Psychoanalytic Material Related to Observations in Early Development

The analysis of children whose early development has been followed by analytically trained observers provides us with opportunities for research of a special kind. Under ordinary circumstances we form our picture of the child's development and of the factors likely to have contributed to the establishment of his neurosis on the basis of the history obtained from the parents. In cases like the one to be presented here, circumstances have made it possible for one of the writers to be in daily contact with the child for a period of almost four years during his stay in a residential nursery in wartime.1 Moreover, in his tenth year the child came into psychoanalytic treatment, and the writers have been able to collaborate in comparing observations made during his early development with the material subsequently gained during his treatment. The relation between history and psychoanalytic insight can therefore be studied in greater detail and with greater precision than is possible in cases where we have to rely entirely on the parents' account. We can examine and verify in how far certain early predictions we have made have in fact come true. We can follow the fate of the libidinal development, of the defenses, and of early sublimations; we can see how permanent or passing object relationships have influenced the character formation; and we can gain greater insight into the relation between outer and inner reality by linking experiences the child has gone through under our eyes with the retrospective view we obtained about them in the course of analytic treatment. Finally, we may find that we have failed to observe, and therefore to counteract, certain trends which are shown to have played an important part in his later disturbance.

History Before Entering the Nursery

Martin has never seen his father. He is an illegitimate child, and his mother lived with him in a hostel until he was four months old, when