ABSTRACT
Developmental considerations have ahvays been decisive in the formation of new psychoanalytic schools of thought. Three Essays on Sexuality, for example, in which Freud (1905) first explicated his psychosexual theory of development, was one of Freud's fundamental contributions to the formulation of his overall position and a beacon to guide his disciples in their progress toward a Freudian school of psychoanalytic developmental theory. Although it was written long ago and early in Freud's career, it continues to be widely accepted today by many of his followers in much the same way that Freud originally presented it. Similarly, Melanie Klein's (1935,1946) conceptualizations of her developmental "positions" as delineated mainly in two of her papers are still cited today by some of her followers, without much challenge to her original ideas, as primary references in papers on both developmental theory and psychoanalytic technique.
