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THE findings of Psycho-Analysis have led to the creation of a new Child Psychology. They have taught us that even in their earliest years children not only experience sexual impulses and anxiety, but undergo great disillusionments. Along with the belief in the asexuality of the child has perished the belief in the ‘Paradise of Childhood’. Analysis of adults and direct observation of children have led us to these conclusions, and they are confirmed and amplified by the analysis of small children.
First let us, with the help of examples, form a picture of the mind of the young child as these early analyses reveal it. My patient Rita, who at the beginning of her treatment was two and three-quarter years old, had a preference for her mother till the end of her first year. After that she showed a markedly greater fondness for her father, together with a good deal of jealousy of her mother. For instance, when she was fifteen months old she used repeatedly to express a desire to be left alone in the room with her father and to sit on his knee and look at books with him. At the age of eighteen months her attitude changed once more and her mother was re-installed as the favourite. At the same time she began to suffer from night terrors and fear of animals. She grew more and more