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This book consists of twenty chapters by thirteen authors. The developmental and social aspects of child health are well covered. It will be of value to anyone active in the field of child psychiatry.
In Chapter V (10 pages) Anna Freud analyses the various psychological factors from the side of the child and the environment which may lead to disturbances in the Establishment of Feeding Habits.
Attention is first drawn to the fact that the intake of food provides the child with the first instinct gratification and his first emotional contact is with the adult who introduces him to the experience of wish-fulfilment, contentment and happiness.
The various feeding regimes, which may severely interfere with direct instinct gratification and by substituting pain for pleasure lead to feeding disturbances, seem to work on the assumption that the child's instinct is too blind a force to allow him to be discriminative in his choice of foods. Experiments undertaken by Davies in America and Anna Freud's own experiences in two nurseries show that where no interference has taken place, the child's choice of food is excellent from the nutritional point of view. It is suggested that considerate handling of the infant's and child's daily feeding, together with a certain amount of self-determination and self-selection will do away with many early feeding difficulties.
Nevertheless this will not exclude the upsets which originate by the interaction of the child's desire to eat and other instinctive tendencies.
In discussing the importance of feeding for the mother-child-relationship it is emphasized that the identity of love for food and love for the mother may upset the child's feeding habits, since the child will treat food as he wishes to treat the mother; all the negative feeling experienced in the course of development may become displaced to food. Difficulties of this nature cannot be avoided altogether since at least unconsciously the connection remains, but the situation can b