Full text unavailable

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.

PSC 56:3-8 (2001)

Introduction and Historical Perspective

Author: Albert J. Solnit MD

Abstract

On 11 March 2000 the Psychoanalytic Research and Development Fund and The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, with the support of the Child Study Center, Yale University School of Medicine, cosponsored a clinical scientific meeting—Symposium on Changes in the Technique of Child Psychoanalysis since the Publication of Anna Freud's Normality and Pathology in Childhood (1965)—to reflect on changes in the technique of child psychoanalysis since the publication of Anna Freud's classic work. The nine papers that follow in this special section were presented at that meeting, and in two cases we include the discussions as well. The following excerpt from a 1961 paper by Peter Neubauer, a pioneer in child analysis, will set the historical perspective for these papers.

The scientific study of child development did not begin until the twentieth century, which has been called, among other things, the Century of the Child. If it is to live up to this label, we must make better use of the next forty years than we have of the past sixty. But the revolution in child psychiatry is still relatively young, and I will begin by trying to sketch the somewhat erratic course it has taken so far.
If I dwell on the thought and influence of [Sigmund] Freud, it is because I speak as a child psychiatrist and psychoanalyst…. Freud was the first to attempt to give us a body of scientific knowledge that would lead to a general psychology of man. The anthropologists, applying this knowledge to the study of culture and society, found that child-rearing processes furnished illuminating clues to an understanding
Sterling Professor Emeritus of Pediatrics and Psychiatry and senior research scientist at Yale University School of Medicine and Child Study Center; former commissioner, Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, State of Connecticut.
Page 3
of people and their institutions. The pediatricians learned to connect physical growth with emotional development, and the way was paved for Dr. Spock to wr

PSC 56:3-8 (2001)

Introduction and Historical Perspective

Author: Albert J. Solnit MD

Abstract

The scientific study of child development did not begin until the twentieth century, which has been called, among other things, the Century of the Child. If it is to live up to this label, we must make better use of the next forty years than we have of the past sixty. But the revolution in child psychiatry is still relatively young, and I will begin by trying to sketch the somewhat erratic course it has taken so far.
If I dwell on the thought and influence of [Sigmund] Freud, it is because I speak as a child psychiatrist and psychoanalyst…. Freud was the first to attempt to give us a body of scientific knowledge that would lead to a general psychology of man. The anthropologists, applying this knowledge to the study of culture and society, found that child-rearing processes furnished illuminating clues to an understanding
Sterling Professor Emeritus of Pediatrics and Psychiatry and senior research scientist at Yale University School of Medicine and Child Study Center; former commissioner, Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, State of Connecticut.
Page 3
of people and their institutions. The pediatricians learned to connect physical growth with emotional development, and the way was paved for Dr. Spock to wr