ABSTRACT
As far as early experience was concerned, in the past the main stress was laid on traumatic experiences. It is true, the importance of continuous environmental inf luence, such as the attitude of the parents, has also been understood in psychoanalysis. I think that Freud’s conception of the superego exemplifies the fact that the interaction between early experience and psychic reality has not been sufficiently considered. According to the view of Continental analysts until a few years ago, a harsh super-ego was considered to be due almost entirely to harshness of the actual parents. This over-emphasis on the environmental factor, and the insufficient recognition of intra-psychic processes in the formation of a harsh super-ego has, in my experience affected, in different ways, the development of theory and technique and had also been partly responsible for the prejudice and the strong objections raised against early analysis and child-analysis in general.25 For some years, many analysts have even said that neurosis in a child is due only to neurosis in the parents and wrong methods of upbringing, and that to remedy neurosis in a child all that is needed is to analyse or to advise the parents.
