ABSTRACT
Susan Isaacs brought psychoanalytic ideas to progressive education in Britain; also, she contributed to psychoanalytic theory with her work on 'unconscious phantasy' life which was rooted in her understanding of children. The Brunswick Square Clinic closed in 1924, and Susan Isaacs joined the British Psychoanalytical Society, beginning a new analysis with J. C. Fliigel. Susan Isaacs experiment in teaching lasted two and a half years, and is reported in two books: The Intellectual Growth in Young Children; and Social Development in Young Children. Susan Isaacs started from the position that the intellectual development of the child was intimately connected with emotional development, and she disagreed somewhat with Piaget. The super-ego inhibits the child's libido and requires it to be turned to the task of intellectual learning and the acquisition of skills. The central role of fantasy, not just in play, but as an expression of the child's difficulties in learning led to her sophisticated view of intellectual development and social relations.
