ABSTRACT
Children have been seen and heard-and written about-from the early days of psychotherapy: from Freud's work with "Little Hans" (through his father) at the turn of this century to the present (Freud, 1909/1977), However, theories of child development and particularly psychoanalytic practice with children, inherited from the grandfathers and grandmothers of that tradition, emphasize the pathological, disturbed and abnormal. Freud (1916/1973) wrote about the processes underlying early infant development in terms of defenses, fixations, envy and anxiety. Klein (1932) developed this further with her hypotheses of the "phase of maximal sadism" and the subsequent paranoid and depressive "positions." It was Winnicott (1965b) who was the first within the psychoanalytic tradition to reframe Freud's theories as "the positive process of maturation in the infancy and early childhood of the individual" (p. 9). It was also Winnicott, to the gratitude of many a parent whose parenting has been pathologized by professionals, who introduced the concept of "good-enough mothering." Erikson (1951/1965, 1968) also helps widen our understanding through his theory of psychosocial stages of development, suggesting eight stages of child and adult development in terms of tasks to solve or crises to resolve in order for there not to be a lag in a child's development and maturity. In children these are: Trust vs. Mistrust (0-18 months); Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt (from 18 months to 3 years); Initiative vs. Guilt (from 3 to 7 years); Industry vs. Inferiority (from 7 to 12 years); and Identity vs. Identity Diffusion (from 12 years to maturity) (see Table 1).
