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In the 49th Maudsley Lecture delivered before the Royal College of Psychiatrists, in London in 1975, Anna Freud discussed ‘Psychopathology seen against a background of normal development’ (1976). Here she compared (not for the first time) reconstruction with direct observation, discussed normality in relation to developmental deviation, exemplified the latter, and discussed the relevance of these questions for the understanding of adult psychopathology. It was, in particular, an important aim of this paper ‘to convince psychiatrists of adults that there is much to be learned from child psychiatry, and to convince child psychiatrists that infantile psychopathology should be assessed against the background of normal development.’ (p. 95).
Anna Freud's interest in adult psychiatry was longstanding and owed a great deal to her regular attendance at Paul Schilder's ward rounds in Vienna over a prolonged period (cf. Freeman, 1983). When, shortly after the Maudsley Lecture, the authors suggested that serious consideration be given, at the Hampstead Clinic, to the production of an expository work which furthered the aims of her paper, she met the idea with enthusiasm. It was soon clear, however, that much preparatory re-thinking needed to be done, even on questions which had long been considered settled; and the project became the specific responsibility of a small group for the study of psychoanalytic psychiatry. The group, however, already had a history; and, to make its approach intelligible, it may be helpful to set it in the framework of its own development.
Its roots are to be found in an earlier group formed by Anna Freud in 1966. At that time the Developmental Profile (A. Freud, 1962) had been in routine use at the Clinic for the assessment of childhood disturbances, and its value had been demonstrated in the diagnostic evaluation of disorders in adolescence (Laufer, 1965) and adulthood (Freud, Nagera & Freud, 1965). It was, however, by no