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In the first Chapter I have described my experience of the initial phase of the analytic process with children, carrying as a central thesis the contention that this process has a natural history of its own, determined by the structure of the mental apparatus at deeply unconscious levels. If this process is adequately presided over by the analyst through the creation of an adequate setting and through an interpretive intervention sufficiently correct and timely to modify the severest anxieties and facilitate working-through, a sequence of phases can be seen (in retrospect mainly) to have emerged, the second of which I wish now to illustrate.
The first week-end separation sets in train a modality of relationship at deep levels of the unconscious which is increased in intensity as the infantile transference processes are gathered and brought to bear in the analysis. This modality, or the trend toward it, is released by every regular separation experience and, later in analysis, will be revived by every unplanned break in the analytic continuity. The modality to which I refer is the infantile tendency to massive projective identification with external, and soon also with internal, objects. It arises from a configuration of motives and gives rise to a spectrum of consequences which need detailed examination. First, however, a general economic principle should be clarified. The duration of the phase dominated by any particular transference organisation is not really predictable at present, as the factors governing mobility of defences, the intensity of the drive toward integration, the capacity to accept dependence, etc., are all at present obscure and are ordinarily put together under the rubric of “constitutional”, which, whatever its