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In Chapter 1 I have outlined the historical development of the psycho-analytic method for investigating the human psyche, in order to help in evaluating the validity of the reconstruction of infant and child development which is now to follow. The main points I made were that the method is unique in its chief instrument—the analysed mind of the psycho-analyst; in its data—the development of the transference; in its experimental design—the use of interpretation as a variable in the two-person relationship; and in its theoretical basis for reconstruction—the concept of the repetition compulsion. But I also stressed that it pays for this uniqueness by the narrowness of its special field of study, namely unconscious object relations.
In these next three Chapters I have elected once more to follow historical chronology—the evolution of psycho-analytic theory about development—rather than ontogenetic chronology, for indeed in a sense the two are necessarily inversely related to one another. I plan first to discuss the scientific discovery by Freud of childhood sexuality and of the Oedipus complex as a genital conflict. In Chapter 3 I will outline the discoveries relevant to the pregenital development, especially from weaning onward, much of which is implicit in the work of Karl Abraham. In the fourth Chapter I will present the reconstruction of the earliest post-natal period, from birth to weaning, along with the revision of our conception of later development which it has made necessary. This is very largely the outcome of the researches of Melanie Klein and of still more recent work with psychotic adults and children.
In Freud's written work prior to the appearance of the Three Essays on Sexuality in 1905 (S.E., Vol. VII) the existence of sexuality as a powerful force in the minds of children is mooted over and over again. The Oedipus complex is outlined as early as 1900 in The Interpretation of Dreams. But these were, in many ways, contributions to psychopathology. Not u