Fitzgerald, Anna (2009) A psychoanalytic concept illustrated: Will, must, may, can — revisiting the survival function of primitive omnipotence. Infant Observation: The International Journal of Infant Observation and Its Applications, 12 (1). pp. 43-61. ISSN 1369-8036 Full text available

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Abstract

The author explores the linear thread connecting the theory of Freud and Klein, in terms of the central significance of the duality of the life and death instinct and the capacity of the ego to tolerate contact with internal and external reality. Theoretical questions raised by later authors, informed by clinical work with children who have suffered deprivation and trauma in infancy, are then considered. Theoretical ideas are illustrated with reference to observational material of a little boy who suffered deprivation and trauma in infancy. He was first observed in the middle of his first year of life while he was living in foster care, and then later at the age of two years and three months, when he had been living with his adoptive parents for more than a year.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Infant Observation, Splitting, Good Object, Bad Object, Idealization, Primitive Omnipotence, Manic Defence, Deprivation, Neglect
Subjects:	Children, Young People and Developmental Pyschology > Adolescents - Psychotherapy Children, Young People and Developmental Pyschology > Psychoanalysis Children, Young People and Developmental Pyschology > Child Psychotherapy
Department/People:	Special Units
URI:	https://repository.tavistockandportman.ac.uk/id/eprint/191

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