Article
The Psychotherapy of the Psychoses
A short contribution by Melanie Klein to a discussion on the psychotherapy of the psychoses, published in the British Journal of Medical Psychology in 1930. Klein holds that schizophrenia occurs in children more often than is recognised, but that it takes a different form from the adult illness and is commonly mistaken for backwardness or naughtiness. She locates the roots of psychosis in the earliest phase of sadism and the anxieties it gives rise to, and proposes that the analysis of young children could reach these psychotic states.
Main ideas
- Schizophrenia in childhood is more common than is generally recognised.
- Childhood psychosis looks different from the adult illness and is often taken for backwardness or naughtiness.
- Psychosis is rooted in the earliest phase of sadism and the anxieties bound up with it.
- Early analysis could reach these psychotic states in children.