Early Psychic Development as Reflected in the Psychoanalytic Process

The psychoanalytic treatment of adults also provides a limited view of early psychic development. This view is characterized by the approximations that emerge in the reconstruction of childhood memories, feelings and attitudes, especially as they appear in the context of the emotionally convincing impact of transference reactions and in the transference neurosis.

Through examining similarities and differences between the various perspectives of childhood psychic functioning derived from the data, the psychoanalytic treatment of children and adults, this study has focused on two major processes involved in early psychic development and their reflections in the psychoanalytic treatment process. These two processes, regression and object choice, are interdependent. Selected clinical psychoanalytic observations from adult and child analyses have been used illustratively to demonstrate this interdependence and are used as a basis for relating the clinical empirical data to theoretical propositions in regard to regression and object choice. Regression has been a particularly useful mode of adaptation and defence through which to observe levels of libidinal drive intensity and organization involved in object choice.