ABSTRACT
Susan Isaacs was one of the few non-medical members. She played an active part and gave a paper to the Section partly based on material in "Social Development of Young Children", entitled "Property and Possessiveness". She introduces at the start of this paper the notion that a child's desire to own property always involves a "triangular relationship" between two people and the desired object. Susan concludes by suggesting that this case illustrates the need for co-operation between psychoanalysts who really understand the psychology of stealing with sociologists who are concerned with the "conscious sentiments of the adult, with large-scale behaviour and social institutions". Susan lists a number of reasonable ways in which the analyst can confirm that interpretations are correct. These include when the patient finds what the analyst says to be revealing and when the patient's behaviour improves or at least changes after an interpretation.
