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The fact that this book has been reprinted four times since its publication in 1946 is indicative of its wide reception and its importance. The contents of Miss Freud's book have been excellently reviewed
and most adequately discussed before.1 Therefore I propose to discuss its major contributions to the theory and technique of child analysis, and how these contributions have stimulated much of our most important psychoanalytic thought.
In the preface Miss Freud describes the origins of child analysis in Vienna, where there had already been considerable interest in the psychoanalytic study of normal childhood. Until the group was forced to disband because of political pressures, it was receptive to the application of theories of child analysis to education and to the treatment of disturbed children. The preface also tells us what aspects of child analysis were subsequently modified, notably the use of the introductory period and the need for the analyst to 'educate' the child.
The first part of the book, Introduction to the Technique of Analysis of Children (1926), comprises four lectures. The first discusses in considerable detail the need for the introductory phase. Although Miss Freud later indicated that this phase is unnecessary, her observations of the characteristics of child analytic patients that seemed to indicate a need for this phase have remained most important, particularly in relation to the parents' involvement in child analysis and to the concepts of transference and transference neurosis. These special characteristics arise from the child's age and his dependent position in his family; from the fact that the decision for analysis is not his; that the child is most often not consciously aware of any personal suffering, but is inflicting suffering or embarrassment upon his family; and that the child lacks insight into his malady and the will toward cure. When Miss Freud w