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It has always been a basic thesis of psychoanalysis to comprehend human behavior at any stage in relation to preceding and current events, or to view it as an instant in a continum of experience. This evolutional concept has thrown light on those complex processes of adolescence which in earlier days remained isolated observations linked solely to the advent of sexual maturation. The genetic approach made adolescent behavioral phenomena tell something about their nature by revealing something of their history.
The "Three Essays" (6) established once and for all the broad sequential pattern of psychosexual development; it furthermore brought into focus the biphasic nature of sexual development as characteristic of man. The early phases of drive development and zonal organization have been explored in detail and have lately become more precisely coordinated with the formation of psychic structure. It is noteworthy to mention that the second broad phase in psychosexual development, namely puberty, while explored in its larger aspects, still awaits a comprehensive theory and the elaboration of sequential patterns. It is far from me to make up for this lack. In the material which I shall lay before you I will attempt, however, to integrate observation and theory in a small sector of adolescent psychology, namely preadolescence.
The familiar cliché which speaks of adolescence as a "second edition" or a "recapitulation" of early childhood has meaning only as far as it emphasizes the fact that adolescence contains elements of preceding phases of development in much the same way as any other phase of psychosexual development is significantly influenced by preceding drive and ego development. A prerequisite for entering the adolescent phase of drive organization lies in the