0.4 Neo-freudian perspectives on personality  (Page 13/28)

This quote not only emphasizes a fundamental disagreement between Klein and Anna Freud, it also seems to dismiss the value Anna Freud placed on her educational background. Later in her career, Klein even went so far as to suggest that she herself was closer to Sigmund Freud’s perspective than Anna Freud was:

I do not know Anna Freud’s view about this aspect of Freud’s work. But, as regards the question of auto-eroticism and narcissism, she seems only to have taken into account Freud’s conclusion that an auto-erotic and a narcissistic stage precede object relations, and not to have allowed for the other possibilities implied in some of Freud’s statements such as the ones I referred to above. This is one of the reasons why the divergence between Anna Freud’s conception and my conception of early infancy is far greater than that between Freud’s views, taken as a whole, and my view. (pg. 206; Klein, 1952/1986)

Clearly, whereas Anna Freud felt that Klein was reading too much into her analysis of children, Klein felt that Anna Freud had failed to consider the wider perspectives allowed by the work of Sigmund Freud. Given the complexity of individual personality, it may be that the true answer to this question is different for each person undergoing psychoanalysis.

Placing the Neo-Freudians in Context - 2:

The Psychoanalysis of Children

Before continuing our examination of object relations theorists, it is important to stop and ask why the psychoanalysis of children received so much attention. Many people think of early childhood as a carefree time to run and play, a time when our parents take care of every need, and we have no responsibilities at all. However, for many children, life holds much more challenging problems than just the normal psychological processes of growing up. Abuse, neglect, being caught in the middle of a bitter divorce, these are just some of the things that occur in the lives of too many children. In considering situations where society is forced to intervene, Anna Freud and her colleagues believed that we should shift our focus from thinking about the “best interests” of the child and think instead about providing the “least detrimental available alternative for safeguarding the child’s growth and development” (Goldstein, Freud,&Solnit, 1973). Their reasoning was that in cases of abuse, neglect, divorce, etc., the “best interests” of the child are no longer possible, and certainly cannot be restored by a judge. Therefore, the best that society can hope to do is to help the child as much as possible. Obviously, psychotherapy may play an important role in this process for those children who are emotionally disturbed.

The question remains, however: at how early an age can psychoanalysis be effective? The answer depends somewhat on your perspective. As we have already seen, Anna Freud did not consider children capable of fully participating in psychoanalysis as adults can; she did not consider their play behavior to be the same thing as free association. Melanie Klein, however, did consider children to be good subjects for psychoanalysis at very early ages. In fact, Klein took it one step further: she practically considered psychoanalysis necessary for normal development! Klein’s childhood was not easy. Her father seemed to care only for her sister Emilie, and Emilie and their brother Emmanuel constantly harassed Klein. Her closest sister in age, Sidonie, took pity on Klein and taught her arithmetic and how to read. However, when Klein was only 4 years old, both she and Sidonie came down with tuberculosis. Sidonie died, and her death was very traumatic for Klein. Klein suffered from depression throughout her life, and even spent some time in a hospital being treated for it during her 20s (Sayers, 1991; Segal, 2004). This may have had a lot to do with Klein’s focus on the death instinct and aggression during early childhood development. Her own descriptions of childhood can seem quite frightening: