Child Psychoanalysis

Most psychoanalysts in the 1920s believed that small children were not subject to the analytical method of treatment. Melanie Klein clearly had doubts about this position - she believed that instead of denying these patients, the method should be changed. On this path, she made three brilliant discoveries. The first was the invention of the psychoanalytic technique of play: she saw this spontaneous activity of any child as equivalent to dreams, and thus a direct path and access to the unconscious of her little patients. The second: she was able to show that the Oedipus complex and Super-Ego arise from the earliest stages of the development of psychic life, that is, long before the age at which Freud attributed their emergence. The third: she discovered that a child at three years and four months of age is capable of transference, which can be interpreted, allowing for psychoanalytic treatment. Several genuinely revolutionary articles that make up this book laid the foundation for child psychoanalysis.