0.4 Neo-freudian perspectives on personality  (Page 12/28)

Another important contribution by Klein was the method of play analysis . She acknowledged that some psychoanalytic work had been done with children prior to 1920, particularly by Dr. Hug-Hellmuth (Klein, 1955/1986). Dr. Hug-Hellmuth used some drawings and play during psychoanalysis, but she did not develop a specific technique and she did not work with any children under the age of 6. Although Klein believed that even younger children could be psychoanalyzed in the same manner as adults, that doesn’t mean they have the same ability to communicate as adults. Klein’s interest in play analysis began with a 5 year-old boy known as ‘Fritz.’ Initially Klein worked with the child’s mother, but when his symptoms were not sufficiently relieved, Klein decided to psychoanalyze him. During the course of psychoanalysis, she not only listened to the child’s free associations, she observed his play and considered that to be an equally valuable expression of the child’s unconscious mind (Klein, 1955/1986). In The Psycho-Analysis of Children (1932/1963), she described the basics of the technique:

On a low table in my analytic room there are laid out a number of small toys of a primitive kind - little wooden men and women, carts, carriages, motor-cars, trains, animals, bricks and houses, as well as paper, scissors and pencils. Even a child that is usually inhibited in its play will at least glance at the toys or touch them, and will soon give me a first glimpse into its complexive life by the way in which it begins to play with them or lays them aside, or by its general attitude toward them. (pg. 40)

Klein believed that by watching children at play an analyst can gain a deep understanding of the psychodynamic processes taking place in the child’s mind.

It is interesting to note that although Anna Freud often commented on Klein’s work, Klein seldom mentioned Anna Freud. It may be that Anna Freud felt compelled to address the work of a leading figure whom Anna Freud considered to be incorrect, whereas Klein felt no such need to address the work of the younger Anna Freud. Klein certainly cited Sigmund Freud’s work extensively, but when she mentioned Anna Freud she typically failed to give credit where credit is due. For example, in The Psycho-Analysis of Children (Klein, 1932/1963), she mentions Anna Freud only once, in the introduction to the book:

Anna Freud has been led by her findings in regard to the ego of the child to modify the classical technique, and has worked out her method of analysing children in the latency period quite independently of my procedure…In her opinion children do not develop a transference-neurosis, so that a fundamental condition for analytical treatment is absent…My observations have taught me that children can quite well produce a transference-neurosis, and that a transference-situation arises just as in the case of grown-up persons…Moreover, in so far as it does so without having recourse to any educational influence, analysis not only does not weaken the child’s ego, but actually strengthens it. (pg. 18-19)