ABSTRACT
The first part of this chapter is devoted entirely to the differing models of the technique of child analysis evolved by Anna Freud and Melanie Klein. These two pioneers, who developed their different theses and techniques more or less simultaneously in Vienna and Berlin respectively, may be regarded as the leading figures in the field. I shall discuss the controversies between them on the basis of specific issues whereby their differing conceptions can be demonstrated with particular clarity. My approach will be chronological; that is to say, I shall first consider Melanie Klein’s earliest contributions on child analysis, to which Anna Freud refers in her “Four lectures on child analysis” (1927a), and then examine Klein’s comments on Anna Freud’s views as expressed in the “Symposium on child analysis” (1927). However, these works represent only the beginnings of a controversy that dragged on for decades.
