1The Course of the Analysis

It is possible to trace the long and arduous libidinal development of the girl throughout this child's analysis. One wonders what has contributed to the strong mother attachment, and at which point the child began to regress? I find it difficult to attribute Joy's severe neurosis to any particular trauma. It seems to me rather that it is a reaction to a series of traumata as well as to the particular pressure from the environment. The mother has told me of her handling of this child during the oral phase, and of severe habit training. We also have evidence of very early reaction formation against aggression. Since I have come to know this mother more closely, I have realized that she is unable to bear any aggressive manifestations in either herself or her children. Ruth Mack-Brunswick (1943), in her paper, "The Preoedipal Phase of the Libido Development"