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I am afraid I shall not fulfil my task as reporter in quite an exemplary way.1 Actually I don't think that, after the four excellent papers that have been read, I should try to summarize or stress again the points which the authors have already put so clearly. I shall rather try to emphasize those points which I feel the authors and discussants consider as main threads.
My first reaction, and it may be yours too, is that the title of this panel is somehow not quite relevant. Rather than the role of aggression in child analysis, the problem dealt with in the papers and the discussion has been the role of aggression within the child's psychic apparatus. Thus what is to be and has been considered is how child analysis can be used to give us a better knowledge of the role of aggression within the psychic apparatus of children and consequently of adults.
Dr Solnit, at the very beginning of his paper, put the question of the heuristic value of the concept of aggression. The following papers and discussion have, it seems to me, demonstrated this heuristic value in that we constantly use this concept for an understanding of what is going on in an analytic session or treatment and in the direct observation of children's behaviour.
Nevertheless, this empirical heuristic value, which has been repeatedly stated and used by the authors we have heard, does not quite correspond, in my view, to a clear comprehension of the concept of aggression itself, which I feel remains somewhat confused.
Before putting forward some questions that came to mind while I was listening to these highly interesting contributions, I should like to bring together some points which, in spite of differences in theoretical setting, seem to be agreed on by the authors.
1The existence of two instinctual drives—one libidinal, the other aggressive—bound to the maturational process, as Dr Solnit pointed out, but both innate. This concept of both being innate instinctual drives is differently apprehended by the