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In considering from the psycho-analytic point of view the behaviour of people in their social surroundings, it is necessary to investigate how the individual develops from infancy into maturity. A group—whether small or large—consists of individuals in a relationship to one another; and therefore the understanding of personality is the foundation for the understanding of social life. An exploration of the individual's development takes the psycho-analyst back, by gradual stages, to infancy; and I shall first enlarge, therefore, on fundamental trends in the young child.
The various signs of difficulties in the infant—states of rage, lack of interest in his surroundings, incapacity to bear frustration, and fleeting expressions of sadness—did not formerly find any explanation except in terms of physical factors. For until Freud made his great discoveries there was a general tendency to regard childhood as a period of perfect happiness, and the various disturbances displayed by children were not taken seriously. Freud's findings have, in the course of time, helped us to understand the complexity of the child's emotions and have revealed that children go through serious conflicts. This has led to a better insight into the infantile mind and its connection with the mental processes of the adult.
The play technique that I developed in the psycho-analysis of very young children, and other advances in technique resulting from my work, allowed me to draw new conclusions about very early stages of infancy and deeper layers of the unconscious. Such retrospective insight is based on one of the crucial findings of Freud, the transference situation, that is to say the fact that in a psycho-analysis the patient re-enacts in relation to the psycho-analyst earlier—and, I would add, even very early—situations and emotions. Therefore the relationship to the psycho-analyst at times bears, even in adults, very childlike features, such as over-dependence and the need to be guided, together