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The Index Project was begun by Dorothy Burlingham in 1954 with two major aims in mind, namely (a) to make the Clinic's vast amount of analytic data more readily available and accessible for research, teaching and general reference purposes, and (b) to suggest new lines of research by organizing and assembling analytic material in such a way as to facilitate comparison between cases and the study of specific topics of research interest.
Whilst retaining these original aims, the revisions and modifications of the initial organization of the Index in the course of the years have created and stimulated a number of additional areas of application:
The accumulation of data in the various sections of the Index led to a need to refine the classification system and to give more precision to the headings within each section as to their definition.
This gave rise to a number of theoretical formulations aimed at clarifying various aspects of psychoanalytic theory and providing for more refined distinctions between different concepts and related to Index headings.
As the content of the Index grew, it began to serve as an invaluable source of clinical material in the evaluation of new theoretical hypotheses.
As a consequence of these refinements and the provision of revised headings and subheadings, the Index now gives a more complete picture of each indexed case. This includes the more normal, healthy aspects of functioning as well as pathological features.
The Index contains the material from selected children who