ABSTRACT
From Sigmund Freud onwards psychoanalytic theories of development depend on the premise that the manifestations of abnormal mental states reveal modes of mental activity more appropriate to the infant and young child. The belief that psychotic symptoms hold the key to an understanding of early childhood mental development is exemplified by Karl Abraham’s paper on libidinal development in the light of mental disorders. Loss of the object for the manic-depressive patient is equivalent to psychical murder. For the first time in psychoanalytic theorizing on development and mental pathology, hatred, destructiveness, and acquisitiveness are given greater prominence than the libido. G. S. Klein made more use of psychiatric nomenclature to underscore her conviction of the similarities that exist between the anxieties of the infant and those of the adolescent or adult psychotic patient. The psychoanalyst does not stray far from what is observed when he identifies mental conflict in the content of delusions and hallucinations.
