Child-Analysis as a Sub-Speciality of Psychoanalysis

The problematical subject of the status of child-analysis and the question whether to consider it as a sub-speciality of psychoanalysis was introduced at the Twenty-Sixth International Psycho-Analytical Congress in Rome from the practical, administrative angle. It is the self-appointed task of the present convention to explore it further and to pursue it into its historical and scientific implications. Personally, I welcome this assignment, but before entering into its details, I hold it necessary to point to the much wider context to which the problem belongs and of which it is, at least in my own estimation, only one illustration among many others.

It is well known that when psychoanalysis appeared on the scene three-quarters of a century ago, it did so in a revolutionary spirit. As a discipline, it upset the then ruling ideas of the scientific world and of the general public in a number of important respects. This was, in fact, one of the first times that the medical community was exhorted to take the mental troubles of their patients as seriously, and to answer to them as compassionately as if they were physical ones, instead of dismissing as wilful fabrication and pushing aside more or less contemptuously whatever suffering proved to have no organic cause. It was also the first time that the concept of an unconscious mind was taken out of the context of philosophical speculation and was shown to have practical implications for human behaviour and for mental illness; that sexuality was seriously and openly discussed and assigned a dominant role in the producing of the neurotic disorders; that childhood impressions were shown to persist and to maintain a governing role in the adult's mental health, illness, and general functioning; that the early years of life, far from being a time of innocence, were governed by powerful instinctual strivings, clamouring for satisfaction; above all, that sexuality in its adult