mother by

copulating with her.

It has been said more than once that the epistemophilic

instinct provides a motive force in general for the perform- ance of the sexual act. But where the individual obtains gratification of this instinct in connection with homosexual activities he employs it in part to increase his efficiency in the heterosexual position. The homosexual act is designed to realize his early childhood desire of having an oppor- tunity of seeing in what respect his father’s penis differs

1 Freud has drawn attention to the fact that in some cases what contributes to a homosexual-choice of object are feelings of rivalry that have been surmounted and aggressive tendencies that have been repressed (cf. ‘Certain Neurotic Mechanisms in Jealousy, Paranoia and Homosexuality’, 1922). Sadger has emphasized the boy’s rivalry with his father and his desire to castrate him as factors in homosexuality (‘Ein Fall von multipler Perversion mit hysterischen Absenzen’, 1910), Ferenczi has pointed out that homosexuals entertain cruel death-wishes against their father as well as lustful-cruel phantasies of attack upon their mother (*On the Nosology of Male Homosexuality”, 1914).

1 Thedisproportionbetweenthehugepenisandvastquantitiesofsemenwhich he thinks are needed to satisfy his mother and the smaUness of his own penis is one of the things that help to render him impotent in later life*

sexual 2 In addition to gratification.

he wants to ‘good* penises and *good* semen inside himself so as to make the interior of his body whole and well. And this

this,

put

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

from his own and to find out how it behaves in copulating with his mother. He wants to know how to grow more adept and potent in sexual intercourse with his mother.1

Case Material Mr. B

I shall now proceed to give extracts from a case history in order to illustrate the significance of some of the above- discussed factors in the adoption of the homosexual- posi-

tion. B

a man in the middle of the thirties, came to

me for treatment on account of a severe inhibition in work

and deep depressions. His inhibition in work, which was

a fairly long-standing one, had been increased to such a

degree by a certain event in his life which I shall presently

relate that he had been obliged to give up the research

work he was engaged in and to resign his post as a teacher.

It appeared that although the development of his character

and his ego had been perfectly successful and he was un-

usually gifted intellectually, he suffered from severe dis- turbances of mental health. His fits of depression went

back to early childhood but had become so acute in recent

years that they had brought on a general state ofdepression and had led him to cut himself off from other people to a

great extent. He was afraid quite without cause that

his appearance put people off, and this added more and more to his dislike of society. He also suffered from a severe doubting-mania, which covered the field of his in- tellectual interests to an ever-widening extent and was

particularly painful to him.

Behind these more manifest symptoms I was able to

elicit the presence of a profound hypochondria and strong

ideas of persecution and reference, which at times took on the character of delusion but to which he seemed curiously

whoused,

in his homosexual affairs with men what their ‘sexual technique’ with women was.

1 Boehmrefers toa (loc. cit.)

other tofindout things,

among For additional case material, see pages 383-388.

patient

be a displacement outwards of his worry about the interior of his boay and of his hypochondriacal anxiety concerning it.

*s continual worry and preoccupation about his appearance proved to

XII THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE BOY

indifferent. He was able to conceal from everyone about him his ideas of reference and persecution and his hypo- chondriacal anxiety and even to some extent his serious

obsessional symptoms. This extraordinary power of dis-

simulation went along with his paranoid characteristics,

which were very strong. Although he felt that he was being

observed and spied upon by people and was very sus-

picious of them, his psychological subtlety was so great that

he knew how to hide his thoughts and feelings completely.

But alongside of this dissembling and calculating strain in him there was a great freshness and spontaneity of feeling

which sprang from his positive object-relationship and

went back originally to strong optimistic feelings in the depths of his mind; these latter had also helped him to

conceal his illness from view, but in the last few years they had lost almost all their efficacy.

B was a true homosexual. While having good rela- tions to women (and to men) as human beings, as sexual

objects he rejected them so completely that he was quite un- able to understand how they could be supposed to possess

strong sadistic impulses. He had phantasies of beating those ‘sticking out’ parts of their body until they became, as it were, ‘beaten in* and thus ‘reduced’, and then perhaps, he said, he would be able to love vomen. These phantasies were determined by his unconscious idea that the woman was so full of the father’s penises and dangerous excre- ments equated to the penis, that they had burst her open and were protruding out of her body. Thus his hatred of her ‘sticking out* parts was really aimed at his father’s

1 Onceortwiceinbislifehehadhadsexualintercoursewithwomenbuthe had never got any real gratification from it. His chief motives for engaging- in an ephemeral affair of this kind were curiosity, a wish to do what other, hetero- sexual, men did, and, in especial, a dislike of wounding the feelings of the other party, who had in each case been the more willing one.

attraction whatever.1 From a of view physical point

any

they were something strange, mysterious and uncanny to him. The shape of their bodies repelled him, especially

2 His dislike of their breasts and buttocks was based on intensely

their breasts and buttocks and their lack of a

penis.

1 Weshallseelateronwhythislackterrifiedhimsomuch.

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

internalizedand 1 Inhis re-emerging penises.

imagination the interior of the woman’s body was an infinitely large

space where every kind of danger and death lurked, and

she herself was only a kind of case containing terrifying penises and dangerous excrements. Her delicate skin and

all her other feminine attributes he regarded as a quite superficial cover for the destruction that was going on in-

side her, and, although they pleased him, he dreaded them all the more as being so many signs of her deceitful and

treacherous nature.

By likening the penis to pieces of stool my patient ex- tended his displacement of the fear excited by his father’s

penis on to his mother’s body still further and applied it to his father’s poisonous and dangerous excrements as well. In this way he sought to cover up and put out of sight inside his mother all the things that he hated and feared.

That this far-reaching process of displacement had failed can be inferred from the fact that B became once

more aware of his concealed anxiety-objects in the shape of the female breasts and buttocks. They symbolized per- secutors who were issuing out of the woman’s body and observing him; and, as he told me with evident dislike and anxiety, he would never dare even to strike or attack them because he was too frightened of touching them.

At the same time as he had thus displaced on to his mother’s body all those things which aroused his fear, so that it became an object of horror to him, he had idealized the penis and the male sex in a very high degree. To him the male, in whom all was manifest and clearly brought to view and who concealed no secrets within himself was alone the natural and beautiful 2 he had

1 As has been said in Chapter IV., the head, arms, hands and feet of the woman are often regarded in the unconscious as the father’s internalized penis thathascomeoutagain;herlimbs thepairoflegs,feetorarmsorevenfingers often signify both internalized parents.

Since the possession of a penis was so necessary to him for overcoming anxiety, all B- *s fears about the interior of the “woman’s body were increased by the fact of her having no such external organ.

object. Similarly,

very strongly repressed everything that had to do with the

XH THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE BOY

353

inside of his own body and had concentrated his interest in all that was on its surface and visible about it, especially the penis. But how strong were his doubts even on this head could be seen from the fact that when he was about five years old he had asked his nurse which she thought wasworst ‘infrontorbehind*(meaningpenisoranus)

and had been very much taken aback when she had answered’infront’.Healsorememberedwhenhewasabout

eight years old standing at the top of the stairs and looking down them and hating himself and the black stockings he

had on.1 His associations showed that his parents’ house

had always seemed specially gloomy to him ‘dead’, in fact and that he held himself responsible for this in its

symbolic signification of his mother’s body and his own, brought to ruin by his dangerous excrements (the black

stockings), which had damaged both her and him. In con- sequence of his extensive repression of his ‘inside* and his displacement of it on to his ‘outside’, B had come to

hate and fear the latter, not only in regard to his personal appearance, though this was a continual source of worry and care to him, but to other allied matters. For instance, he had the same loathing for certain articles of dress, especially his underclothes, that he had had for his black stockings and felt as though they were his enemies and

were hemming him in and weighing him down by clinging

so to his 2 his internalized closely body. Theyrepresented

objects and excrements which were persecuting him from within. In virtue of the displacement of his fears of internal dangers into the external world, his enemies inside him had been transformed into enemies outside him.

1 Looking down meant looking inside himself. In other cases I have been able to discover that looking into the distance stood for introspection. It -would seem that for the unconscious nothing is more distant and more unfathomable than the inside of the mother’s body and, still more, the inside of one’s own body.

* In other cases, too, I have found that things on the outside of the body

represent things inside it. My six-year-old patient, Gunthcr, used always to be making paper snakes, winding them round his neck and then tearing them up, He did this in order to master his fear not only of his father’s penis which was

strangling him from outside, but of his father’s penis which was suffocating him and killing him from within.

354

THE PSYCHOANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

Let us now turn to a consideration of the structure of the case. The patient had been brought up on the bottle. Since his libidinal components had not been gratified by his mother, his oral-sucking fixation on the breast had been impeded. Owing to this frustration, too, his destructive impulses against the breast had been increased and he had transformed that part of the body into dangerous beasts and monsters in his imagination. (In his unconscious he likened female breasts to harpies.) This process had been assisted by his equation of the breast with his father’s penis, which, he thought, had been put inside her body and was re-emerging from it. He had,” moreover, very soon begun to liken the mouthpiece of the bottle to a penis and, in conse- quence of his frustration in regard to the breast, to turn

to it with special eagerness as an object of gratification for his oral-sucking desires. His adoption of a homosexual

attitude had been very greatly helped on by the fact that he had been seduced very early in life some time

approximately in his second year by his brother, who was about two years his senior. Since the act sifellatio gratified his hitherto starved oral-sucking desires, this event led him to become too strongly fixated on the penis. Another factor was that his father, who had up till then been a very un- demonstrative man, became more affectionate under the influence of his youngest son. The little boy had been determined to win his love and he had succeeded. Analysis showed that he regarded this victory as a proof that he was able to turn his father’s ‘bad’ penis into a ‘good’ one. And his efforts to effect a transformation of this kind and thus dissipate a number of fears became in later years one of his motives for having affairs with men.

B had two brothers. For Leslie, the one who had seduced him, who was two years older than himself, he had had a great admiration and love even as a small boy,

and he made him the representative of the ‘good’ penis partly, no doubt, on account of the early gratification of his oral cravings which he had received from him through the sexual act. His greatest ambition was to become worthy of

XII THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE BOY

his friendship and to follow assiduously in his footsteps ; and, in fact, he chose the same profession. To his other brother,David,whowasolderthanhimselfbyfouryears5 he had quite a different attitude. This brother was his father’s

son by a former marriage, and B felt, probably cor- rectly, that his mother showed a preference for her own sons over him. He did not like this brother and had man- aged to get the upper hand of him as a small child in spite of the difference in their ages. This was partly due to David’s masochistic attitude, partly to his own great mental superiority over him. He vented his sadistic impulses to- wards the ‘bad’ penis upon this brother, with whom he had also had sexual relations in

1 and at the same time he regarded him as the dangerous mother in whom were contained his father’s penises. His brothers, it will be seen, were substitutes for both parent-imagos and it was towards them that he activated his relations to those imagos; for whereas he was devoted to his mother in real life and loved her much more than his father, he was pos-

sessed in phantasy, as we know, by imagos of the magical

*good’ penis (his father) and of the terrifying mother. He never got to like David even in later life, and this was

partly because, as analysis showed, he felt so very guilty towards him.

While, therefore, a number of factors were present to

encourage B ‘s adoption of a homosexual attitude, a number of other external ones were already very early working against his establishment of a heterosexual posi- tion. His mother was very fond of him, but he soon found out that she was not really loving towards his father and had an aversion to the male genital in general. He was

most likely right in his impression that she was frigid and disapproved of his own sexual desires, and her very marked

love of order and cleanliness gave the same effect. The

i B *s sexual relations with his brothers were discontinued after the first period of childhood; nor had he any conscious recollection of them. On the other hand, he remembered quite clearly and in great detail having tormented

his brother David very much, and this cruel behaviour was closely related, as analysis showed, with the sexual activities he had forgotten about.

early childhood,

356

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

nurses he had had as a small child were also antipathetic towards anything that was sexual or instinctual. (The reader will remember his nurse’s answer that *in front’ was worse than ‘behind*.) Another thing which made against the establishment of a heterosexual position was his having had no girl playmates in early childhood. There is no doubtthathisfearofthemysteriousinteriorofthewoman’s body would have been greatly lessened had he been brought up with a sister, for then he would have satisfied his sexual

curiosity concerning the female genitals much earlier. As it was, it was not until he was about twenty years old

that, on looking at a picture of a naked woman, he first consciously realized in what respect the female body dif- fered from the male. It turned out in analysis that the voluminous and spreading skirts which women wore at that time increased a thousandfold his idea of the huge, unknowable and perilous interior of their bodies. Hi$ ‘ignorance* about these matters an ignorance which

sprang from his anxiety but which had been encouraged bytheexternalfactorsdescribedabove hadhelpedto

make him reject the female as a sexual object.

In my description of the development of the male in- dividual I have shown that the centring of his sadistic

omnipotence in his penis is an important step in the estab- lishment of a heterosexual position, and that in order to

effect such a step his ego must have acquired sufficient capacity to tolerate his sadism and anxiety in earlier stages of his development. In B this capacity was small. His belief in the omnipotence of his excrements was stronger than is usual in 1 His

boys.

and his

of guilt, on the other hand, had come to the fore very early and had soon brought with them a good relationship to his

genital impulses

feelings

objects and a satisfactory adaptation to reality. His pre- maturely strengthened ego had in consequence undertaken a violent repression of his sadistic impulses, especially those

1 For the same reason he had fairly strong feminine characteristics and his sublimations were of a predominantly feminine cast. This point will receive notice later on.

XII THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE BOY

directed to his mother, so that these could not get into sufficient contact with his real objects and remained for the most part again, most of all as far as his mother was concerned attachedtohis

1Theresult of this was that side by side with the good relation he had to his objects of both sexes there still went a profound and

phantastic imagos.

dominating fear of their bad and phantastic imagos, and these two attitudes towards his objects ran a parallel but

separate course without really impinging upon one an-

other at any point.

Not only could B not, for the above reasons, em-

ploy his penis as the executive organ of his sadism against his mother; he could not give effect to his desires to re- store her by means of his ‘good* penis in the sexual act.* As regards his father’s penis his sadism was much less strongly repressed. Nevertheless, he could not give suffi- cient effect to his direct Oedipus tendencies because the factors discussed above worked too powerfully against the attainment of a heterosexual position. His hatred of his father’s penis could thus not be modified in a normal way. It had to be in part over-compensated by a belief in the ‘good’ penis, and this formed the basis of his homosexual

position.

In the course of his flight from all that was anal and all

that had to do with the inside of the body, and assisted by

his very strong oral-sucking fixation on the penis and by the factors already described, B had very early in life developed a great admiration for the penis of other boys an admiration which in certain instances amounted almost

to worship. But analysis showed that in consequence of his intense repression of anal matters the penis had taken on

anal qualities in a high degree. He thought of his own

i B

earliest anxiety-formations) had not only led to severe disorders in his mental health, to an impairment of his sexual development and to an inhibition of his capacity to work, but was the reason why his object-relationships, while in them- selves good, were at times subjected to grave disturbances.

1 Intheforegoingchaptermentionhasbeenmadeofoneortwofactorswhich enable the individual of either sex to restore his or her object by means of the sexual act.

s unsuccessful super-ego formation (i.e. the overstrong action of his

358

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

penis as inferior and ugly (as ‘dirty’ through and through, it came out), and his admiration for the penis of other men

and boys was subject to certain conditions. A penis which did not fulfil these conditions was repulsive to him, for it then took on all the characteristics ofhis father’s dangerous

penis and of ‘bad’ pieces of stool. In spite of this limitation, however, he had attained a fairly stable homosexual posi-

tion. He had no conscious sense of guilt or inferiority about his homosexual activities, for in them his restitutive tendencies, which had not been able to come out in the heterosexual position, unfolded their capacity to the full.

ject. The first, to which he had turned again and again ever

‘s erotic life was dominated by two types of ob-

since his schooldays, consisted of boys, and later on men, who were not attractive and who felt, with reason, that they were unpopular. This type answered to his brother David, B got no pleasure from having sexual relations with persons of this type because his sadistic impulses came into play too powerfully, and he was himself aware that he used to make the other feel his superiority and torment him in all sorts of ways. At the same time, however, he would be a good friend to him and would exert a favour- able mental influence on him and help him in every way. The second type answered to his other brother, Leslie. He used to fall very deeply in love with this kind of person and

would have a real adoration for his

Both served to B – ‘s restitutive tend- types gratify

encies and to allay his anxiety. In his relations to the first type, copulating meant restoring his father’s and his brother David’s penis, which, on account of his powerful

sadistic impulses against them, he imagined he had de- stroyed. At the same time he identified himself with his

inferior and castrated object, so that his hatred of the ob- ject was also directed towards himself, and his restitution of the penis of that object implied a restitution of his own

1 On one occasion he had an affair with a. third type of person who corre- sponded to his father. It happened against his will, but he could not avoid it and it aroused great anxiety in him.

penis.

XII THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE BOY

359

penis. But in the last analysis his restitutive tendencies to-

wards the penis served the purpose of restoring his mother; for it transpired that his having castrated his father and brother meant having attacked the children inside his mother and that he felt deeply guilty towards her on account of this. In restoring his father’s and his brother’s penis he was endeavouring to give his mother back an un- hurt father, unhurt children and an unhurt inside. The restoration of his own penis meant, furthermore, that he had a ‘good’ penis and could give his mother sexual

gratification.

jn ‘s relations to the Leslie type his desires to

make restitution came less into prominence, for in this case

he was concerned with the ‘perfect* penis. This ‘perfect’ penis, which was the object of his intense admiration, stood

for a whole number of magical counter-proofs against all his fears. And since he identified himself with his loved

object in this case as well, the other’s possession of a ‘per-

fect* penis was a proof that his own penis was ‘perfect* too; and it also showed that his father’s penis and his brother’s

were intact and strengthened his belief in the ‘good* penis in general and thus in the unharmed state of his mother’s body. In this relation to the admired penis, too, his sad- istic impulses found an outlet, though an unconscious one; for here as well his homosexual activities signified a castra- tion of his. loved object, partly on account of his jealousy of him and partly because he wanted to get hold of his ‘good* penis so as to be able in all respects to take his father’s place with his mother.

Although B ‘s homosexual position had been estab-

lished so early and so strongly, and although he consciously

rejected a heterosexual one, he had always unconsciously kept the heterosexual aims in view towards which, as a

small boy, he had striven so ardently in his imagination. To his unconscious his various homosexual activities re-

presented so many bypaths leading to a heterosexual goal. The standards imposed by his super-ego upon his sexual

activities were very high. In copulation he had to make

360

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

every single thing he had destroyed inside his mother, S>iosdwork of restoration began, for the reasons we have

seen, with the penis, and there, too, it ended. It was as

though a person wanted to put up a particularly fine house but was filled with doubts as to whether he had well and

truly laid the foundations. He would keep on trying to make those foundations more solid and would never be able to get to work on the rest of the building,

Thus B ‘s belief in his ability to restore the penis was the foundation of his mental stability, and when that belief was shattered he fell ill. This was what happened : Some years before, his beloved brother Leslie had lost

his life on a journey of exploration. Although his death

had affected B

health. He was able to bear the blow because it did not arouse his sense of guilt or undermine his belief in his constructive omnipotence to any great extent. Leslie had

been for him the possessor of the magical *good* penis, and he,B , couldtransferhisbeliefinhimandloveofhim

on to someone else as a substitute. But now his brother David fell ill. B devoted himself to him during his illness and hoped to effect his cure by the exertion of a strong and favourable influence upon him. But his hopes were cheated and David died. It was this blow that shat- tered him and brought on his illness. Analysis showed that this second blow had hit him much harder than the first because he had a strong sense of guilt towards his eldest brother. Above all, his belief that he could restore the damaged penis had been undermined. This meant that he had to abandon hope about all the things which in his

unconscious he was endeavouring to restore in the last resort his mother and his own body. The severe inhibition in his work that overtook him was another consequence of his loss of hope.

We have seen why it was that his mother could not become the object of his restitutive tendencies, as carried out by copulation, and therefore could not be a sexual object for him. She could only be the object of his tender

very deeply it had not upset his mental

xii THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE BOY

361

emotions. But even so his anxiety and sense of guilt

were too great; and not only were his object-relations exposed to severe disturbances, but his sublimatory tend-

encies were much impeded. It turned out that B

who was consciously a good deal preoccupied about his mother’s health although, as he said himself, she was not

exactly an invalid, but ‘delicate’ was in his- unconscious

a complete slave to this preoccupation. He gave expression to it in the transference-situation by being in continual

fear, just before his analysis broke off for the holidays (and, as it turned out later, before every week-end, and even between one day and the next), that he would never see me again, as some fatal accident might have overtaken me in the meantime. This phantasy, which recurred again and again with all sorts of variations, had the same main theme running through it that I should be knocked down and run over by a motor-car in a crowded street. This street was in fact a street in his home town in America and played a great part in his childhood memories. When he used to go out with his nurse he had always crossed it in the fear as analysis showed that he would never see his mother again. Whenever he was in a state of deep depres- sion he used to say in his analysis that things could never be ‘right again’ and he would never be able to work any more unless certain things which had happened in the world since he was a small child could be made not to have happened as,forinstance,thatallthetrafficwhichhad passed along that street should not have passed along it. To him, as to the children whose analyses I have reported in an earlier part of this book, the movement of cars repre- sented the act of copulation between his parents, which in his masturbation phantasies he had transformed into an act fatal to both parties, so that he became a prey to the fear that his mother and (because of his introjection of the ‘bad’ penis and of his combined parents) he himself would

be wrecked by his father’s dangerous penis incorporated within her. Hence his manifest fear that she and he would

be run over by a car. In contrast to his native town, which

362

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

he thought of as a dark, lifeless and ruined place in spite of the fact or because of the fact, as his analysis showed that there was a lot of traffic there (i.e. continual copulation

between his father and mother), he pictured an imaginary

full of

life, light

and 1 andsometimesfound beauty,

city

his vision realized, though only for a short time, in the cities he visited in other countries. This far-off visionary city represented his mother once more made whole and reawakened to a new life, and also his own restored body. But the excess of his anxiety made him feel that a restora- tion of this kind could not be accomplished, and this, too, was the cause of his inhibition in work.

During the time when B was still able to work he was engaged in writing a book in which he set down the results of his scientific researches. This book, which he had to give up writing when his inhibition in work grew too strong, had the same meaning for him as the beautiful city. Each separate bit of information, each single sentence, denoted his father’s restored penis and unharmed children, and the book itself represented his unimpaired mother ajnd his own restored body. It emerged in analysis that it was his fear of the ‘bad’ content of his own body which was the principal hindrance to his creative

powers. One of his hypochondriacal symptoms was a feel- ing of immense emptiness inside. On the intellectual plane

it took the form of a complaint that things that were valu- able and beautiful and interesting to him lost their value and were ‘worn out’ and taken away from him in some way. The deepest cause of this complaint turned out to be his fear that in ejecting his bad imagos and dangerous excre- ments he might have lost those contents of his body which were ‘good’ and ‘beautiful’.

The most powerful motive force of his creative work came from his feminine position. In his unconscious a certain condition was imposed: not unless his body was

1 Hereagaineverydetailofhisbeautifulmake-believecitypicturedarestora- tion and further beautification and perfection of his mother’s body and his own, which, as he imagined, had suffered damage and destruction.

XII THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE BOY

363

filled with good objects actually with beautiful children 1 could he create, i.e. bring children into the world. In order to obey this condition he had to get rid of the ‘bad* objects inside him (but then he felt empty); or else he had to turn them into ‘good’ ones, just as he wanted to turn his father’s penis and his brother’s into ‘good’ penises. If he had been able to do this he would have gained the assur- ance that his mother’s body and her children and his father’s penis were all restored too; then his father and mother would have been able to live together in amity and to give each other complete sexual satisfaction, and he himself, in identification with his ‘good’ father, could have given his mother children and could have consolidated his

heterosexual position.

When my patient once more took up his book, after

an analysis of fourteen months’ duration, his identification with his mother came to the fore very clearly. It showed itself in the transference-situation in phantasies of being my daughter. He remembered that when he was a small boy he longed to be a girl, because he would then have been able to love his mother in a sexual way. For he would not have had to be afraid of hurting her with his penis, which was hateful to her and which he himself felt to be dan-

2 But in of his identification with his mother spite

gerous.

and his markedly feminine characteristics^-characteristics

which came out in his book as well he had not been able

to maintain the feminine position. This was a great

stumbling-block in the way of his creative activities, which had always to some extent been inhibited.

As his identification with his mother and his desire to

1 Inthelastchapterwehaveseenthatthegirl’sbeliefintheomnipotenceof excrements is more strongly developed than the boy’s and that this factor has a

influence on the character of her sublimations. I have shown the current ofsublimationwhichflowsfromthe*bad”anduglypieceofstooltothe’beautiful*

specific

child. B

*s belief in the omnipotence of his penis as the executive organ of

‘sadism was not adequately effective and his belief in the omnipotence of excre-

ments was relatively stronger; consequently his sublimations were of a distinctly

feminine

type.

* B recollected having repeatedly tried as a small boy to squeeze his penis

between his thighs so as to make it vanish from view.

364

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

be a woman became more prominent in his analysis his inhibition in work gradually diminished. His wish to have

children and, concurrently, his creative capacities had been checked by his fear of his internalized objects in the first instance. For his fear of his mother as a rival was directed first and foremost towards his internalized ‘bad* mother who was united with his father. It was to those internalized objects, too, that his intense fear of being watched and observed referred. He had, as it were, to

preserve every thought from them, for each thought repre- sented a ‘good’ bit inside him a child.1 For this reason

he would commit his thoughts to paper as rapidly as possible so as to protect them from the ‘bad’ objects which would get in his way in writing. He had to undertake a separation of ‘good’ objects from ‘bad’ ones inside his body and also to transform the ‘bad’ ones into ‘good* ones. His work in writing his book and the whole process of mental production entailed by it were likened in his un- conscious to restoring the inside of his body and creating children. These children were to be his mother’s, and he restored his ‘good’ mother within himself by filling her with beautiful restored children and by carefully trying to preserve those re-created objects from the ‘bad’ objects inside him, which were his parents combined in copulation and his father’s ‘bad’ penis. In this way he made his own body sound and beautiful as well, because his ‘good*, beautiful and unimpaired mother would in her turn protect him from the ‘bad’ objects inside him. With this ‘good’ restored mother B was able also to

identify

The beautiful children (thoughts, knowledge) with which, in his imagination, he peopled his inside were the children

1 Hisfearofhisbadimages,whichmadehimendeavourtodenyandsubdue his unconscious to a more than ordinary degree, had a great deal to do with the inhibition of his productive powers. He could never abandon himself completely to his unconscious, and so an important source of creative energy was closed to him.

4 The ‘pure’ and ‘untouched’ woman is the mother who has not been sullied or destroyed by the father’s penis and by his dangerous excrements and who can therefore give her lover *good, healing and pure* substances out of her own intact body.

himself.2

Xii THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE BOY

365

which he had conceived in identification with his mother as well as the children which he had begot on her as the ‘good* mother that is, the mother who gave him milk and thus helped him to get a sound and potent penis. And it was not until he was able to adopt and sublimate this feminine position that his masculine components became more effective and fruitful in his work.

In proportion as his belief in his ‘good’ mother grew

stronger and his paranoid and hypochondriacal anxiety and also his depressions became less intense, B became

increasingly able to carry on his work, at first showing

every sign of anxiety and compulsion but later doing it with much greater ease. Hand in hand with this there went

a steady diminution of his homosexual symptoms. His adoration of the penis grew less and his fear of the ‘bad’ penis, which had hitherto been overlaid by his admiration

for the ‘good’ (the beautiful) penis, came to light. In this

phase we became acquainted with a particular fear, namely, that’ his father’s ‘bad’ internalized penis had got possession

of his own by thrusting its way inside it and controlling it from within.1 B felt that he had thus lost command over his own penis and could not use it in a ‘good* and

productive way* This fear had come up very strongly when he was in the age of puberty. At that time he was trying

with all his might to keep himself from masturbating. In consequence he was having nocturnal emissions. This started a fear in him that he could not control his penis and that it was possessed by the devil. He also thought

1 InmyanalysesofmalepatientsofallagesIhavemorethanoncecomeacross

this special danger-situation in which the father’s ‘bad* penis fills up the subjects own penis from within and thus takes complete possession of it. For instance, a small patient of mine once put a pencil with a penal-cap into the fire. He wanted to burn out of the pencil-cap something ‘bad’, something strong and hard, that was contained in it. The pencil-cap represented his own penis and the ‘bad’ thing (the pencil itself) that had to be burnt out of it was his father’s penis. On another occasion he put a bit of wood in the fire and at the same time sharpened his pencil, explaining that he did this so that the ‘bad* wood should burn better. It turned out that in his imagination the bit of wood and the pencil belonged together and stuck into each other and fought with one another. Upon being

analysed, this danger-situation sets free anxiety of a specially intense kind and it is, I think, a serious obstacle to sexual potency in the man.

366

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH.

that it was because it was possessed by the devil that it could change its size and become larger or smaller, and he attributed all the changes it underwent in connection with his development to the same cause.

This fear had greatly contributed to his dislike of his own penis and to his feeling that it was inferior, in the sense of being anal, ‘bad’ and destructive. There arose in

connection with it an important impediment, too, to his adoption of a heterosexual position. Since he must suppose that his father’s ‘bad* penis would always be present while he had coitus with his mother and would force him to

commit bad actions, he was obliged to keep away from women. It now became evident that the excessive emphasis

he had put upon his penis as the representative of the conscious and what was visible and his manifold repression

and denial of the existence of the interior of his body had failed in this point as well. As soon as this set of fears had been analysed, B ‘s capacity for work was still further increased and his heterosexual position fortified.

At this point in the progress of his analysis my patient had to stop coming to me for some time as he was obliged

togobacktoAmericatosettlehisaffairs; butheintended to return for further treatment. Up to this point his analysis had occupied 380 hours and lasted about two years. The results so far were that his deep depressions and his inhibition in work had been almost completely removed and his obsessional symptoms and anxiety, both

of the paranoid and hypochondriacal variety, considerably diminished. These results justify us, I think, in believing

that a further period of treatment will enable him fully to establish a heterosexual position. But in order to bring this about it is clear from the analysis that has already been done that his fear of his unrealistic mother-imago will have to be still further reduced, so that his real objects and his

imaginary ones, so widely separated in his mind, may come closer together, and his growing belief in his ‘good’ restored mother and in his possession of a ‘good’ penis, which has up till now for the most part been directed

XII THE SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE BOY

367

towards his internalized mother and helped to remove his inhibition in work, may have its full effect upon his rela- tions to women as sexual objects. Furthermore, his fear of his father’s ‘bad’ penis must be still further reduced so as to strengthen his identification with his ‘good* father.

In the case under discussion it will be seen that the

factors upon whose stronger operation depends the patient’s

complete change from homosexuality to heterosexuality are the same factors as those whose presence has been

mentioned in the first part of this chapter as a necessary condition for the firm establishment of a heterosexual

position. In tracing the development of the normal male individual I pointed out there that the foundation of it was

the supremacy of the good mother-imago which assists the boy to overcome his sadism and works against all his vari-

ous anxieties. As in the case of his fears on this head, the boy’s desire to restore his mother’s body and his desire to restore his own interact, the fulfilment of the one being essential to the fulfilment of the other. In the genital stage they are a pre-condition for his attainment of sexual potency. An adequate belief in the ‘good’ contents of his body which oppose and neutralize its ‘bad’ contents and excrement seems to be necessary in order that his penis, as the repre- sentative of his body as a whole, shall produce ‘good’ and beneficent semen. This belief, which coincides with his

belief in his capacity to love, depends upon his having sufficient belief in his ‘good’ imagos, especially in his

‘good’ mother and in her unimpaired and beneficent

body*

When he has attained the full genital level the male

individual returns in copulation to his original source of gratification, his bountiful mother, who now gives him

genital pleasure as well; and, partly as a return gift, partly as a reparation for all the attacks he has made on her from

the time he did injury to her breast, he gives her his ‘beneficent’ semen which shall endow her with children, restore her body and afford her oral gratification as well.

368

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN CH. xn

The anxiety and sense of guilt that are still present in him have increased and deepened and lent shape to his primary

libidinal impulses as an infant at the breast, giving his attitude towards his object all that wealth and fulness of feeling which we call love.

APPENDIX

THE SCOPE AND LIMITS OF CHILD ANALYSIS

regard to the adult the function of Psycho-Analysis is clear. It is to correct the unsuccessful course which

his psychological development has taken. In order to

do this it must aim at harmonizing his id with the require-

ments of his super-ego. In effecting an adjustment of this

kind it will also put his now strengthened ego in a position

to satisfy the requirements of reality as well.

But what about children? How does analysis affect a

life which is still in the process of development? In the first place, analysis resolves the sadistic fixations of the child and thus decreases the severity of its super-ego, at the

same time lessening its anxiety and the pressure of its instinctual desires; and, as its sexual life and super-ego

both mount to a higher stage of development its ego ex- pands and becomes able to reconcile the requirements of

its super-ego with those of reality as well, so that its new sublimations are more solidly founded and its old ones shed their spasmodic and obsessive character.

At the age of puberty the child’s detachment from its

objects, which should go along with a heightening of its internal standards, can only take effect if its anxiety and sense of guilt do not overstep certain limits. Otherwise its behaviour will have the character of flight rather than of

genuine detachment; or it will be unable to get away at all and will remain for ever fixated to its original objects.

If the child’s development is to have a satisfactory out-

369

37O

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN

come the severity of its super-ego must become mitigated. Greatly as the standards proper to each age may differ from

one another, the attainment of them depends in each case

upon the same fundamental condition, namely, upon an adjustment between the super-ego and the id and the

consequent establishment of an adequately strong ego.

Analysis, in helping to effect an adjustment of this kind, follows and supports the child’s natural line of growth at

every stage of its development. At the same time it regu- lates the child’s sexual activities. By lessening the child’s

anxiety and feelings of guilt it restricts those activities in so far as they are compulsive and promotes them in so far as they have led to a fear of touching. In thus affecting the factors that underlie a faulty development as a whole, analysis also enables the child freely to unfold the begin- nings of its sexual life and personality.

In these pages I have endeavoured to show that the

further analysis penetrates into the underlying strata of themindthemorethepressureofthesuper-egois relieved. But we must ask ourselves whether it is not possible that

a deep-going analytic procedure of this kind may not greatly diminish the function of the super-ego or even

abolish it altogether. We have seen that libido, super-ego

and object-relationship interact in their development, and that the libidinal and destructive impulses, besides being

fused together exert a reciprocal action upon each other; and we have also seen that when anxiety is aroused as a

result of sadism the demands of those two sets of impulses

are 1 Thus the which emanates from heightened. anxiety

the earliest danger-situations not only exerts a great influ-

ence upon the libidinal fixation-points and sexual experi- ences of the child, but is actually bound up with them and has itself become an element of those libidinal fixations.

Psycho-analytic experience has shown that even a very thoroughgoing treatment will only lessen the strength of

1 Whereas a certain modicum of anxiety in the child increases its need for

love and forms its capacity for loving, excess of anxiety has a paralysing effect on them.

ous internalized 1 and leads to definite objects,

APPENDIX

371

the child’s pre-genital fixation-points and sadism, never

remove them altogether. Only a portion of its pre-genital libido can be converted into genital libido. This familiar

fact is equally true, in my opinion, of the super-ego. The anxiety which the child has as a result of its destructive

impulses and which answers both in quantity and quality to its sadistic phantasies, merges with its fear of danger-

anxiety- situations; andtheseanxiety-situationsareattachedtoits

pre-genital impulses, and, as I have endeavoured to show,

can never be entirely done away with. Analysis can only weaken their power, in so far as it reduces the child’s

sadism and anxiety. Hence it follows that the super-ego

belonging to the early stages of childhood never completely relinquishes its functions. All that analysis can do is to

relax the pre-genital fixations and diminish anxiety and thus assist the super-ego to move forward from pre-genital

stages to the genital stage. Every advance made in the reduction of the severity of the super-ego means that the libidinal impulses have gained power in relation to the de- structive ones and that the libido has attained the genital stage in a fuller measure.

I should like for a moment to consider the factors that bring on psycho-neurotic illness. I shall not discuss those very numerous cases in which the illness has gone back to the early childhood of the individual, sometimes changing its features in the course of his life, sometimes keeping to its original character, but shall confine myself to those cases in which the outbreak of the illness has apparently dated from a particular moment in his life. Here, too, analysis shows that the illness was there already in a latent form, but that, as a result of certain events, it entered upon an acute stage which made it an illness from a practical point of view. One way in which this can happen is that the individual may meet with events in his life which

confirm his predominating early anxiety-situations to such anextentthatthequantityofanxietypresentinhimrisesto

i Cf. Chapter VIII.

372 THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN

a pitch which his ego cannot tolerate and becomes manifest as an illness. Or, again, external events of an unfavourable

kind may receive pathological significance for him by

causing disturbances in the process of mastering anxiety, with the result that his ego is left helplessly exposed to

the excessive pressure of anxiety. In this way, by shaking his belief in his helpful imagos and in his own constructive

capacities and thus obstructing his means of mastering

anxiety, some disappointment, quite slight in itself, can start an illness in him quite as well as an event which con-

firms his early fears in reality and increases his anxiety. These two factors go hand in hand to a certain extent; and any occurrence which acts in both ways at once is specially calculated to bring on mental illness.1

It will be seen from what has been said that the child’s

early anxiety-situations are the basis of all psycho-neurotic affections. And since, as we know, analysis can never stop the operation of those situations altogether, either in the treatment of adults or children, it cannot ever effect a com- plete cure nor entirely exclude the possibility that the individual will succumb to a psychological illness at some later date. But what it can do is to bring about a relative cure and so greatly lessen the chances of a future illness.

And this is of the greatest practical importance. The more analysis can do in the way of reducing the force of the

child’s early anxiety-situations and of fortifying its ego

and the methods employed by its ego in mastering anxiety, the more successful will it be as a prophylactic measure.

Another limitation to which psycho-analysis is subjected

arises out of the individual variations that exist, even in

small children, in the mental composition of the individual

In his paper, ‘The Problem of Paul Morphy’ (1931), Ernest Jones has described an instance where the occasion of illness was based on different mechan- isms. He has shown that the psychosis to which Morphy, the famous chess- player, succumbed had the following causes. His mental balance depended upon the fact that in playing chess he was able to express his aggression directed towards his father-imagos in an ego-syntonic manner. It so happened that the person whom he most wanted to meet as his opponent evaded his challenge

and behaved in such a way as to arouse his sense of guilt; and this was the exciting1 cause of Morphy’s illness.

APPENDIX

373

in question. The extent of his ability to resolve anxiety will depend very greatly upon how much anxiety is present,

what anxiety-situations predominate and which are the principal defensive mechanisms which the ego has evolved

in the early stages of his development in other words, upon what the structure of his mental disturbance in child- hood has been.1

In fairly severe cases I have found it necessary to carry on analysis for a long time for children from five to thirteen years old, between eighteen and thirty-six work- ing months,2 and for some adults longer still before the anxiety had been sufficiently modified, both in quantity and quality, for me to feel justified in ending the treatment.

On the other hand, the disadvantage of such a lengthy

treatment is fully made up for by the more far-reaching

and permanent results which a deep analysis achieves.

And in many cases a much shorter time suffices thanfromeighttotenworkingmonths toobtainquite

satisfactory results.

Repeated attention has been drawn in these pages to

the great possiblities offered by Child Analysis. Analysis can do for children, whether normal or neurotic, all that it can do for adults, and much more. It can spare the child the many miseries and painful experiences which the adult goes through before he comes to be analysed; and its

therapeutic prospects are much brighter. The experience of the last few years has given me and other child-analysts

good grounds for believing that psychoses and psychotic

traits, malformations of character, asocial 4 behaviour, grave

obsessional neuroses and inhibitions of development can be cured while the individual is still young. When he is

1 It may be remarked that where intense anxiety and severe symptoms are exhibited in analysis the structure of the illness is often more favourable than where there are no symptoms at all.

2 Ihavehadachild-patientwhoseanalysislastedforty-fiveworkingmonths.

3 In Chapter V. we have seen how in a number of instances in which treat-

ment had to be broken off, even a few months* analysis brought about consider-

able improvement by diminishing- anxiety in the deepest levels of the mind.

asozialer Kinder und Jugendlicher* (1932).

Cf. in this connection Melitta Schmideberg’s paper, *2ur Psychoanalyse

not more

374

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN

grown up, these conditions, as we know, are inaccessible or only partly accessible to psycho-analytic treatment. What course an illness will take in future years often cannot, it is true, be foretold in childhood. It is impossible to know with certainty whether it will turn into a psychosis, crimi- nal malformation of character or severe inhibition. But successful analysis of abnormal children will obviate all these possibilities. If every child who shows disturbances that are at all severe were to be analysed in good time, a

great number of those people who later end up in prisons

or lunatic asylums, or who go completely to pieces, would be saved from such a fate and be able to develop a normal

life. If Child Analysis can accomplish a work of this kind and there are many indications that it can it would be the means not only of helping the individual but of doing incalculable service to society as a whole.

LIST OF BOOKS AND PAPERS REFERRED TO

ABRAHAM, KARL, Selected Papers on Psycho-Analysts* London, 1927; ‘Ejaculatio Praecox’ (1917).

‘The Narcissistic Evaluation of Excretory Processes in Dreams and Neurosis’ (1920).

‘Manifestations of the Female Castration Complex* (1921).

‘Psycho-Analytic Studies on Character-Formation’ (1925).

ALEXANDER, FRANZ, Psychoanalyse der Gesamtpersonlichkeit, Vienna, 1927.

BENEDEK, THERESE, *Todestrieb und Angst’, Internationale Zeitschriftfur Psychoanalyse, Bd. xvii., 1931.

BOEHM, FELIX, *Homosexualitat und PolygarmV, Internationale Zeitschrift

fur Psychoanalyse, Bd. vL, 1920.

*Homosexualitat und Odipuskomplex*, Internationale Zeitschrift

fur Psychoanalyse, Bd. xii., 1926.

‘The Femininity Complex in Men’ (1929), International Journal

ofPsycho-Analysis, vol. xi., 1930.

BRUNSWICK, R. MACK, *A Supplement to Freud’s “History of an Infantile Neurosis”‘, InternationalJournalofPsycho-Analysis,vol.ix., 1928.

CHADWICK, MART, *tJber die Wurzel der Wissbegierde’, Internationale Zeitschriftfur Psychoanalyse, Bd. xi., 1925. Abstract in International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, vol. vi, 1925.

DEUTSCH, HELENE, Psychoanalyse der toeiblichen Sexualfunktionen, Vienna, 1925.

The Genesis of Agoraphobia* (1928), International Journal of

Psycho-Analysis, vol. x., 1929.

‘The Significance of Masochism in the Mental Life of Women*,

InternationalJournalofPsycho-Analysis,vol.xi., 1930.

FEDERN, PAUL, ‘Beitrage zur Analyse des Sadismus und Masochismus’, InternationaleZeitschriftfurPsychoanalyse,Bd.i., 1913.

FENICHEL, OTTO, ‘Die Identifizierung’, Internationale Zeitschrift fur Psychoanalyse, Bd. xii., 1926.

CA Short of the Study

of the Libido’

*The Influence of Oral Erotism on Character-Formation’ (1924).

Development

(1924).

575

376

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN

‘Some Infantile Sexual Theories not hitherto Described’ (1927),

InternationalJournalofPsycho-Analysis,vol.ix., 1928.

Tregenital Antecedents of the Oedipus Complex* (1930), Inter-

national Journal of Psycho-Analysis, vol. xii., 1931.

*t)ber respiratorische Introjektion’, Internationale Z<?itschriftfiir

Psychoanalyse, Bd. xvii., 1931.

FERENCZI, SANDOR, Contributions to Psycho-Analysis* Boston, 1916: ‘Stages in the Development of a Sense of Reality’ (191*3). ‘The Origin of Interest in Money’ (1914).

‘On the Nosology of Male Homosexuality’ (1914).

Further Contributions to the Theory and Technique of Psycho-

Analysis, London, 1926:

‘Psycho-Analytic Observations on Tic’ (1919). ‘On Forced Phantasies’ (1924).

‘The Problem of the Acceptance of Unpleasant Ideas’ (1926). ‘Attempt to Formulate a Genital Theory’ (1922), International

JournalofPsycho-Analysis,vol.iv., 1923.

‘The Psycho-Analysis of Sexual Habits’ (1925), International

JournalofPsycho-Analysis,vol.vi., 1926.

FLUGEL, J. C, The Psychology of Clothes, London, 1930.

FREUD, ANNA, Einfiihrung in die Technik der Kinderanalyse, Vienna, 1927.

FREUD, SIGMUND, The Interpretation of Dreams, Vienna, 1900. ‘Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria* (1905), Collected

Papers, vol. iii., London, 1925.

Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie, Vienna, 1905.

‘Notes Upon a Case of Obsessional Neurosis’ (1909), Collected

Papers, vol. iii., London, 1925.

‘Analysis of a Phobia in a Five-Year-Old Boy’ (1909), Collected

Papers, vol. iii., London, 1925.

Eine Kindheitserinnerung des Leonardo da Vinci, Vienna, 1910. Totem und Tabu, Vienna, 1912.

‘The Predisposition to Obsessional Neurosis* (1913), Collected

Papers, vol. ii., London, 1924.

‘Instincts and their Vicissitudes’ (1915), Collected Papers, vol. iv.,

London, 1925.

‘From the History of an Infantile Neurosis’ (1918), Collected

Papers, vol. iii., London, 1925.

Beyond the Pleasure-Principle, London, 1920.

Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis (1918), London, 1920. ‘Certain Neurotic Mechanisms in Jealousy, Paranoia and Homo-

sexuality’ (1922), Collected Papers, vol. ii., London, 1924.

‘The Economic Problem in Masochism’, Collected Papers, vol. ii.

London, 1924.

LIST OF BOOKS AND PAPERS REFERRED TO

377

‘The Passing of the Oedipus Complex’, Collected Papers, vol. ii., London, 1924.

Hemmung, Symptom und Angst, Vienna, 1926.

Die Frage der Laienanalyse, Vienna, 1926. Reviewed in the Inter- nationalJournalofPsycho-Analysisy vol.viii., 1927.

The Ego and the Id (1923), London, 1927.

‘Some Psychological Consequences of the Anatomical Distinction between the Sexes* (1925), International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, vol. viii., 1927.

‘Humour’,InternationalJournalofPsycho-Analysis,vol.ix., 1928. Civilization and its Discontents, London, 1929.

‘Female Sexuality’, International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, vol.

xiii., 1932.

GLOVER, EDWARD, ‘The Significance of the Mouth in Psycho-Analysis*, British Journal of Medical Psychology, vol. iv., 1924.

‘Notes on Oral Character-Formation’, International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, vol. vi., 1925.

HORNET, KARIN, ‘On the Genesis of the Castration Complex in Women’

(1923), International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, vol. v., 1924. ‘The Flight from Womanhood*, International Journal of Psycho-

Analysis, vol. vii,, 1926.

HUG-HELLMUTH, H. v., ‘Zur Technik der Kinderanalyse’, Internationale Zeitschriftfur Psychoanalyse, Bd. vii., 1921.

ISAACS, SUSAN, ‘Privation and Guilt’, International Journal of Psycho- Analysis, vol. x., 1929.

JEKELS, L., Zur Psychologic des Mitleids’, Imago, Bd. xvi., 1930.

JONES, ERNEST, ‘The Theory of Symbolism* (1916), Papers on Psycho- Analysis, London, 1923.

‘The Madonna’s Conception through the Ear*, Essays in Applied Psycho-Analysis, London, 1923.

‘The Nature of Auto-Suggestion’, International Journal of Psycho-

Analysis, vol. iv., 1923. ‘TheOriginandStructureoftheSuper-Ego’,InternationalJournal

of Psycho-Analysis, vol. vii., 1926.

‘The Early Development of Female Sexuality’, International

JournalofPsycho-Analysis,vol.viii., 1927.

‘Fear, Guilt and Hate*, International Journal of Psycho-Analysts,

vol. x., 1929.

‘The Problem of Paul Morphy*, International Journal of Psycho-

Analysis, vol. xii., 1931.

KLEIN, MELANIE, ‘The Development of a Child*, International Journal

of Psycho-Analysis, vol. iv., 1923.

‘Infant Analysis* (1923), International Journal of Psycho-Analysis,

vol. vii., 1926.

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN

‘TheRfiJeoftheSchoolintheLibidinalDevelopmentoftheChild*

(1923), International Journal of Psycho-Analysis^ vol. v., 1924. *Zur Genese des Tics*, Internationale Zeitschriftfur Psychoanalyse,

Bd.xi., 1925.

nationalJournalofPsycho-Analysis,vol.viii., 1927.

‘Early Stages ofthe Oedipus Conflict* (1927), InternationalJoumal

of Psycho-Analysis, vol. ix., 1928.

‘Personification in the Play of Children’, International Journal of

Psycho-Analysis, vol. x., 1929.

‘Infantile Anxiety-Situations Reflected in a Work of Art and in the

Creative Impulse’, International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, vol. x.f 1929.

‘The Importance of Symbol-Formation in the Development of the Ego’, International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, vol. xL, 1930.

‘A Contribution to the Theory of Intellectual Inhibition’, Inter- nationalJournalofPsycho-Analysis,vol.xii., 1931.

LAFORGUE, RENi, *t)ber Skotomisation in dcr Schizophrenic’, Inter- nmtionaleZeitschriftfurPsychoanalyse,Bd.xii., 1926.

LEWIN, B. D., ‘Kotschmieren, Menses und weibliches t)ber-Ich% Inter- nationale Zeitschrift fur Psychoanalyse, Bd. xvi., 1930.

OPHUIJIEN, J. H. W. v., ‘On the Origins of the Feeling of Persecution’, InternationalJournalofPsyche-Analysis,vol.i., 1920.

RADO*, SANDOR, The Psychic Effects of Intoxicants’, Internationa/ Journal

ofPsycho-Analysis,vol.vii., 1926.

‘The Problem of Melancholia’, International Journal of Psycho-

The Psychological Principles of Infant Analysis’ (1926), Inter-

Analysis, vol. ix., 1928. 49

RANK, OTTO, Das Schauspiel in Hamlet , Imago, Bd. hr., 1916. Psychoanalysehe Beitra’ge zurMythenforschung, Vienna, 1919 and

1922.

REICH, WILHELM, Der triebhafie Charakter, Vienna, 192$.

Die Funktion aes Orgasm**, Vienna, 1927.

‘Phobic and Charakterbildung’, Internationale Zeitschrift fur Psychoanalyse* Bd. xvi., 1930.

RtiK, THEODOR, ‘Libido und Schuldge&hk’. Der Bchrecken, Vienna, 1929.

RITIEKI, JOAN, ‘Womanliness as a Masquerade’, International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, vol. x., 1929.

RfaiiM, G^ZA, ‘Das volkerpsychologische in Freud’s Massenpsychologie und Ichanalyse’, Internationale Zeitschriftfur Psychoanalyse, Bd. viii., 1922.

‘Nach dem Tode des Urvaters*, Imago, Bd. ix., 1923.

SACHS, HANKS, ‘Gemeinsame Tagtriume*, Internationale Zeitschrift fur Psychoanalyse, Bd. vi^ 1920.

LIST OF BOOKS AND PAPERS REFERRED TO

379

‘One of the Motive Factors in the Formation of the Super-Ego in Women’ (1927), International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, vol. x., 1929.

SADGER, J., ‘Ein Fall von multipler Perversion mit hysterischen Absenzen’, Jahrbuchfurpsychoanalytischen Forschungen, Bd. ii., 1910.

‘t)ber Urethralerotik’, Jahrbuch fur pychoanalyt’tsckcn For- schungen, Bd. ii., 1910.

SCHMIDEBERG, MELiTTA,’Psychotic Mechanismsin Cultural Development’, InternationalJournalofPsycho-Analysis,vol.xi., 1930.

‘A Contribution to the Psychology of Persecutory Ideas and De- lusions’, International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, vol. xii., 1931.

Tsychoanalytisches zur Menstruation’, Zeitschrift fur psycho-

analytische Padagogie, Bd. v., 1931.

‘Einige unbewusste Mechanismen im pathologischen Sexualleben

und ihre Beziehung zur normalen Sexualbetatigung’, Internationale

Zeitschriftfiir Psychoanalyse, Bd. xviii., 1932.

‘Zur Psychoanalyse asozialer Kinder und Jugendlicher’, Inter-

nationale Zeitschriftfur Psychoanalyse, Bd. xvtii., 1932.

SEARL, M. N., ‘The Flight to Reality’, International Journal of Psycho-

Analysis, vol. x., 1929.

*The Roles of Ego and Libido in Development*, Internationa!

Journal of Psycho-Analysis, vol. xi., 1930.

‘A Paranoic Mechanism as seen in the Analysis ofa Child.’ Abstract

in the International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, vol. ix., 1928.

SHARPE, ELLA F., ‘History as Phantasy’, International Journal of Psycho-

Analysis, vol. viii., 1929.

‘Certain Aspects of Sublimations and Delusions’, International

JournalofPsycho-Analysis,vol.xi., 1930. SIMMEL,ERNST,’TheDoctor-Game,IllnessandtheProfessionofMedicine’,

Internationa!JournalofPsycho-Analysis,vol.vii., ^26.

STIRCKE, AUGUST, ‘The Reversal of the Libido-Sign in Delusions of Persecution’ (1919), International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, vol. L,

1920.

‘Psycho-Analysis and Psychiatry’, International Journal of Psycho-

Analysis, vol. ii., 1921.

STRACHEY, JAMES, ‘Some Unconscious Factors in Reading , International

Journal of Psycho-Analysis, vol. xi., 1930.

‘SYMPOSIUM ON CHILD-ANALYSIS’, International Journal of Psycho-

Analysis, vol. viii., 1927.

WEISS, EDOARDO, ‘t)ber eine noch unbeschriebene Phase der Entwicklung

zur homosexuellen Liebe’, Internationale Zeitschrift fur Psycho- analyse, Bd. xi., 1925.

AUTHOR’S NOTE, 194.8

No alteration in the text of this book has been made since the first edition and therefore the bibliography has not been brought up to date. Since 1932 the following works by the author have been published:

WEANING, published in On the Bringing Up of Children, by Five Psycho- Analysts, editor John Rickman (Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co. Ltd., 1936).

LOVE, GUILT AND REPARATION, published in Love, Hate and Reparation, Two Lectures by Melanie Klein and Joan Riviere (Institute of

Psycho-Analysis and Hogarth Press, 1937).

SOME PSYCHOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS, contributed to Science and Ethics,

editor C. H. Waddington (Allen and Unwin, 1942).

NOTES ON SOME SCHIZOID MECHANISMS, published in the International

Journal of Psycho-Analysis, vol. xxvii, 1946.

Contributions to Psycho-Analysts, 19211945 (Institute of Psycho-Analysis and Hogarth Press, 1948).

Franz

John Erna

Gu”nther

Grete 7

Inge 7 Werner 9

Egon 9\ Kenneth 9^

Pages

23-28, 29, 47, 60, 61, 140n., 161 n., 162 n., 227

48, 57-60

40-46,48,49,90n. 155-160

166-171, 347 n.

234-236 Obsessional neurosis; 32, 65-93, in,

LIST OF PATIENTS

Diagnosis Obsessional neurosis

Infantile neurosis; incon- tinence of urine and faeces

Severe infantile neurosis

Infantile neurosis; un- mistakable psychotic traits

Severe infantile neurosis ; great educational diffi- culties

strongparanoidtraits

Abnormal development ofcharacter; psychotic traits

Schizoid

Normal

Obsessional neurosis;

Severe infantile neurosis

characterological culties

diffi-

I53n., i8on., 273 n., 293 n.

166-171, 353 n.

95, 98-100, 112 104-106

106-111, 115 n. 101-105, in

Incipient schizophrenia

Abnormal development ofcharacter; severein-

hibitions and anxiety

382 Name

Ike

Willy Gert

Bill B.

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN

Age 12 14 14 14

Diagnosis Schizoid

Normal

Neurotic difficulties Neurotic difficulties

Pages

131-139,172,173 123,124,127-129 172,173

126-127

(Middle Homosexuality; severe 350-367

thirties)

inhibition in work;

depression; doubting- mania; paranoid and

hypochondriacal ideas

ADDITIONAL CASEMATERIAL MR.A-

Note: The following case material was contained in the original German edition, but was omitted from the English edition for reasons of discretion.

A thirty-five-year-old homosexual patient (Mr. A ) suffered from a very strong obsessional neurosis with paranoid and hypochon- driacal traits and a severe disturbance of potency. His analysis showed that the distrust and aversion which dominated his relation to women in general could ultimately be traced to phantasies that his mother was constantly, when out of his sight, united with his father in coitus. He

supposed that her inside was filled with dangerous paternal penises. The transference situation revealed that hatred and anxiety in rela-

tion to his mother, which often covered a sense of guilt concerning

A fleeting glance at my clothes and my appearance, which at moments of anxiety suggested to Mr. A that I was unwell, ill-

groomed or in some way in a bad condition (meaning that I was poisoned and destroyed) could be traced back to the anxious way in which he, as a young child, scrutinised his mother in the morning in order to find out whether she had been poisoned or destroyed by the sexual relation with his father.

”Owing to this phantasy the mother had acquired the qualities of the paternal penis to

such an extent and retained her own personality so little that Mr. A unconsciously

identified her with the paternal penis (consciously represented by a boy). The result of this

was that, even consciously, the patient had great difficulty in differentiating between the sexes.

Ernest Jones, in ‘Fear, Guilt and Hate’, Int. J. Psycho-Anal. Vol. X, 1930, reprinted as Chapter 14, in Papers on Psycho-Analysis, Fifth Edition, London, 1948, refers to this mechanism.

her, was closely related to the sexual intercourse of the parents.

383

384

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN

When he was particularly anxious, Mr. A

and my house representing the whole world were dirty. Further, Mr. A often identified me with the charwoman, whose job it was to clean the staircase, and against whom he had a strong aversion. This aversion was partly due to his sense of guilt and anxiety. She

represented his mother, who, degraded and impoverished through his fault, tried to clean her soiled and poisoned inside the house

but, according to his feelings, was attempting a vain and fruitless task. He felt himself responsible for her condition, since in his phantasies he had attacked with poisonous excrements the inside of his mother’s body and his parents united in intercourse. He expected every morning to find his mother dead. In this frame of mind he took any change in his

mother’s behaviour or appearance, however insignificant it might be, and any difference of opinion between his parents in short, every- thing that happened around him as evidence that the catastrophe

which he had always expected had actually occurred.

Furthermore, owing to his masturbation phantasies, in which he

wished the parents to destroy each other in intercourse by various means,

he felt acute guilt, together with anxiety about being destroyed himself

in the same ways. This fear led to a tendency to watch his surround-

ings ceaselessly and it gave rise to an obsessional drive for knowledge. His urge to observe the parents in intercourse and to explore their sexual

secrets, an urge which absorbed all his ego energies, was in part stimulated by the desire to prevent his mother from having intercourse

and thus to preserve her from damage, which the dangerous paternal

penis would cause her.

These feelings with regard to the parental intercourse showed them-

selvesinthetransferencesituationj forinstance,inthegreatinterestthat Mr* A took in the way I smoked cigarettes. If he noticed that

As I am using this case material only to illustrate the point that certain anxiety situa-

tions are at the root of severe disturbances of sexuality, I shall mention only two external factors from a multitude of early impressions and influences which contributed to this development: his mother suffered from ill health and his father was a hard and tyrannical man, of whom the whole family was afraid.

^he jealousy of the small child which leads to his wish to disturb the sexual gratifica-

tions of the parents thus receives a secondary and essential strengthening- through anxiety. The child is afraid that the parents (as a result of his sadistic phantasies) will injure or kill each other in intercoursej this fear drives him both to watch the parents and to disturb them.

felt that the street

ADDITIONAL CASE MATERIAL

385

there was a cigarette end left in the ashtray from the preceding session, or if he thought that there was cigarette smoke in the room, he at once questioned whether I smoked a lot or whether I smoked before break- fast, or whether I smoked a good brand. These questions and their concomitant emotions went back to his anxiety about his mother. They were determined by the wish to find out how often, and in which way the parents had had intercourse during the night and what effect this had had on his mother. These feelings of frustration, jealousy and hatred about the primal scene expressed themselves, in Mr. A

emotional response to my lighting a cigarette at moments which ap- peared to him inappropriate. He became furious and accused me of lack of interest in him 5 I cared only for smoking and did not mind

disturbing him. Then again he suggested that I should give up smoking altogether. But from time to time he waited with impatience for me

to light a cigarette and almost asked me to do so, because he couldn’t wait any longer for the noise of the match. He stressed particularly that I should not do it suddenly and without preparing him. It became clear that this tension repeated the situation when he, as a small child, listened at night for noises which came from the parental bedroom. He could scarcely wait to hear the first signs of intercourse (the striking of the match) in order to be sure that the whole procedure would, at some point, come to an end. Sometimes he also wished me to smoke.

This went back to the time in his childhood when, in his fear that the

parents were dead, he longed to hear noises indicating that they were having intercourse, as proof that they were alive. Later on in the analysis, when his anxiety about the consequences of intercourse had diminished, his desire that I should smoke had a different determina- tion, derived from a later developmental phase when he wished that the parents should have intercourse insofar as this stood for a reconciliation between them and an act which would satisfy and heal both of them. He also wanted to be free from the guilt of having condemned his parents to frustration.

With regard to his own smoking, Mr. A gave it up from time to time and hoped that this would cure his hypochondriacal symp- toms. He never carried this out for long, since unconsciously smoking also meant to him a help against his hypochondriacal anxieties. Smoking should, insofar as the cigarettes represented the bad paternal penis, de-

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN

stroyhisinternalisedbadobjects. Insofarasthecigarettesrepresented

the good paternal penis, it was felt to restore his own inside and those of his internalised objects.

Mr. A

‘s obsessional symptoms were closely connected with

these manifold anxieties. They were derived from the well-known use

of’magicandcountermagic’; theywereintendedtoconfirmordis-

prove the question as to whether the parents did have intercourse at the time or whether certain anticipated dangers had occurred in con- nection with the intercourse, or whether this damage could again be removed, and so on. His obsessional neurosis in all its aspects was built on the destructive and constructive omnipotence originally related to the parents’ sexual intercourse, and developed and extended to the environment in general.

Mr. A

‘s sexual

which was of an obsessional nature

activity,

and severely disturbed, served the same purpose of proof and counter

proof. The dread of the father’s penis not only interfered with the establishment of the heterosexual position, but also interfered with the stabilisation of the homosexual position.

As as result of the strong identification with his mother and the over-

riding phantasy of having incorporated his parents in intercourse, the patient felt that all the dangers which threatened his mother, owing to the incorporation of the penis, threatened also his own inside. Simul-

taneously with the negative transference, Mr. A ‘s hypochondriacal

symptoms increased. If for external or internal reasons there was a

strengthening of the phantasy that his mother was having intercourse with his father, and consequently contained the dangerous penis,

Mr. A

‘s hatred of me and also his anxiety about his own inside

I have the impression that this element could also lead to alcoholism. Alcohol, repre-

senting the bad penis, or the bad urine, would then serve for the destruction of the bad internalised objects. Melitta Schmideberg, in her paper *The Role of Psychotic Mechanisms in Cultural Development* (int. J. Psycho-Anal. Vol. X, 1930), suggests that the object to which the patient is addicted represents the good penis which offers protection against the

bad introjected objects. However, it soon takes on the significance of a bad penis and this further stimulates the addiction.

*cf. Freud Totem and Tabu (Standard Edition, Vol. 13).

“The details of his hypochondriacal symptoms were determined by the structure and de- tails of his sadistic phantasies. For instance, I found repeatedly that his burning sensations were connected with phantasies of urethral sadistic character. As the urine was to burn the object, it also burned his own Inside. Further, in these situations, he ascribed to the internalised paternal penis and its urine the activity of burning, poisoning and destroying.

ADDITIONAL CASE MATERIAL

387

increased. Everything that indicated the catastrophe to the mother also meant, owing to his idenification with her, destruction to his own body. He hated his mother for having intercourse with his father, because

she not only endangered herself, but indirectly him as well, as, in his phantasy, the internalised parents had intercourse inside his own body. In addition it appeared that his mother was allied with his father against him. For instance, his aversion to my voice and my words, which at times was very strong, derived from the equation of my words with dangerous and poisoning excrements and also from the phantasy that his father (or rather his penis) was in me and was speaking through my voice. His father influenced my words and actions against

him in a hostile manner, as well as driving him to hostility against his mother. He was afraid that the paternal penis would attack him out of my mouth when I spoke.

When the mother in his mind was destroyed, there was no longer

a good’ helpful mother. The phantasies in which the mother’s breast

was bitten and torn, poisoned and destroyed with urine and faeces led

very early to the introjection of a poisonous and dangerous mother

figure, which interfered with the development of the internal ‘good’ mother. This element also contributed to the development of the para-

noid traits, particularly the fears of being poisoned and persecuted. Neither in the external world (originally in the mother’s body) nor in

his own body was the patient able to find sufficient support against the

persecutor which was represented by the paternal penis and his internal faeces. In this way, not only his fear of the mother and his castration

anxiety were increased, but he was also unable to experience trust in any goodness in his own inside and in his own penis. This contributed to the severe disturbance of his sexual development. The anxieties about damaging the woman by his ‘bad’ penis, as well as being unable to make reparation to her in intercourse, together with the fear of the

dangers of the mother’s body, were at the basis of Mr. A

‘s dis-

turbed potency.

The fact that his confidence in the good mother was not suf-

ficiently established was of great significance when the patient broke down. Mr. A , who, during the war, had fought for some time in the front line, tolerated the dangers and other burdens of the war relatively well. The severe breakdown occurred some time later on a

388

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN

journey. He fell ill with dysentery in a small town. The analysis showed that the symptoms of this illness had activated the old anxiety situations which were the basis of his hypochondriacal anxieties; the fear of the ‘bad’ internalised penis and its poisonous excrements. The decisive element, however, was the behaviour of the landlady on whose nursing my patient was dependent for some time. The woman nursed him badly, was careless and did not even give him enough food and nourishment. This experience reactivated the trauma of weaning with all the accompanying emotions of hatred and anxiety. In. addition, the attitude of the landlady was taken by Mr. A unconsciously as a complete confirmation of his anxiety that there was no ‘good’ mother, and that he was handed over without hope of being rescued to inner destruction and to external enemies. Trust in the ‘good’ mother had never been sufficiently established in Mr. A and therefore there was nothing to counteract the simultaneous and severe revival of all anxiety situations, external and internal. The lack of a helpful good mother figure, which might have counteracted these anxieties, was the decisive factor for his breakdown.

I wanted to show, from the case of Mr. A., that the displacement of

hatred and anxiety from the paternal penis on to the mother greatly

aggravates the anxieties connected with the female body, and reduces

the attraction to heterosexuality. This displacement of everything frightening and uncanny on to the invisible inside of the woman’s

body is one of the preconditions for the decisive strengthening of the homosexual position.

structive impulses and Sadism.)

ALEXANDER, FRANZ: 214 n.

Alimentary orgasm: 185 n. Ambivalence: 53, 80, 125, 151, 181,

215, 274 Amnesia; 38, 172

Amphimixis: 332 n. Anallove-relationship: 74, 78, 79 n., 157 Anal-sadistic phantasies: 25, 44, 45? 78,

89 n., 287 n.

Analytic situation: 35, 43 n., 44 n.j

establishment of, 36, 37, 56, 57, 94,

Anatomical differences between sexes:

effect of, 282, 287, 319

Animal phobias: 220-226, 334 Anxiety (see also Fear): and exclusion

of reality, 225; and negative trans- ference, 485 and obsessive desire to

know, 231; and reactive formations,

281, 311, 312, 35′-353

INDEX

ABRAHAM, KARL: 84, i25n., 180, i8in., 185 n., 186 n., 187, 189 n., 195, 200, 201, 206 n., 207 n., 213, 220 n., 231, 239 n., 273, 282 n., 290 n., 330

Accumulation: obsessional, 233, 235, 285, 286

Achievements: at puberty, 261, 262; creative, 362, 363 ; in boy, 256, 261 j in girl, 262, 320; in latency period, 255, 259; unconscious meaning of, 255

Adaptation: internal, 153; to reality apparent, 34, 146, disturbances of, 76, 146, 151, effected by analysis, 34, 88, excessive, 97, 132, 150, 151, 260 n., successful, 33, 34, 152, 208, 209, 2505 social disturbances of, 66, 131, 285 n., effected by analysis, 36, 57 p., 73 n., 86, 104 n., 135, 138

Adult: difference between neurosis in

child and in, 150; idiosyncrasies of, 143; stabilization in, 2515 state, transition to, 87, 138

Affect: absence of, 106, 137, 151; ex- pression of, in puberty, 122; out- breaks of, in analysis, 89, 90

Aggression: and early Oedipus con-

flict, 26, 91, 100, 185, 193; gives

rise to anxiety and guilt, 25, 26,

84 n., 135$ 183, 211. (See also De- Analytic room: arrangement of, 40,

Anal-sadistic stage: earlier, 187, 199, 200, 201, 205, 207 n., 217, 226, 228; later, 201, 214, 217, 226, 227, 231

Analysis of children: abstinence in, 88 n.; abreaction in, 31 n., 32, 89; action in, 32, 33, 102, 103, 139; and sexual behaviour, 370; attendance of third person, during, 53, 1 195 break- ing off of, 123, 140; compared to adult analysis, 38, 103, 104 ; deep, 58, 1 39> I 4′ 3 7> 3735 direct approach to unconscious in, 35, 97, 1145 duration of, 3735 in latency period, 94-98 mixed technique in, 101-106, un- usual technique in, 106-1 nj in pub- erty, 122-126, 129-131, 141; mono- tonous and unimaginative accounts in, 1135 necessary training for, 141; position of parents in regard to, 1 16- 1215 principles of, 36, 38, 39, 1035 putting questions in, 111-113; scope of, 370-3745 when completed, 87, J 54 155

Analyst: abstention from educational

influence on part of, 18 n., 19, 36,

90, 119, 170, 1715 attitude of, 44 n.,

91$ qualifications of, 139, 141; pro- fessional discretion in, 1175 relations

to parents of, 116-121

390

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN

230; and relations to reality, 206- 208, 249, 278 n.; as developmental

factor, 199,^200, 217, 246 n.j as in- hibitory factor, 159, 199, 246 n.;

capacity to tolerate, 83 n., 294, 332, 356; denial of, 205; increases ag-

gression, 168, 191, 203, 211, 235, 236, 281, 285, 293; increases episte- mophilic instinct, 247, 248, 3325 in- creases introjection, 203, 274, 311, 331; increases libido, 158, 170, 274, 276, 370; increases projection, 200, 203, 207, 220, 3 10, 3 1 1 j inhibits pro- jection, 204; origin of from ag- gression, 25, 26, 84 n,, 2 1 1 ; from un- satisfied libido, 181-183; resolution

of, in analysis, 30, 51, 59, 87, 130, 139, 140; spreading out of, 206, 2155 transformation of, into pleasure, 254

Anxiety-attacks: 37, 53-60; andp&uor nocturntiSy 24, 56, 58 n.; prevention of, in analysis, 57-59

Anxiety-object: admiration of, 220; fear of, 195, 220, 226, 352; identifi- cation with, 84, 168, 293; modifi- cation of, 220, 226

Anxiety – situations (Danger – situa-

tions): early, 60, 92, 182-185, 189, 190, 219, 226, 230,. 231, 233, 265, 269, 275-277, 278 n., 280 n,, 317,

371, 372, 373; and psychoses, 202, 204, 207, 218, 232$ influence of reality upon, 302, 371; later opera- tion of, 266, 334, 371, 372; modifica- tion of, 248, 265, 266, 277, 334; of the boy, 340, 341, 343 n., 344; f the girl, 60, 92, 129, 269, 270, 277, 280, 284, 287, 306, 317; two cate- gories of, 329

Aphanisis: 269, 277, 317 n. Apprehension: 50, 51, 246

Asocial types: 138, 216, 374 Associations: verbal, 28, 28 n., 30, 49,

102, 107, no, in, 141

Attacks: secret, 190, 205; violent, 190,

,205

‘Bad feeders*: 180

Bed-wetting (see Incontinence) BENEDEK, THERESE: 183 n. Biting (see Oral sadism) Blood: 69, 3i5n.

Bodily substances: equation between, 271, 340 n.

Body: contents of ‘bad’, 274 n., 284- 287, 311, 312, 341, 362, 363, 367, ‘good’, 284-287, 311, 312, 344, 362, 363, 367; horror of female, 351, 352; interior of and interior of object, 233>3*9>34>353?364>365 uncer- tainty about, 231, 234, 286, 287, 353, equated to unconscious, 283, 341, 345; intactness of, 231, 254, 262-264, 340; structure of female, 287, 289, 316, 319; restoration of, 237, 300 n., 362, 363, 367

BOEHM, FELIX: 103 n., 189 n., 327 n., 333 n., 348

Breast: and penis, 91, 99, 187 n., 210, 213, 271, 282, 283, 284, 325, 326, 340 n., 343 n., 354; as combined parents, 342; as mother, 84, 208, 283, 342; likened to harpies, 354; attacks on oral-sadistic, 91, 185, 283-314, 315, 326, urethral-sadistic, 186, 292, 315

Brooding: morbid, 66, 101, 104, 146 Brothers and sisters: arrival of, 24, 54,

74, 75; relations to, 34, 41, 42, 75, 98, 155 n. improved by analysis,

41, 57, 58 n., 127, 171, 172, 173, sexual relations between, 49, 127,

129, 131, 137, 166-175 BRUNSWICK, R. MACK: 223 n., 225 ji. Burning, 63 n., 186, 365 n.

Castration complex: and restitutive tendencies, 294, 295; in female, 47 n., 99, 129, 130, 270, 271 n., 290-294, 307, 308; in male, 92, 127, 129, 253, 256> 33*> 333> 334> 34> 34*> 34^ 352 n., 359

Ceremonials: 27, 104 n., 143, 144, 227, 257

CHADWICK, MARY: 332 n., 338 n. Character-formation: 81, 144, 149,

167 n., 181, 213

Child: birth of, 71, 74, 313, 320;

equated to faeces, 25, 309, 310, 312, 320; equated to penis, 309, 313, 319; equated to small penis, 311, 314 n,; relation to own, 72, 81, 253, 263, 308-315

Claustrophobia: 329n.

Clitoris: 85, 289, 297, 306, 308 n.

Coitusperanumi274

Combined parents: 103, in, 190,

249 n., 274, 275, 284, 300, 322, 328,

3*9 334, 342

Conception: incapacity for, too, 313

Constipation: 235

Constitutional factors: 82, 83, 176,

181, 228, 303 n., 332 n., 343 n. Copulating parents: aggression against, 25, 45, 66, 67, 68, 79, 90 n., 91, 92, 167, 168, 192, 238, 275, 346; fear of, 103, 190, 275, 284, 307, 322, 328, 333, 342, 344; reaction to, 41, 42, 44,

Displacement: ‘from above down-

wards’, 271 n.; from father’s penis

on to mother’s body, 189, 335, 344, 345? 352 frrn mother on to father’s penis, 187 n., 273, 344-3455 on to trifles, 239, 241

Distrust: as sign of anxiety, 37; as sign of negative transference, 50; in lat- ency period, 94

Doubt: and anxiety, 231, 234, 286, 287; and obsession, 231, 241, 286,

37*. Doubting-mania: 250

of, 42, 45, 49, 61, 71, 85, 135, 167;

representatives of, 167

Copulation: a trots,, 42, 46, 158, 159,

301; as beneficent act, 300, 337, 3635 oral, 1 8 8, 269, 324; representations of, 49 955 sadistic, 190, 275, 256, 281, 307, 322, 333, 343, 348, 3615 unconscious knowledge about, 188

Counting-Mania: 234

Criminal behaviour: 167 n., 204, 216,

374 Cunnilinctus: 172

Cutting out paper: 29, 63, $8, 92,108, 160

Danger-situations (see Anxiety-situa- tions)

Death-instinct: and life-instinct, 211, 212, 279; deflection of, 183, 185, 279

115, 125, 131, 133

Dreams: 34, 49, 102 5 of neurotics, 246;

resemblance to play, 29, 30, 43, 156, 246

Early analysis: 3 1 n., 34; as basis of Child analysis, 138, 139; technique of, 35′ 37> 46

Eating: disturbances in, 142, 143, 180,

219

Education: difficulties in, 58 n., 72, 77,

82, 83, 101, 104, 131-1355 and char- acterological difficulties, 143, 144, 149; lessened by analysis, 24 n., 34, 36, 41, 57 n., 101 n., 104 n., 135,

136

Educational measures: abstention from

in analysis, i8n., 19, 36, 90, 119,

INDEX

391

45> 72> 79 84> 1355 representations Drawing: obsessive, 108, 113, 114,

132 n,, 140, 171

Death-wishes: 48 n., 135, 190, 238, Ego: and anxiety, 181-183, 372; and

348

Defaecation: and anxiety, 234$ and

sadism, 25, 44, 192, 236

Defence: 184, 202, 204, 214, 217, 335;

and repression, 200, 232, 248 Defloration: 288

Dentist: 122

Depression: 24, 66, 76, 78, 79 n., 81,

84 n., 127 n., 131, 154, 162, 218,

286, 350, 362, 366

Destructive impulses: 46, 108, 261,

3285 and anxiety, 84 n., 168, 183, 184, 195, 203, 235, 236, 276, 2775 and libido, 182, an, 212, 214, 276, 3705 deflection of, 278, 279, 281. (See also Aggression and Sadism.)

DEUTSCH, HELENE: 57 n., 271 n., 278 n., 288, 289 n., 291 n., 298, 306, 309

destructive impulse, 1835 and identi- fications, 318, 319, 322; capacity of,

to tolerate anxiety, 83 n., 264, 294, 332, 356, sadism, 356; in latency

period, 1 8, 97, 199, 256 n.; in small children, 1995 role of, in analysis, 18, 97, 114; strengthening of, by analysis, 19, 35, 36, 136, 369

Ego-development: affects super-ego, 252; and anxiety, 199, 248-265; and restitutive tendencies, 247, 248, 265, 300; and sense of omnipotence, 265, 300, 318, 341,- in girl, 262-267, 315- 3255 precocity of, 82, 83 n.

Ejection (see Projection)

Emptiness: feeling of, 185 nv 235, 362,

363 Enemas: 323

Enuresis (see Incontinence) 2B

392

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN

Environment and neurosis: 24 n,, 3 5 n., 120, 258 n.

Envy: 56, 70, 71, 79, 84, 91, 131* *35> 136, 188, 269, 272, 284, 291, 324,

Epistemophilic instinct: and anxiety, 96, 248, 332; and mother’s body, 208, 247, 322, 3335 ^d sadism, 93, 100, 189, 241, 242, 243; and sense of guilt, 96; and sexual activity, 332; disturbances of, 99, 100, 109, 127 n., 133, 146, 148, 152, 242, 243; growth of, 114, 115, 247, 338 n.; obsessive, 152, 153, 231; normal activity of, 153; early beginnings of, 99 n., 242, 243; in boy, 338 n.

Erection: 330

Excrements: and menstruation, 307; as

child, 309-312; as penis, 70, 78 n., 205 n., 343, 351, 352; as persecutors, 78 n., 205 n.; as vermin, 78, 347 n.; attacks by means of, 78, 79, 92, 190, 205-207, 236, 281, 282, 311, 347, 353; equated to other substances, 220; fear of own, 206, 230, 312, 347; harmful, 190, 205, 312, 319, 320, 329, 351; in love-relationship, ^9 74 78, 79 n.; omnipotence of, 281-283, 293, 318, 319, 330, 356; sublimation of, 312

Exhibitionism: 43, 101

External factors: 180, 181, 302-306,

316, 370, 372

External world (see Reality)

Faeces (see Excrements) Fairies: 2i9n.

Fairy mother: 249 n.

Father: as instrument of coition, 80,

273 n.; as super-ego, 196, 197; atti- tude to, based on attitude to mother,

325, 343 n.; fear of, 103, 157, 162, 196 n., 221-224, 253, 307, 334; identification of girl with,

99, 100, 290-296; primal, the, 196, 2 ion.; relations to, improved by analysis, 57 n., 80; represented by penis, 84, 104, 189, 273, 298, 355

Father-imago: as penis, 104, 273; as shop-assistant, 134; as wolf, 223; division of, 124, 261, 303; early, 195, 273; harmony between, and mother-

imago, 322; good, based on good

mother-imago, 213, 321 Father Christmas: 219 n.

Fear (see also Anxiety and Anxiety- situations): of anal attacks, 248; of attacks by mother, 48, 57, 60, 71, 77, 92, 103, 130, 248, 269, 287, 307; of being abandoned, 57, 60, 135, 248, 253,263;ofbeingdevoured,223,323; of being observed (see Paranoia); of being poisoned, 79 n., 140 n., 220, 347; of being suffocated, 292 n., 353 n.; of burglars and robbers, 65, 84, 293 n.; of combined parents (see Combined parents); of death, 128; of father (see Castration complex); of father’s penis inside own penis, 365; of fish, 21 in.; of inanimate things, 143; of introjected object (see Introjected object); of loss of love, 60, 193, 248, 263 n., 317 n.; of mother’s death, 57, 60, 248, 361; of own aggression, 105, 183, 259; of own excrements, 206, 230, 347, 353; of phantastic figures, 219; of strangers, 53, 143; of streets, 143; of telephone, 143; of travelling, 143

FEDERN, PAUL: 330 n.

Fellatio: 49, 144, 167, 172, 274, 281,

292 n., 354

Feminine position: exaggeration of, in

girl, 130; in boy, 156, 255 n., 291, 326-327, 328, 338, 362; in girl, 9! 301-304

FENICHEL, OTTO: 96 n., 192 n., 19! 199, 205 n., 216 n.

FERENCZI, SANDOR: 134n., 165n., 205 n., 208 n., 215 n., 230 n., 239 n., 281 n., 312 n., 332 n., 349 n.

Festivals: significance of, 147 Finger-nails as weapons of attack: i87>

275

Fixation: on mother, 24, 26, 40, 53, 57,

58 n., 66, 80, 132, 136, 137, 248, 249 n., 285; pre-genital, 157, 159, 160, 1 80, 227, 248, 326, 369; reinforce- ment of, 171, 173, 236, 248, 370; resolution of, 38, 43, 79, 173, 371

Fixation points: 201, 207, 217, 218, 370, 37i

Flatus: 281, 282 n., 347

‘Flight to Reality*: 152 n., 170 n. Flooding: phantasies of, 186

FLUGEL, J. C.: 134 n., 255 n.

Food: equated to products of body,

220; equated to object, 220

Forced phantasies: 134 FREUD, ANNA: 18

FREUD, SIGMUND: 17, 26 n., 31, 37 n., 60, 82, 83 n., 84, 149 n., 164, 175, 181, 183, 184 n., i86n., 188, 194, 196, 197, 200, 201, 202 n., 203 n., 210 n., 214 n., 219, 221, 222, 223 n., 224, 225, 226, 228, 229 231 n., 237, 238 n., 239, 241, 245, 246, 247 n., 248, 252 n., 257, 258, 261, 266, 268, 270, 278, 279, 281 n., 309, 314 n., 316, 318, 323, 324, 325, 349 n.

Frigidity: 165, 280, 289, 297, 302, 305,

355

Frustration: as punishment, 99, 1475

incapacity to tolerate, 24, 34, 40, 147, 152; oral, 99, 100, 180, 181, 188, 210, 269, 270, 271, 284, 285, 291’ 3*4> 326> 354

Games (see also Play and Sport): boys*, 253; ‘doctor*, 64; girls*, 252, 253; ‘mother*, 63, 253; ‘night-time’, 25; ‘office*, 45, 64, 985 of make-believe, 63, 97$ selling, 64, 70, 78, 99; setting up house, 64; ‘teacher*, 32, 63, 67, 77> 9 8 > 995 ‘travelling*, 64; typical, 63, 64, 253

Genital impulses: and Oedipus conflict, 79; and phase of maximal sadism, 2765 and pre-genital impulses, 179, 191, 192, 272, 274, 290; modify sad- ism, 213, 327, 367

Genital stage: attainment of, 193, 226, 34*> 367

Genitals: names for, 27, 28, 41, 42, 43 Giving suck: 314

GLOVER, EDWARD: 180 n., i8in.,

185 n., 198 n., 210 n.

‘Goodness* exaggerated: 24, 135, 152,

250

‘Helping* figures: 209, 2i9n., 249 n., a&4 33> 34 3i3> 344> 37^

Heterosexuality: attainment of, 79, 127 n., 136, 137, 155, 157, 158, 162, 211, 226, 298, 300, 304, 338, 366, 367; abandonment of, 156, 224; and oral fixation, 211

Homosexuality: and oral fixation, 210, 211, 326, 343-345* 354, and par- anoia, 224, 225, 346, 347, 348, 350, 351; and sadism, 77, 78, 79, 167, 168, 169, 224, 225, 293, 301, 344, 345> 34^5 in the female, 77, 78, 79, 99, 100, 136, 291 n., 293-295, 298, 301 n., 337; in the male, 46, 155 n., 156, 189, 210, 211, 224, 301 n., 338, 345-380

HORNEY, KAREN: 271 n,, 290 n., 292 n., 297, 327 n.

HUG-HELLMUTH, H. V.: 17 Humour: 37 n., 196 n. Hypochondria: 204, 350, -\6z

Id: division of, 184

Identifications: 28 n., 208 n., 214, 258

n., 318, 319, 322; primary, 194,195^ Illness: beginning of, 24 n., 56, 83, 258, 260 n., 360, 371, 372; ‘demon of*, 169 n., 295 n.; insight into, 28, 33,

66, 94, 97, 102, 105, ni, 137; physi cal, 58 n., 148, 172 n., 237; reaction to mothers, 57, 58

Imagination: and sexual expansion 256; freeing of, 38, 114, 1 1 5; in lat ency period, 94, 97, 113, 124 n., 254; in puberty, 122-126; repression of, 94> 97> ii3>.i3 t3i> Z5O 254

Imagos: distribution of, 50, 216, 303,

355; excessively good and bad, 213; favourable, 215, 218, 2775 likened to unconscious, 341; harmony be- tween, 322; heterogeneous, 250; of combined parents, 103, 167, 328, 334, 342, 3445 relation to real ob- jects, 144, 195 n., 209, 213, 215, 217, *73> 343 n., 355; separation of par- ental, 334, 342; terrifying, 209, 217, 218, 230, 322, 344, 357

Incest and destructive instinct: 193,238 Incontinence, urinary: 25, 36, 44 n., 58, 192, 291, 292, 293; and burning,

63 n., 186

Incorporation: of father’s penis inside

mother, 48, 91, 189, 269, 309, 327^

partial, 84, 195, 273

Indications for treatment: 142-154 Infancy: ‘innocence* of, 314

Infantile experiences: 25, 38, 43, 126,

127, 128, 172, 354

Inhibitions: in active games, 143,

INDEX

393

394

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN

25911.; in learning’, 66, 86, 135$ in play, 24, 31, 40, 45, 62, 109, 145* 146, 152, 1551 1 6 1, 256 n.j in speak- ing, 107, no; in work, 93 n., 241, 2j6, 350, 364$ in writing, H2n.

Instinctual danger: 183, 184 Internalized (sff Introjected) Interpretation: acceptance of, 30, 48 n.,

90 n.; deep, 48, 50, 52, 59; detailed, 29;en*ectsof, 35, 54-5*’ “*> /3 2 *a analytic situation, 29, 51, 56; in con- nection with anxiety and guilt, 29, 55 n., 58, 1 13, 114, 139$ method of, 35> 3*> S* 58> 59> &>, * “3* of symbols, 52$ resistance to, 33, 48 n., 9on., 123; timely, 46, 47, 51, 59, 95 123,132,139

Introjected objects: and masochism, 1 68, 278; as defence against destruc-

tive instinct, 184; attacks on, 200, 203, 2055 earliest, 283; fear of, 28, no, 168, 169, 203, 204, 206, 207, 274r 275, 3i93 37 3$i-3675 lovc 204 n., 311, 320j projection of, 221

Introjection: and sexual intercourse, 274, 275$ interaction of, with pro- jection, 203, 209$”in the girl, 273, *74 3*6, 317, 33i

Introspection: 353 n. Intuition: 339

ISAACS, SUSAN: 195 n.

JEKELS,L.:216n.

JONES, ERNEST: 99 n., 193 n., 198 n.,

208 n., 216 n., 235 n., 269, 277, 282 n., 292 n., 293, 295 n., 297, 317 n., 372 n.

Katatonia: 205

Knowledge, desire for (tee Epistemo-

philic instinct)

LAPORGUE, REN&: 205 n., 214 Latency period: analysis in, 37, 65, 87, 89 n., 94-117, 130; comparison of, withearlychildhood,37,94,250,25r, 254; comparison of, with puberty, 122, 135, 136, 260; dependence on object in, J3^.i37 ?5 *59> *&>! imaginative activities in, 94, 97, 113, 125, 254; play in, 97, 2545 prema-

ture, 126; protracted, 126, 129, 135; reserve in, 94, 95; stabilization in,

250-252, 256, 260 n.; standards of,

*35 ^5′ *5^> 25* 2&>

LEWIN, B. D.: 307

Libidinal gratification and mastery of

anxiety: 276, 277

Libido: and destructive instinct, 182,

192, 193, 211, 214, 276, 370; un-

gratified, and anxiety, 181-183 Life-instinct and death-instinct: 211,

279

‘Little Hans’: 17, 222-226

Love: ability to, 304, 367; conditions of, 160, 264, 277, 278, 280, 299-301, 302* 33-305 3395 loss of, 60, 194, 248, 263 n., 3i7*n.

Love-object: change of, 280, 339; choice of, 8 1, 341, 345

Magic: 216, 292, 237, 238, 282, 330 Magic wand: 69, 73, 330

Masculine position in girl (set Castra-

tion complex)

Masochism: and destructive impulse,

168, 169, 279; erotogenic, 183, 278; feminine, 279, 298, 302, 304 n,, 305; primary, 183 n.

Masochistic phantasies: 69, 85 Mastery of anxiety: 50, 245, 264, 265, 266, 329, 372; and sexual activities, 264, 276, 277, 304, 305, 333; at pu- berty, 260, 264$ feminine mode of,

in boy, 262 n.j in boy, 253, 254,

329,330-3335^6li*52> *53 ***-

264, 274-278, 3”-3i55 in latency

period, 254, 255, 255-260, 262,* in

relation to introjected object, 209,

215, 248; in relation to real object,

50, 57, 215, 247, 248, 249, 260,

278 n., 302, 329; masculine mode of,

in girl, 262; pathological, 245;

through play, 246, 2^2-254 Masturbation: and magic, 238, 330; as

a normal phenomenon, 166; ditoral, 85, 289, 306; in analytic hour, 76, 85,88 n.; in the infant, 104, 238; in- terference of parents with, 106, ii9n.; mutual, 167; obsessive, 46, 85, 86, 88, 125, 165$ representation of, 42, 49, 103, 107, 126$ struggle against, 94, 164, 165, 256, 257, 365; uninhibited, 164* 166 n.; vaginal,

85, 288, 297

Masturbation phantasies; and Oedipus

INDEX conflict, 193; and ordinary activi-

395

187, 292; dread of, 346, 352, 3561

ties, 257; and warding offreality,77; and sublimations, 31, 162, 165, 166,

*5*> *57? of the girl, 175, 276, 288, 289* *935 repression of, 31, 165, 257$ sadistic, 85, 129, 165, 167, 192, 280, 28 1, 288 two categories oft 275, 276

Material: analytic, 50, 58, 115, 116, 132, 139; point of urgency of, 51, 52; representation of, 29, 30, 31, 38, 60-64, 96-^8, 115, 125

Maternal attitude: 8z, 162, 252, 263,

296, 39~3i5> 34<>

Medicine: origin of, 169 n., 295 n. Megalomania phantasies: 76, 156, 240,

347

Melancholia (see Depression) Menstruation: 129, 306-309

MICHAELIS, KAREK: 300 n*

Milk: 15, 71, 72, 365$ equated to other

products of the body, 220, 291, 292,

315 n., 340 n.; *good\ 284, 292 n.,

315, 320; insufficiency of, 32, i8on., 292 n.

Mother: aggression against, 56, 57, 60, 99, 187, 188, 236, 276/3245 as cas- trator, 48, 103, 189; as grattner, 284, 3p*> 34$ as withholder of gratifica- tion, 185; early attachment of girl to, 323-325; fear of being abandoned by> &57* i35> *46, *4*> *49* ** of being attacked by, 57, 77, 249$ improvements in relations to, 80,

real and imaginary, 27, 76, 80, 355$ resentment against, 242, 270, 285, 296, 324

Mother-imago:good asbasisofgood father-imago, 3215 as basis of good super-ego, 344$ division of, 57, 215, *49> 33> 334> 3J55 harmony be- tween, and father-imago, 322; prim- ary, 283 n.j represented by breast, 213

Mother’s body: as combined parents,

342; as container of objects, 208,

169, 284, 285, 331, 338 n., 343, 352* as external world, 331$ attacks on,

57,109,186,329 anal-sadistic(see Excrements), and epistemophilic in-

stinct, 93, too, 189, 208, 241, 242, 247, 332, 333, oral-sadistic, 186, 187, 270, 285, 327, urethra! sadistic, 186,

interior of, equated to own inside,

329, 340, 353, 364, 365} restoration

of, 253, 286, 300, 359, 360, 362, 363 Muscular sadism: 184 n., 186

Narcissism: female, 264, 282, 286 n.j male, 286 n.

Naughtiness: 24, 36, 138, 142, 143, 144 Neurosis: and environment, 35 n., 120; and psychosis, 153, 201, 2×7-226, 334 n.$ frequency of, 149, 150$ pro- phylactic treatment of, 127 n., 1541

without symptoms, 150, 151, 373 Neurotic symptoms in children, 142-

145: compared to, in adults, 143, 144, 147, 149, ijo, 1515 compared to normal behaviour, 142, 151, 253, 154; reappearance of, 86, 120, 144, 372

Night terrors (see Paw noctumus) Normal children: analysis of, 98, 12711., 150, 153; compared to neurotic chil- dren, 142, 153, 257j neurotic diffi-

culties in, 128 n., 153

Nose-picking: 76, 144

‘Not knowing*: roo, 134, 234, 287, 356 Nursery training: and guilt, 230; as

hostile, 32, 72$ as seduction, 82, 83 Nutrition, conditions of, 180, 181

Object: dependence on, 136-137, 152, 250, 259, 260$ detachment from, 160, 173, 260 n., 261, 351, 369$ in- terchangeability of, 22 1 $ introjected, see Introjected object; real and im- aginary, 2×3, 366$ sparing the, 200, 201,2×5,273n.$turningawayfrom the, 2i <, 273 n.

Object-relations: and super-ego forma- tion, 198, 202, 203, 209, 213, 3021 determinants of, 213

Obsessional neurosis: 24, 104, 226-241} and isolated symptoms, 227, 228; and psychosis, 153, 226, 232, 233$ as curative process, 226$ beginnings of, and anxiety, 23 x j case-history of, 65-^3; factors in, i8ij in latency period,227,258;inpuberty,261$ mechanisms of, 226, 260 n.; point of departure of, 226-229, 258

Obsessional: play, 107, loS, 145, 162; symptoms, 27, 106, 366

396

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN

Obsessive: acts, and anxiety, 233; brooding,66;changeofobject,280$ copulation, 280; counting, 234, 243; desire for knowledge, 152, 153, 231; drawing, 95, 114, 133; learning, 95, 106, 114, 133, 146; masturbation, 46, 85, 86, 88, 125, 1655 taking and giving back, 233, 237, 2855 tidying, etc., 232

Oedipus complex: passing of, 194, 196 n.

Oedipus conflict: and aggression, 24, 25, 185, 193, 2385 begins in narcis- sistic phase, 239; brought on by oral frustration, 91, 179, 1855 decline of, 164, 165, 194, 196 n.; early stages of, 24, 25 n., 26, 179, 191-195, 198, 269-274, 323-3*4* 3*7> 32^ kter stages of, 192, 302-305* 334-336> precursors of, 211

Paranoia: and anal or urethral sadism,

78, 79, 205n., 281, 323, 324; and attacks on mother’s body, 77, 206,

233, 324; and early anxiety-states, 232; and heterosexuality, 305, 346; and homosexuality, 77, 78, 79, 93, 224, 225, 293, 347, 35~35I 5 an<* in- hibitions in speech, no, in; and obsessional neurosis, 64-93, 153, 225, 226, 232, 233; and oral sadism, 79, i88n., 223-224; and phobias, 219, 220, 225; point of departure of, 93, 207, 232, 233

Paranoid fears: 790., no, in, 219, 220, 224

Parathymia: 24

Parents: and child-analysis, 116-1215

effectofgoodrelationsbetween,303, 322; child’s relations to, improved

by analysis, 24 n., 36, 57 n., 58 n.,

80, 86, 88, 98 n;, 135, 157 Partial incorporation: 84, 195, 273

Omnipotence, sense of: and ego-devel-

opment, 265, 282 n., 300, 319, 341;

constructive, 240, 241, 283, 300, Passive attitude: in girl, 206, 274,

3*9> 34i> 3425 destructive, 240, 241,

265, 282, 293, 300, 319, 341, 356;

of excreta, 281-283, 292, 300, 217,

219* 33> 34i> 356> 3^311.; of Penis: and breast (see Breast); and nar-

gestures, 239 n.; of the introjected penis, 293, 316, 320; of the penis, 282, 292, 316, 330, 331, 356; of thoughts, 237, 239, 273, 317, 318; of words, 239n.

OPHUIJSEN, J. H. W. V.: 180, 205 n., 281n.

Oral-biting and oral-sucking stage: 179-181, 185 n., 213

Oral impulses and super-ego: 213, 274 Oral phantasies: 55, 69-74, 84, 91, 97,

167, 169, 271, 284

Oral sadism: and destructive impulses,

180; and ego-development, 83 n., 1815 and epistemophilic instinct, 100, 188, 241; and frustration, 180; associatedwithurethralsadism,186,

271, 272; premature, 181, 344 Oral sucking stage: 179, 271, 343, 354; and good imagos, 284; and hetero- sexuality, 210, 211; and homosexu- ality, 211, 326, 357; and libido,

180

Pain: indifference to, 146; over-sensi- tiveness to, 146

i43> 192

cissism, 282 n.; as attribute ofmascu- linity, 270, 321; as reassurance, 287,

341, 345, 346; as representative of ego and conscious, 283, 341, 345, 366; as vehicle of sadism, 186, 282, 356 357 ‘bad’ into ‘good’, 295, 337*354>358> 3595equatedtochild, 309, 313, 319; equated to excre- ments, 70, 78 n., 205 n., 347, 351, 352; fear of own, 365; idealization

f> 352> 359> 365; omnipotence of (see Omnipotence); reaction to absence

of, in women, 351, 352 n.; small, as

friendly, 311, 314

Penis, father’s: aggression against, 91,

92, 93, 100, 272, 273, 280, 282, 327, 328,331,335>336,338> 349>3555 and sexual development, 269, 281, 284, 291-295, 301, 313; as append- age of mother, 190 n., 273, 335, 352 n.; as persecutor, 206, 347; as super-ego, 273, 274, 3205 fear of, 190* i95 273* 328, 329* 335 352, 353 n.; inside mother, 48, 56, 91, 92 n., 103 n., 189, 190, 207, 284, 332-336; introjection of, 91, 270

296 n., 318, 320, 321, 322 P&uornocturnus: 23, 24, 56, 58 n., 65,

273 274> 3435 oral desire for, 91, 99, 269-274, 283, 291, 327; over- estimation of, 271, 272, 333; restora-

tion of, 358-360, 363

Penis-envy: 271, 272, 273 n., 290;

primary and secondary, 297 Penis-pride, 338, 341

Persecution, delusions, etc., of (see

Paranoia)

Personality: limitation of, 251

Phallic phase, in girl, 290

Phantasies of adventure, 105, i24n. Phobias: 182, 219-226. (See also An-

xiety and Fear)

Phylogenetic factor: 188 Plaintiveness: 24, 26 n., 146

Play: 26, 29, 32, 34 n., 35, 61, 63, 154,

and mastery of anxiety, 246, 247, 254; and masturbation phantasies, 31, 162, 173, 256; change of, 29, 63, 100; inhibition in, 31, 62, 146, 152, 155;interpretationof,35,42;limita- tion of, 107, 108, 125, 126, 155, 161; obsessional, 107, 108, 145, 162; per- sonification in, 63, 97, 98, 168 n., 209 n., 249 n.; relation to reality in, of small children, 75, 252; similarity of, to dreams, 29, 30, 43, 156, 247, 253; with carts, cars, etc., 41, 42, 44, 46,66, 107, 108, 123, 124, 155, 157- 159, 336; with dolls, 27, 161, 162, 253> 263; w*tn water, 29, 32, 49, 55, 62, 63, 69, 70, 97

Play analysis: 23-116, 155-163

Play phantasies and development: 159-

163

Poisoned: ideas of being, 71, 79 n.,

140 n,, 220, 347

Pollutions: nocturnal, 365

Positive transference (see Transference)

Post-phallic phase: 296, 298, 324 Pregnancy: 25, 27, 54 n., 57, 310-313 Presents: 79 n., 147, 151

Primal scene: 24 n., 32, 45, 46, 48,

70 n., 83, 92, 192

Prognosis: 86, 151, 162, 259, 260,

373 n., 374

Projection: and phobic mechanisms,

220; incentives to, 200, 203, 206, 207, 274, 311, 330; inhibition of, 204; interaction with introjection, 203, 209, 244, 248; in women, 317,

318; mechanism of, 183, 200, 203,

204-208

Psychosis: and early anxiety-situations, 202,204-207; and neurosis, 153,201, 217-226, 334 n.; in puberty, 260; point of departure of, 207, 217, 218

Psychotic symptoms: 93, 205, 226,373; invariable occurrence of, 218

Puberty: analysis in, 122-126, 129- 131, 141; detachment from object in, 173, 260 n., 261, 369; in the boy, 122-129, 250, 251, 260, 261; in the

girl, 129-137, 250, 251, 260, 261; psychotic illnesses in, 260; standards

of, 251, 260, 369; transition to, 86,

RADO, SANDOR, 182 n., 185 n.

Rage: 24, 72, 89, 104, 131, 182, 184 Rape: 127, 129, 167, 168, 170, 175,

288, 306 n.

RANK, OTTO: 50 n., 186 n. Reaction-formations: 230, 257, 311,

312, 319; absence of, 167 n. Reactive tendencies: 68, 97, 247, 336

Reality, external: adaptation to (see Adaptation to reality); exclusion of, 76, 77, 106, 133 n., 204, 205, 219, 225; introduction of into analysis,

76; into phantasy, 80; into play, 97, 161; intra-psychic, 205, 215, 246 n.7 311 n.; over-emphasis of, 97, 231, 255, 345; recourse to, 88, 97, 152 n., 170 n., 185, 277, 278, 289, 319, 330, 331; relations to, 33, 34, 76, 88, 217, 215

Regression: in obsessional neurosis,

2275 in phobias, 223; in super-ego

formation, 194 Reference: ideas of, 350, 351

REICH, WILHELM: 144 n., 198, 332 n., 340 n.

REIK, THEODORE: 168 n.> 170 n.

Repetition-compulsion: 31, 33, 170,

278

Repression: and defence, 200, 214;

critical rejection instead of, 36;

primal, 184

Reproof: fear of, 26, 220 n.

Restitution:andego-development,299, 300; and mastery of anxiety, 248; and obsessive acts, 239; and posses- sion of penis, 294, 295; and sense of

INDEX

397

398

THE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN

omnipotence, 240; and sexual activi- hies, 298-301, 336-338, 357^., 358> 360; and super-ego, 216; feminine mode of, 285, 286, 2875 inability to make, 231, 233-236, 240, 241, 286, 287, 360, 372; mechanisms of, 216, 231, 239, 241; mother as object of, 335> 33*> 339* 359

RIVIERE, JOAN: 99 n., 130 n., 198 n.,

J94

ROHEIM, GEZA: 206 n., 210 n., 225 n.

SACHS, HANN&: 162 n., 175 n., 290 n., 31711.

SADGER, J.: 186 n. 349 n.

Sadism: and anxiety, 191, 199, 276,

281, 2935 and early Oedipus-con- flict, 24-26, 93, 191, 193} and early super-ego, 195-198, 200, 213, 2145 capacity to tolerate, 322, 3565 fear of own, 105 j phase of maximal, 190, i9* X93> 207, *i2, *i8, 223, 230, 242, 27^, 327, 341$ primal, 2785 unconscious, in the infant, 212, 213. (See also Aggression and Destructive impulses.}

Sadistic partner: 278, 280, 302, 304 n. Sadistic phantasies: two categories of,

a?5

Sadistic phase: early period of, 205;

late period of, 205-207

Schizophrenia: 106, 204, 205 Schizoid traits: 131

SCHMIDEBERG, MELITTA: IIIn., i69n., 204 n., 205 n., 207 n., 283 n., 295 n., 299 n., 307 n., 373 n.

School-teacher: hatred of, 125$ in play,

32, 67, 98, 99

School-work: 133, 2^4, 255; arith-

metic, 93; difficulties in, 98, 133, *34> I35 256j reading, 93, 254$

writing, 93, 133, 254, 255 Scotomization: 205 n., 214, 246 n.

Scybalum (see Excrements)

SEARL, M. N.: 58, 152 n., 170 n., 188

n., 198 n., 240 n.

Seduction: 128, 167, 168, 306 n., 354 Self-injury: 26 n., 146, 218

Semen: 69, 72, 220, 340 n., 349, 367 Sense of guilt: absence of conscious,

i37> 167, 172, 216; and aggression, 26, 193* “9* *38, 239, 323$ and anxiety, 216, 2365 and epistemo-

philic instinct, 242; and restitutive tendencies, 2165 attached to destruc- tive tendencies, 164, 165; on account of sexual acts, 126, 127, 128, 138, I7i; 17*

Sex-differences: ignorance about, 3565 preoccupation with, 95, 96, 108

Sexual activities: andepistemophilic in- stinct, 332, 3495 and mastery of an- xiety, 175, 276, 277, 289, 299, 304, 333> 34j> 34-6; and restitutive tend- encies, 299, 336, 337, 367; and sad- ism, 127, 128, 165, 167-169, 173, I75> *74~*77> 281, 306, 313, 346, 355 35*5 fear of, 276, 277, 280, 313, 335^ 358> 3595 inlatencyperiod, 137, 164, 165, 170, 174, 256, 257; incen-

tives to, 166-172, 276, 298, 299, 332, 333> 3355 influence ofanalysis upon, 165, 171, 172, 173, 370; obsessive, 170, 172, 280, 370

Sexual behaviour: uninhibited, 101 Sexual development: final outcome of,

301

Sexual enlightenment: 35, 95, 96, 108

Sexual potency: achievement of, 161, 340; disturbances of, 159, 165, 186,

n 3*9> 345

Sexual precocity: 66, 88

Sexual relations between children: 49,

126, 127, 129, 131, 137, 166-175, 228, 304, 345, 346; and complicity, 169,175,304-306,3465prevention of, 174

Sexual theories: about intra-uterine meeting with father’s penis, 189 n.j about multiplicity of penises, 189, 207 n.; about parents perpetually copulating,207^.5aboutthemother filled with penises,^ 334, 343, 351$ about the penis inside penis, 365 n.j

and sadism, 188-190, 275; and sense of guilt, 190, 275; as phylogenetic heritage, 188

SHARPE, ELLA F.: 134 n., 216 n. SIMMEL> ERNST.: 206 n.

Sleep: -ceremonials, 27, 57, 58, 143,

227 n,; disturbances of, 65, 81, 86,

I4*> H3

Speech: and epistemophilic instinct,

99 n., 242, 243; disturbances of, 36, 107, no

Sphinctermorality:230n.

Sport: 124, 125, 126, 127; inhibitions

in, 143, 1*5, 259

Stabilization: in adult, 251, 263; in

latency period, 250, 256, 257 Standards: 258,260; of adolescent, 2 51, 260, 262; of adult, 251; of child in

latency period, 135, 250, 258 STARCKE, AUGUST, 78 n., 205 n.>

281 n.

Stereotyped movements: 107, 145

STKACHEY, JAMES: 93 n. Sublimation: and mastery of anxiety,

249, 257, 262 n., 264; and mastur- bation phantasies, 31, 162, 165, 166, 256, 257; and restitutive phantasies, 216, 285, 300; and sexual develop- ment, 1 60; capacity for, increased by analysis, 160; feminine mode in male, 262 n.j in female, 285, 311, 3” 3*9> 3*> 3**> 3*3 n-

Sucking and scooping out: 185, 188 Sucking period: 3 2, 82, 180,343^,353 Suckling, the: masturbation in, 164;

phobias of, 226} anxiety and rage

in, 182

Suicidal tendencies: 218

Super-ego: and obsessional neurosis,

199,202,214,273j influenceoforal

fixation on, 213, 214 Symbolization based on identifications:

208 n.

Symptoms: removal of, through fear, 259 n.

Teeth as weapons of attack: 187, 275 Test by reality: 88, 185, 247, 277, 278,

287, 289, 319, 330, 331

*Third person’, the: 60, 68, 91, 159 Thumb-sucking: 25, 55, 58, 67, 76,

81,84

Tic: 145, 165

Training in cleanliness: see Nursery

training

Transference: negative, 1235 positive,

51, 53; rapid establishment of, 46, 50; resolution of negative, 38, 47, 48, 5> 5r> 54> i*3$ signs of negative, 47> 5

Unconscious, the: as source of creative energy, 364 n.; contact with, 30, 31, 3^> 94> 97; equated with contents of body, 283, 341, 345

Up-bringing (see Education and Nur-

INDEX

399

227 n., 229, 232, 237, 258; as terri-

fying animal, 220, 222$ compared

to super-ego in adult, 198, 199; ejec-

tionof,zoo,214,217,220;modifica- Urine:asmeansofinjury,73,186, tion of severity of, 214, 215, 220,

226 by analysis, 19, 36, 340 n.,

369$ nucleus of, 184 n., 195; opera-

tion of as anxiety, 199, 216, 229,

236, 306, as sense of guilt, 2×6,

229, 236, in dreams, 34 n.j ‘pre-

cursors’ of, 198; pressure of and Vagina: and anus, 288, 298; and

early anxiety-situations, 199, 202,

204, 219,220, 273, 3 57 n., and sexual

activities, 170, 306, 359, increases

sadism, 72 n., 169, 204, 236; rela-

tions with ego, 198, 199/214-217,

*3*>*5i>**>*56> 2S8 3695Dela- Vampire-likebehaviour:185n.

tions with id, 72 n., 25*, 257, 260, 369, 370; relations to object, 217,

o, 303

Super-ego formation: 28, 179, 194-

199, 200, 219, 229, 252; and object- relations, 198, 202, 203, 219, 213, 302; in girl, 274, 3 15-3225 influence of id-impulses on, 26, 195 n., 198,

Vaginadentata, X95&*

Verbal associations: 38 n., 94, 242

sery training)

Urethral erotism: 291 n., 297

Urethral sadism: 69, 206, 236, 292; and oral sadism, 186, 271, 272

205 n., 206, 236, 281, 292, 295, 315, 33 1 j as milky 291; as semen, faeces, etc., 69; equated with food, 220$ ‘good’, curative, etc., 74, 295, 320, 337

mouth, 271 n., 288, 298$ beneficent, 289, 30 1 j dangerous, 195, 280, 281, 288; functioning of, 271 n., 289, 296; knowledge about, 288, 289

Weaning: 82, 91, 185 WEISS, EDOARDO, 339 n.

Wetting (see Incontinence) ‘Wolf-Man’, the: 222-226

“Woman with a penis’, the: 102, 103* 104, in, 157, 189,333, 343