ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines how both Freud and Klein viewed the influence on the human psyche of early experience and how they considered what transpired between the first couple, that is, the mother and the baby. It explores in detail the model of early experience, the role of the mother, and the early formation of the ego. The chapter then visits briefly the other influences in the area of child development which were prevalent at the time. Freud explains that a girl’s development takes a more complex route with a change in both love object and erotogenic zone in adult sexuality. In “Femininity”, Freud says that the girl’s powerful love of her mother ends in hate and a turning to the father as love object. Melanie Reizes Klein became interested in child analysis when encouraged by her first analyst, Ferenczi. The infant’s psychical world operates according to the biological processes of ingestion and excretion.
