3. 1944: A Suicidal Symptom in a Child of 3

This was written in 1943 as my membership paper of the British Pyscho-Analytical Society, the work was supervised by Melanie Klein, since in those days one was permitted do a membership paper on a supervised patient.1 Also it was written only a year and a half after I qualified for associate membership, being pushed into doing it so soon because of the shortage of training analysts, so many being away doing war work. It was read in the basement of 116 Gloucester Place, the ceiling of the room being supported with wooden struts because of the bombing. In fact the attack on London by the V1 German bombs had begun that very day.

The analysis I am about to describe is of Rachel, aged 3, who came for treatment because of an acute inhibition of eating. I am going to try and give an account of what she seemed to be doing in her play and show some of the evidence leading up to my main hypothesis of what she was actually trying to do when refusing to eat. When I was actually working with the child it certainly seemed to me that the hypothesis I am about to put forward explained a large number of the facts of her behaviour; but when I came to consider how to present the material I did not feel certain that I might not have made certain theoretical assumptions that I could not substantiate from the evidence. It is true that the child got better, but I did not feel this was sufficient proof that what I had tried to tell her was necessarily the true explanation of what she was doing. In fact, I began to consider the whole question of the sense of conviction of the truth of one's interpretations which I suppose every analyst has, at least much of