Article
Symposium on Child-Analysis
Melanie Klein's contribution to the symposium on child analysis held by the British Psycho-Analytical Society in 1927, published in the International Journal of Psycho-Analysis the same year. It answers, point by point, Anna Freud's book on the technique of child analysis. Klein rejects the educative and reassuring attitude Anna Freud recommended towards child patients. She maintains that children form a full transference, negative as well as positive, and that it has to be interpreted. Because the child's super-ego is already severe in early childhood, she argues, the analysis of children can reach as deep as the analysis of adults.
Main ideas
- A point-by-point reply to Anna Freud's book on the technique of child analysis.
- The analyst of children should not take an educative or reassuring stance.
- Children develop a full transference, negative as well as positive, which must be interpreted.
- The child's super-ego is already severe in early childhood.
- Child analysis can therefore go as deep as adult analysis.
What it shows
- 1927
Melanie Klein disputed with Anna Freud
In the 1927 Symposium on Child Analysis Klein answers Anna Freud's Introduction to the Technique of Child Analysis point by point. She rejects an educational, preparatory phase and holds that children develop a transference that can be analysed and an early super-ego.