An Examination of the Klein System of Child Psychology

By Edward Glover

This book is written by the eminent British psychoanalyst, Edward Glover. It is thoroughly recommended for inclusion on the bookshelf of all psychologists and historians of the study. This book contains classic material dating back to the 1900s and before. The content has been carefully selected for its interest and relevance to a modern audience.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Read Books Ltd.
• Release date: Sep 7, 2016
• ISBN: 9781473353381

Book preview

I

INTRODUCTORY.

During the last twenty years the development of a specialised branch of child analysis has brought to a head a number of controversial issues the solution of which will influence analytical theory for some time to come. It was of course inevitable that clinical psycho-analysts should, sooner or later, begin to specialise in various branches of morbid psychology, thereby following the example of earlier colleagues who had specialised in different fields of applied psycho-analysis—anthropology, literature, folk-lore and the like. Indeed it is more than probable that as our knowledge of different varieties of mental disorder increases it will not be possible for the general practitioner in psycho-analysis to be equally competent in all branches of psychopathology. The apparent all-round ability he exhibits at present depends on the fact that our knowledge regarding the development of most psycho-pathological states though accurate enough is still rudimentary. Transference and other factors of technique apart, therapeutic results depend on the extent to which we apply sound analytical understanding; and we have just enough understanding of the main mental mechanisms common to all cases to produce some beneficial results. Up to the present at any rate there is no evidence that etiological fads or special systems of interpretation have any outstanding therapeutic virtue, still less that these isolated systems can be made the basis of a new metapsychology.

However that may be, it is interesting to note that the first sign of clinical specialisation in psycho-analysis was the development of a branch of child-analysis, a division which in course of time was reflected in the organisation of psycho-analytical clinics. Child-departments, sometimes, as in the case of the London Clinic of Psycho-analysis, of an extremely nebulous character, made an arbitary distinction between child-analysts and other analytical practitioners more marked. Naturally this was followed by a clinically unjustified acquisition of prestige on the part of child-analysts, and to this prestige factor together with an outbreak of inferiority feeling on the part of ordinary analysts, I attribute some of the chaos that has recently arisen in psycho-analytical circles in Britain. The assumption of prestige is based on the unwarranted view that because children are passing through an important stage of mental development, this fact somehow or other gives the analytical observer more ready contact with unconscious mental processes. This assumption soon gives rise to a vicious circular argument. I have heard child analysts base their theoretical views on their observations of children and subsequently maintain the accuracy of their observations on the strength of their interpretations. Left unchecked this process can have only one result, a quite unjustified arrogation of authority by child-analysts over the theoretical and technical development of psycho-analysis*. By way of illustration one might quote the view of some British analysts that the age-limit for a child-analysis department and for the application of child techniques should be not less than 18 years and preferably 21, an age which our grandmothers often celebrated by the birth of their first child. No doubt administrative follies of this sort are not hard to correct: patients themselves will in any case see to that. Much more difficult to offset is the influence of theoretical conceptions put forward by certain child-analysts or groups of child-analysts. The present paper is intended to examine the views and theories put forward by the Klein Group of the British Psycho-Analytical Society.

* A similar situation threatens to develop regarding the importance of psychiatry to psycho-analysis. The fact that the regressions, restitutive symptom-formations and disintegration products observed in the psychoses are of a primitive type tends to give the observer the impression that he is in specially close touch with unconscious mental processes, and encourages him in the belief that he may speak with special authority on psycho-analytical matters. Whereas the plain fact is that up to the present the study of psychoses remains for the largest part an observational field in which the essential techniques of psycho-analytical research are almost as limited in application as they are in the study of early infancy.

II

THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHILD-ANALYSIS.

Elsewhere in this volume W. Hoffer has examined in some detail the general development of child psycho-analysis but before investigating the Kleinian system, which in my opinion constitutes a deviation from accepted Freudian metapsychology, it is necessary to review briefly the part played by the psycho-analysis of children in the development of psycho-analytical theory. Up to the time when Kleinian views first obtained currency amongst a small group in the British Society, child-analysts in the real sense of the term (i.e. practitioners who devote their energies almost exclusively to the actual psycho-analysis of children up to the age of puberty) were few and far between. Psycho-analytically trained observers of children were common enough. Most practising psycho-analysts had been at one time or other at pains to collect observations of child behaviour and to adduce these in confirmation of already established psycho-analytic findings. In short, child-analysis was in the first instance a branch of applied psycho-analysis, a behavouristic study similar to the analytic study of the psychoses or of the behaviour and ideologies of primitive races. Indeed as far as infancy is concerned it must remain an observational study, for until the child’s mind has reached the stage of development at which it can apprehend the meaning of interpretations (even if these were made by dumb show) the psychic situation between the child and the analyst remains one of spontaneous or at the most developed rapport only: no true analytical situation can exist.* However much the observer may be oriented in psycho-analysis, theories of development advanced on the strength of observations only, are, at best, plausible reconstructions and, at worst, subjective phantasies.

Nevertheless it is significant that some of the most important early advances in psycho-analysis arose from a psychic situation in which indirect observation was combined with vicarious interpretation. It is scarcely necessary to remind readers that Freud’s analysis of Little Hans resulted not only in a classical outline of the Oedipus situation but in increased understanding of the dynamics of the unconscious mind and in particular of the role of anxiety and repression during that classical phase. As was only natural the work of the early child analysts (Hug-Helmuth, Pfister, etc.) reflected with some fidelity the existing state of psycho-analytical theory. So close was the correspondence, that it would not be unfair to say that the findings of the early child analysts were more corroborative than original in scope. They confirmed what psycho-analysis and analytical observation of adults had led Freud to infer regarding the unconscious mind of the child. And to a very considerable extent this has remained the case down to the present time. As Freud step by step expanded our knowledge of the structure and function of the unconscious mind, child analysts vied with analytical anthropologists and analytical psychiatrists to confirm his findings in their respective fields. This was at the same time a tribute to the amazing accuracy of Freud’s observations and a step towards that corroboration which is necessary for the acceptance of analytical theories. But apart from filling in a few gaps here and there and from producing clinical illustrations from normal and abnormal children, all the more fascinating because they were observations made during actual analysis of children, it could