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In 1950 Ernst Kris wrote: “There seems to be wide agreement that the psychoanalytical study of child development would fill an urgent need, might usefully function as a center of integration of various approaches and promises the only way to answer the questions with which we are all occupied, questions in which the problem of prevention is omnipresent” (p. 37). I think every analyst will agree with this statement. Further, by now a great deal of work has already been done by a large number of analysts. It seems a good time to take stock of the many contributions concerning different aspects and areas of a developmental psychoanalytic psychology. While an attempt to review and integrate all the findings is beyond the scope of this presentation, it is clear that their close examination would at least highlight the present position of psychoanalysis in these respects and indicate possible ways for future development and research.
My central aim is an attempt to scrutinize the current concept of “infantile neurosis,” to focus on its central position in normal and abnormal development, and to examine its similarities to and differences from the adulthood disturbances. I shall also describe different forms of early disturbances in children which I believe should not be referred to as neurosis,