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January 16, 1968. PRE-OEDIPAL DETERMINANTS OF AN INFANTILE NEUROSIS. John B. McDevitt, M.D.
McDevitt describes a three-year, two-month-old girl with severe separation anxiety stemming from a disturbed mother-child interaction during the preoedipal phase and the parents' handling of separation problems. During the first six months the child was hypersensitive to light, noise, and sudden movement, and cried while being fed. At eight months, feeding became a struggle between mother and child, and marked stranger anxiety developed. Sleep disturbances began at eighteen to twenty months, coinciding with the mother's pregnancy. The dialogue between the mother and child was disturbed throughout the preoedipal phase. The mother's emotional unavailability and failure to serve as an auxiliary ego during the child's first year probably created a predisposition to anxiety. Aggression reached an intensity sufficient for conflict and symptom-formation. Provocative sadomasochistic mother-child interaction (and the father's seductive handling) resulted in sexualization of danger situations and anxiety. It was possible to observe development of object constancy in this child through the subphases of the separation-individuation process.