You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
AS A TEACHER, BERTA BORNSTEIN EMPHASIZED IMPORTANT PROBLEMS neglected in much of the literature on child analysis. Those analysts who were fortunate enough to have heard her lectures at the Institute in New York or Philadelphia will need no introduction to these concepts.
In 1948, Berta Bornstein published a paper entitled, "Emotional Barriers in the Understanding and Treatment of Children," in which she focused on the analyst's attitude toward the child. She mentioned fear of the child. She noted that children frighten analysts by their unpredictability, their highly charged emotions, their narcissism, and their closeness to the unconscious. She continued:
… although it has rarely been admitted, children throughout the ages have been considered a threat by their parents and by society in general. It is as if each older generation must prevent the rebellion of children against its cultural standards which are jeopardized by each succeeding generation. Behind this truisim, the analyst recognizes the archaic pattern of the threat of the oedipal crime, the result of which can be found in unnecessary brutalities in training and discipline, for the alleged purpose of changing children into human beings. The opposite—extreme tolerance—constitutes a part of the same problem; it tends to placate the aggressiveness of the younger generation… we are not astonished to find traces of these archaic tendencies in the analyst's relationship to children…
The difference in our attitudes toward a juvenile and an adult