You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Claudine and Pierre Geissmann have explored through the lens of their remarkable historical exegesis the vectors that have impacted and shaped the field of child psychoanalysis. The central importance of analytic work with children to the development of psychoanalytic thought and practice in general is convincingly demonstrated by a clear exposition of the theories, techniques, and working orientations of the major thinkers in the field and their followers, as well as by a focus on more neglected figures. The reader is ineluctably drawn to this conclusion, while at the same time forced to confront the ongoing resistance to the full acceptance of child analytic work as a genuine form of psychoanalysis. The roots of this resistance are linked historically by the Geissmanns to the fear-arousing concept of infantile sexuality, the role of women and children in society, the question of lay analysis, and a group resistance to understanding the true essence of the child. As the authors point out, analysts in their own analyses have often unconsciously desired to gain control over, rather than understand, the child within.
Even so, there has been a lively interest over time in what observing and working with children can tell us about theoretical problems in psychoanalysis in general. Sigmund Freud recognized the necessity of studying children, and the Wednesday evening sessions of the Psychoanalytic Society of Vienna served as an early forum for discussion in this area. His own work with little Hans was seminal, and Jung and Abraham showed an avid early interest in the possibilities of