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.
Morris’ analysis with me began when he was 14 years old and lasted for 1 year 3 months. He was referred after a major theft; and, since the same antisocial behaviour can stem from different causes, the diagnostician questioned whether this behaviour was delinquent or neurotic. In this paper I would like to try to clarify this issue.
The term ‘delinquency’ refers to behaviour, thoughts and feelings that infringe normative social values. Whether or not certain behaviour is assessed as delinquent is entirely dependent on the underlying motivation.
Aichhorn (1935) thought that the cause of antisocial behaviour was to be found in an arrested personality development. He maintained that the ‘ego of the delinquent is still under the dominance of the pleasure principle’ and that for this reason impulses are acted upon more easily than in a personality whose ego is governed by the reality principle. Friedlander (1945, 1949) enlarged on this. She felt that the disturbance in ego development runs parallel to a disturbance in the establishment of object relationships. She suggests that if a child enters the oedipal phase with an ego thus underdeveloped, it is likely that the phase will not pass without further disturbance. The most important outcome of the decline of the oedipal phase is the consolidation of the superego by a process of internalization and desexualization, which together lead to the oedipal identifications. The process of identification is based on the gradual renunciation of oedipal desires. With reference to the aetiology of delinquency, Friedlander goes on to say that a weak ego cannot build up effective defences against oedipal wishes, and as the tension of ungratified desires becomes unbearable the instinctual drives seek gratification at a pregenital level. The