Children at psychiatric risk / edited by E. James Anthony and Cyrille Koupernik.
- Date:
- [1974]
Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
Credit: Children at psychiatric risk / edited by E. James Anthony and Cyrille Koupernik. Source: Wellcome Collection.
44/584 page 16
![16 Theory for a New Field generates a deep-seated ambivalence within the mental system and determines a normal psychotic position, and that neurotic states are simply a providential working through of this position. This viewpoint attaches no importance whatsoever, at least in principle, to actual experiences, and inclines to an ahistoric point of view which would call for (or justify) the treatment of all children, if such a thing were possible. Anna Freud, on the contrary, suggests—like Hartmann and his disciples—that normal and pathological development be taken into account [3]. She accepts the idea that intrapsychic conflicts are inevitable but considers it necessary to predict possible sequels with great caution: she does not admit that such sequels are the raw product of instinctual conflicts. For her, it is a question of evaluating their working through. From our side we would add that one should try to measure the ability of the child to organize new operations or, put differently, to estimate the weight of the internal inhibitory factors. The appearance or disappearance of symptoms takes on its full meaning only in relation to these processes. Following the same line of argument, progression and regression cannot be considered in quite the same way. Both these movements introduce conflicts that can operate in different directions, and in turn induce new conflicts. Certam conflictual structures lose their organizing power and maintain themselves in a dangerous state of stability that becomes repetitive. Activity (or behavior) becomes restricted without necessarily producing perceptible symptoms. This can be better understood by studying the vicissitudes of object- relations as described by psychoanalysis. Starting from an initial ambivalence, a decisive step is taken when the mother, invested with birth feeling before she has been separately perceived, ceases to be just a functional object that satisfies or fails to satisfy the child's needs and becomes a differentiated object permanently and unquenchably desirable. She remains both good and bad. Having broken out from the functional unity of maternal care, the child must repair it in terms of his primary anxieties. The mother lays the foundations of the ego, of the notions of here and there and of presence and absence, and organizes the first symbolic meanings. Meanwhile, the child acquires a sense of self and the feeling of continuity. His fantasies allow him some relief from the catastrophic](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b18021876_0045.JP2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
