ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights the development of competency during the first years of life. Using psychodynamic perspectives, it discusses competence in infants and toddlers in relation to their beginning social attachments and mastery of the environment. Freud was the founder of the psychodynamic approach to personality formation. Freud used observation methods and self-analysis to develop a psychosexual theory to explain how people achieve mature adult functioning. He outlined psychosexual stages from birth to adulthood during which certain developmental tasks must be successfully completed. Freud proposed that the structure of the personality consists of three discrete components that function as an energy system. They are: the id, the superego, and the ego. Freud, who believed that maladaptive behaviors could be corrected during treatment, introduced two concepts for developing and ensuring a trusting client–practitioner relationship: counter-transference and transference. Counter-transference is defined as the practitioner's reaction to the client based on past events or feelings that can interfere with therapeutic work.
