Anna Freud-Melanie Klein Controversies

Anna Freud-Melanie Klein controversies over child analysis made up a turning point for psychoanalysis. Even today there remains a wide gap between the Freudian ego-psychology and the Kleinian psychoanalysis. This division can be traced to a series of dispute on child-analysis in 1927 and to the Controversial Discussions that took place in the British Psycho-Analytical Society between 1941 and 1945.<BR>These controversies centered on the nature of infantile super-ego as well as of early object relationships. Because these controversies unfolded around child development, they have been interpreted as conflicts of different theories of child development. In contrast, this paper attempts to explain these controversies as those concerning epistemological foundations in understanding children's mind, and it tries to show how two different, even opposing, metapsychologies arose simultaneously.<BR>Their theories of child development were guided by distinctive perspectives of the treatment of children, and their observations in turn relied on their theories. Their theories as well as their perspectives of treatment were caught respectively in a vicious circle.<BR>Anna Freud pursued the relations between children and their enviroments. Since her perspectives included not only children but also external objects, she did not have to conceptualize early unconscious relationships. In contrast, because Klein analyzed children's unconsciousness alone without considering their surroundings, she discovered and theorized inevitably infantile super-ego and early object-relationships.<BR>These two models of meta-psychology are rooted in different emphases : one, on external realities, and the other, on inner realities.<BR>We can trace the origins of these two types of the explanation of mind to Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis. Inquiring into patients' pasts and childhood experiences, he concluded that an early trauma could lead to a neurosis. In child analysis, however, iansmuch as analysists can observe a child as it is, Anna Freud and Melanie Klein would build two meta-psychological theories-one, from external environments and the other, from inner realities.