Psychoanalytic theory and the young child

After a couple of years, the youngster’s "drive to investigate" was motivated by factors other than anxiety. Instead, he found investigation, discovery, and reconstruction to be pleasures in themselves. Interestingly, this child grew up to be a physicist.

There are many lessons here for psychoanalysts and our patients. One is that children experience things in which adults have no conscious memory. This means that we can help patients become better parents if we can get them to empathize with the child’s fears and frustrations.

Attachment, active handling

Ms. Fraiberg tells the story of an infant who developed an extremely severe sleep disturbance when she was 8 months old. Around 11 p.m. nightly, the infant woke up screaming, despite her parents’ efforts to calm her down. When her parents checked on her, the baby clung to her mother.

The episodes started after the baby woke up one night when the parents were out and had left her in the care of a babysitter. These meltdowns came in contrast to the child’s earlier reactions to her parents’ absence: "She never seemed to mind before if she wakened and saw a babysitter instead of us," Ms. Fraiberg quotes the parents as saying. "We just didn’t expect anything like this." What might explain this sudden new reaction?

"We know that the attachment to the mother is especially strong at this stage of development and a strange face may disturb the child at this age, even when encountered in the daytime," she writes. "The reaction to the strange face, as we have seen, is an indication of the discrimination of the mother as a person and the recognition of her as the person who gives satisfactions and protection. The stranger’s face that appears when mother’s face is expected produces anxiety because it symbolizes the absence or loss of the mother."

As you can see from that scenario, Ms. Fraiberg lets the mother know how essential she is and how early the child is distressed by the mother’s disappearance. In general, some people argue that they have to go on with their lives and that the baby will have to learn to be away from their mothers. We have to help our patients understand that the learning process is a burden for the infant. Some kids take a long time to learn how to separate from mom. Ms. Fraiberg helped the baby under discussion overcome her anxiety through nursery games in which her mother would hide her face one minute and return the next. She said the game allowed the baby to "work out the problem in her waking hours so that gradually the sleep disturbance disappeared."

Ms. Fraiberg also applies psychoanalytic theory to explain why a 9-month-old with a healthy appetite stopped eating and went on what she calls a "food strike" that lasted for 3 days. The child’s mother – who wanted the meals to be neat and orderly events – had been feeding the baby. So what brought the strike to an end?

One day the child’s father took over the feeding, and to the parents’ surprise, the baby started eating again. The mother immediately blamed herself, but the child’s behavior had nothing to do with her, per se. When the baby’s father tried to feed him, he grabbed the spoon and "plastered his face with strained carrots. Papa seemed quite unconcerned." When the baby turned his cup upside down, allowing his milk to spill all over the floor, the father took the messiness in stride.

This scenario was in stark contrast to those that emerged when the baby’s mother was in charge. When the baby tried to snatch the spoon from his mother, she got an extra spoon. When he tried to play with his milk cup, she moved it out of reach. As soon as the baby’s father allowed him to have freedom in feeding himself, the strike ended.

The explanation for the baby’s behavior changes is rooted in child development theory, Ms. Fraiberg writes. "...A certain amount of active handling of objects is absolutely necessary for the child in discovering and learning about the world around him," she says.

The period of 18 months to 3 years is dominated by words. If the child wishes something, he will use whatever words he has learned up until then, not knowing that they might not have any relationship to what he’s wishing for. If he wants something, he demands it or screams. He does not have language that is precise in any way. He uses words that he hopes will satisfy his wishes.