ABSTRACT
S. Freud's Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality was first published in 1905. The book was expanded several times and Karl Abraham elaborated upon additional material found in the 1915 edition, in which Freud described early childhood development. Abraham connected this phase with the melancholy seen in depression. It is the stage towards which the melancholic regresses. Melancholy conceals within it ambivalence in its worst and most primitive form. Abraham's book took as its starting point the idea that neurotic problems in adults are connected with the phase of early childhood in which patients have become stuck or to which they have regressed. In Abraham's experience, there were quite a few neurotic patients who reacted anally to every loss, whether a bereavement or a material loss. Abraham's field of study was manic depression, in which three phases can be distinguished: a depressive phase, a relatively quiet intermediate phase, and a manic phase.
