The Infantile Neurosis—A Metapsychological Concept and a Paradigmatic Case History

In Part I Freud's concept of the infantile neurosis as the model of the adult neurosis was discussed. Distinct from clinically manifest neurotic disorders in children, infantile neurosis has been defined as a metapsychological concept which is fundamental to the understanding and treatment of the transference neuroses (psychoneuroses) in which it constitutes the leading pathology of the personality.

In Part II a paradigmatic case history of an infantile neurosis—the phase-appropriate endopsychic configuration associated with the phallic-oedipal level—was presented to illustrate the concept. In the transference neurosis the patient recapitulated the pathogenic events and solutions of childhood that were preserved in the infantile neurosis. The data abstracted from his analysis demonstrated that the underlying structure of a hysterical neurosis was the adult counterpart of the infantile neurosis. External events which reduplicated the first childhood trauma precipitated the outbreak of symptoms in adulthood. The adult neurosis repeated in its essentials the unmastered conflicts on which the infantile neurosis was based. These conflicts,