ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses the child's psychical experiences mainly on the basis of Anna Freud's work on the stage of primary identification and shows that how some views about the development of object-relations proceed naturally from this fundamental hypothesis of Freud's. Freud's approach was biological from the start: as witness his choice of hunger and love for his starting-point. Freud describes the necessity for interpretation and compares the patient with a student who can see nothing at first through a microscope, until he is told what to look for. The book presents a clear account of a complicated subject: the way introjection and projection operate in the earliest stages of development. It deals with internal objects, a discussion of hypochondria is used as an illustration of pathological conflicts and phantasies about internal objects.
