ABSTRACT
With the creation and elaboration of the structural model, Anna Freud developed the concept of the ego. This heralded the development within classical psychoanalysis of a movement towards recognition of the ego as a powerful organizing aspect of the personality, which is in contact with external reality. Freud's theory and the technique of psychoanalysis derived therefrom places enormous emphasis on reconstruction of the drive development, childhood traumas and internalized conflict, and the infantile neurosis. The chapter offers beginning psychotherapists a theoretical centre from which to view and assess the plethora of theories and techniques that abound in the psychoanalytic literature. Freud had an enduring belief that improving the external environment of children will have a beneficial effect on their psychic functioning. In the final lecture, Anna Freud considers the relationship between psychoanalysis and pedagogy. She outlines some basic principles. One principle is the notion of three major epochs in the development of the child: pre-latency, latency, and adolescence.
