III. An Obsessional Neurosis in a Six-Year-Old Girl1

IN the last chapter we have dealt with the underlying principles of the technique of Early Analysis. In the present one we shall compare that technique with the technique of analysis in the latency period, using a case-history as an illustration. This case-history will also give us an opportunity of discussing certain questions of general and theoretical importance in the first place, and in the second of describing the methods used in the analysis of obsessional neurosis in children—a technique which, I may say, was evolved in the course of treating this unusually difficult and interesting case.

Erna, a child of six, had a number of severe symptoms. She suffered from sleeplessness, which was caused partly by anxiety (in particular by a fear of robbers and burglars) and partly by a series of obsessional activities. These consisted in lying on her face and banging her head on the pillow, in making a rocking movement, during which she sat or lay on her back, in obsessional thumb-sucking and in excessive masturbation. All these obsessional activities, which prevented her from sleeping at night, were carried on in the day-time as well. This was especially the case with masturbation, which she practised even in the presence of strangers, and, for instance, almost continuously at her kindergarten. She suffered from severe depressions,