It was not until the mid-1920's that, through the pioneer work of the late Melanie Klein and of Anna Freud, children have been included in psychoanalytic therapy. Since then, the psychoanalytic treatment of children has steadily increased and an increasing number of analysts have been trained to work with children. The yearly publication of The Psychoanalytic Treatment of the Child testifies to the progress made in this field.

This book contains clinical reports by ten present-day American child analysts. It would be erroneous to assume that child analysis is practiced primarily by women because eight out of ten authors happen to be women. It would likewise be false to deduce that child analysis is suited primarily for girls because seven of the ten cases deal with girls. Two of the case reports deal with very young children. In two of the cases the child patients were motherless. One of the children had lost