ABSTRACT
A. Freud's specific theory of neurosis was based on the idea that neurosis was the outcome of a regression from a developmentally higher level of instinctual functioning to one in which infantile libidinal wishes and phantasies are revived. In Freud's theory the existence of fixation points was not seen as necessarily hampering further development, but represented phase-specific ways of gaining libidinal gratification that could be revived as a consequence of regression. Special significance with regard to diagnosis can be attached to observed imbalances between the developmental lines; but it is important to emphasize that the lines of development are not in themselves a psychoanalytic theory of development. Developmental pathology is seen as a product of an internal imbalance, a distorted structuralization, inferred from the discrepancies between the different developmental lines. In general terms one could say that the patient is always struggling against an acceptance of some aspect of what has been called "the child within".
