The Mind of the Child

A Psychoanalytical Study

Charles Baudouin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781317575504
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psicología
• Subtopic: Historia y teoría en psicología

Originally published in 1933, the author's ambition was to depict the child's mind as revealed to us by psychoanalysis. It was not intended to teach the technique of psychoanalysis as applied to children nor to formulate a methodology of education. The author starts by defining the concepts of psychoanalysis and children with reference to his earlier title dealing with psychoanalysis in relation to education: fundamental mechanisms; complexes; typical disturbances and methods. In this title he chooses to focus on complexes which he believed was 'the heart of the matter'. A great opportunity to read an early interpretation of psychoanalysis and its application to children.

PART ONE

COMPLEXES OF THE OBJECT

CHAPTER ONE

CAIN OR FRATERNAL RIVALRY

IN a psychoanalytical study of Victor Hugo, which formed a series of lectures I gave at the university of Geneva, the poem entitled La conscience was the kernel of my monograph. Here we are given a magnificent picture of Cain’s remorse after the murder of his brother. Fraternal rivalry constituted one of the most violent conflicts in the poet’s own unconscious. He was the youngest of three boys, the eldest of whom happened to be christened Abel. From the very outset, “little Victor,” who was rather a puny child, nursed the secret ambition to become the equal of his older brothers, to outstrip them, to “take their place.” When such desires arise in early childhood, they usually find expression in a wish for the rival’s death. Such a wish is in reality less cruel than appears on the surface, for a little child does not know what death really is, and not infrequently uses the word as a synonym for “absence.”¹ All through the life and works of our great poet the numerous ramifications of this unconscious theme may be followed in all their details. Was I animated with a desire to prove that “little Victor” was a monster? Of course not. His case is exceptional because he happened to be a genius and was able to sublimate in a truly beautiful manner his infantile complex of rivalry.

But the complex itself is not exceptional by any means; it is, rather, the rule. Human nature is thus constituted and we have to bow before the fact. A youngster who suddenly has a little brother or sister foisted upon him usually reacts at first by a violent fit of jealousy, a feeling purely animal in its nature. The feeling of jealousy continues to exist, but in a latent state, and is more or less successfully held in leash. I have observed analogous reactions in animals. When my eldest boy was born, we had a little black cat which was a singularly faithful and affectionate pet. If we went out of an evening, it would accompany us a good part of the way and await our return at the spot where it had parted from us; even if we were away several hours it would still be there. When it first saw our baby it looked at the boy with a wicked expression in its eyes, and then went for the youngster tooth and claw. We had to give it a good lesson, whereupon the little animal disappeared and never came back again. A certain amount of hostility on the part of the younger child appears to be a natural response to the same feeling which animates the elder when a new baby joins the family circle. But it is the hostility of the older child in respect of the younger which is the most salient fact, and one upon wmch the most interesting observations have so far been made. The frequent quarrels between sisters and brothers are in most cases the outcome of this early rivalry which bursts forth at the slightest provocation and which is the despair of so many mothers. The ostensible and seemingly inadequate motives of such fraternal bickerings are no more than superncial pretexts: the real spur is the latent and primal jealousy.

At first we may feel inclined to object to so positive an affirmation. Yet no sooner has psychoanalysis drawn our attention to its existence than we observe countless examples all around us. Nay more, we are surprised never to have noted the phenomenon before. This is a very frequent situation in regard to psychoanalytical observations: we did not see the fact because we did not wish to see it (repression); but once we have been made aware of its existence nothing is more obvious. Nearly all of us have passed through such phases in the course of our childhood, but they have been so successfully repressed that nothing of them remains in the memory. According to the degree of a child’s moral development we find repression more or less at work from earliest infancy. Happily a large number of children are able to master their hostility quite soon, and can substitute—or, more correctly, can “superimpose”—a sincere affection. Sometimes, for the start, a child may be trained to assure all and sundry that it is very fond of its little brother or sister. But such avowals are always more or less forced, and the natural hostility thus repressed will become manifest from time to time, and invariably remains obvious to the trained observer.

In spite of the difficulties of the case, students of human nature did not have to await the results of psychoanalytical observations in order to realise the fact that infantile jealousy does indeed exist. St. Augustine writes: “I have seen and studied a child rendered quite ill through jealousy. Though it could not yet speak it was pale and cast grieved and bitter glances at its fellow sucklings” The extract is quoted by Cullerre in his book on Les enfants nerveux (p. 47). This same author draws our attention to the fact that analogous instances may be culled almost any day from our newspapers. Some of these are records of deeds of violence such as the following summary from the New York press: A boy, twenty months old, was jealous of his baby sister born two days before. Left alone with her, the little boy struck her so forcibly that the nurse on her return found the infant dead and covered with bruises and scratches. Her small brother was leaning over the victim and gazing at her in stupefaction.

Since psychoanalysts have had their attention drawn to these facts they have collected a large number of child sayings which speak eloquently as to the true state of the mind. I had a little girl of five under my care who had just been presented with a baby brother. Jokingly she was asked whether the baby might be taken away in the wheelbarrow. “Oh yes,” she replied indifferently, “only you must bring back the wheelbarrow.” Linette’s dislike of her brother remained very active for some time, and I shall have occasion to refer to this case again later on.

A boy of two and a half years, when shown his newly-born sister, said: “Me don’t want to see that.” For a whole week he refused to look at her, and when she was taking suck he wanted to tear her away from the mother’s breast. Incidentally, the little boy died a short while after from bronchitis.

Here is another personal observation. Nani is four years old; her sister Zizou is three. The latter is ill after a fall and has had to be put to bed. Her mother leaves the sick room, but is promptly recalled by hearing a cry of distress. The lights have not been switched on, but in the dusk the mother can see two dark noles in Zizou’s face whence blood seems to flow. Nam is standing aside in a corner, looKing sheepish. The mother at first believes that the elder child has put out the younger sister’s eyes. Happily matters are not as bad as this, but she discovers that Nani has emptied a bottle of tincture of iodine into Zizou’s eyes. General consternation; ‘phone calls to doctor and oculist; injections, and so forth.—The burns were no more than superncial and the eyes of the little girl were saved. Nani, on being asked why she had done it, at first answered: “I was a little silly.” Then, with an indefinable expression of countenance, she added: “I’ve spoiled Zizou’s beautiful eyes.” The younger girl was a very lovely child, and, above all, her eyes were constantly being commented upon in the presence of Nani. Another reason for hostility, and one which has been observed in numerous instances, was that the mother was so ill after Zizou’s birth that Nani was sent away from home for six months. Such an exile is well calculated to arouse in the child mind a feeling that it is forsaken because of its younger rival, that it has lost its mother’s affection—and this latter idea is of supreme importance in the genesis of infantile jealousy.

This refusal to “share mother” with any one else sometimes takes very original forms. Anna was two years old when her sister was born in a sanatorium. It was in this place that Anna first saw the baby, and she contemplated it with interest. When baby and mother came home and the infant was put to the breast, Anna began to cry. To calm the child her father had to assure her that the baby was not going to eat mother. From this moment, either directly or otherwise, Anna began to ask questions about how babies were born. Each time she asked, she was told that babies grew inside the mother’s tummy. Apparently this explanation was accepted for what it was worth, but it never ousted the story about the stork which in her heart of hearts Anna continued to prefer to any other. She refused to accept the truth, maintains our author,¹ because of jealousy. Anna could not bring herself to admit of so intimate a contact between her little sister and her mother. In the end, however, she was persuaded to accept the truth, and her qualms of jealousy were assuaged by the positive assurance that she, too, had enjoyed a similar contact with her mother’s body and had been suckled at the maternal breast.

Feelings of jealousy provoked by the advent of a little brother or sister often give rise to more or less unfortunate modifications in the character and behaviour of the older child. In reporting the dream of a little girl, E. Westerman Holstijn-Vissering¹ furnishes us with the following data: Maja aged three. Since the birth of her brother Yajla three months ago her character has obviously undergone a change. She will start weeping for no apparent reason, and while crying thus, she imitates the voice of the baby. Sucn imitation recurs in her games. She dreams:

1. It is dark; Auntie came in a car; Mummy promised to take Maja for a drive in the car, but Mummy went off alone and left Maja oehind.

2. A man came into the bedroom and flung all the plates out of the window. All the plates were broken.

In the first part of the dream we see plainly how Maja feels that her mother has forsaken her. In the second part we perceive a reaction against this situation, but the reaction is masked. The truth of the matter became evident in the light of the following associations: the previous evening Maja was told that the cat had fallen out of the window and had hurt itself. “It cried and wept.” The child was greatly impressed by this story. Afterwards when Maja was in the garden, she heard the baby crying, and said: “Yajla is crying, he must have fallen out of the window.” One is apt to believe what one wants to believe, and Maja’s supposition so gratuitously finding expression in the child’s mind leaves us in no doubt at all as to her feelings in regard to her little brother and the plates which are substituted for him in the dream.

The interpretation concerning the plates is all the more plausible seeing that in a goodly number of cases children accomplish in actual fact the actions which Maja does only in a dream. They throw objects out of the window. Analysis of these actions goes to prove that we are here in presence of a typical and symbolical action whereby the child indirectly expresses its desire (repressed into the unconscious) to rid itself of objectionable rivals. We have a classical example of such a deed in Dichtung und Wahrheit. Goethe tells of the pleasure he felt one day when he threw a great number of breakable objects out of the window, and then contemplated the veritable hecatomb of broken pieces. Psychoanalysis interprets these objects as symbolising the young poet’s innumerable brothers and sisters.¹ This by no means implies that Goethe, any more than Victor Hugo, was a monster.

But the child’s actions are not always as patently typical as those recorded above. Some, indeed, require careful analysis in order to reveal their true significance. Barbara Low in The Unconscious in Action (p. 105) tells of a boy of ten who “was ceaselessly weaving patterns of a specific kind whenever he began to do any thinking—arithmetical calculation, algebraic problems, and so on. He had no idea of any meaning attached to his patterns, he merely saw them in the air before his eyes and could not drive them away. An analysis gave some clue, for the patterns showed themselves to be connected with his very earliest experiences in connexion with bitter jealous hostilities in relation to his younger brother and mother’s decided preference for the latter.”

Disturbances in the character of a child, due to fraternal rivalries, sometimes result in a family tragedy, and may continue far beyond the age of childhood. The tragical development of such a situation can often be traced throughout the whole of a long life. I recall the case of two brothers. There was only two-and-a-half years’ difference in their ages. The elder boy reacted to the arrival of the younger by assuming a domineering attitude and by behaving as if the baby did not exist at all. The quality of his work, his energy and success, greatly appreciated by the father, were a perpetual source of humiliation to the younger lad. The latter, feeling left out in the cold, manifested in regard to his mother an immense longing for tender affection. This longing remained unsatisfied. Later in life he became spendthrift, and his mother had constantly to be supplying him with money. In spite of all she did for him, he felt that she was unjust towards him—for what he needed was impossible to grant: reparation for the injustice he believed himself to have suffered in childhood. He took a strong dislike for his home, ran away, and spent ever more money; he enlisted at the age of eighteen, and then deserted. His unstable and dissatisfied character made it difficult for mm to remain long in any situation, to make a career for himself, whereas the elder man prospered and became well established. This only served to enhance the inequality between the two brothers. It was obvious, however, that the younger preferred to remain a child for ever in need of maternal care.

Happily things do not always come to such a pass. Nevertheless it is rare not to find secret resentments, persisting into adult life, among brothers and sisters. The resentful feelings are the vestigial remains of infantile rivalries, which those concerned justify by such excuses as: “We are so unlike”; “My brother’s character is totally different from mine”; “We are very fond of one another, but there are certain things we cannot agree about.” How often do we hear phrases such as these! One might be led to believe that Dame Nature had gone out of her way to create dissimilarities between those nearest of kin. When psychoanalytical methods are applied to these cases, we very soon begin to see clear and to appraise them at their just value. Usually an improvement takes place in strained relations which at bottom are due to a very different reason than that ascribed.

Troubles of the sort do not invariably localise themselves in the behaviour and temper of the sufferer; they may also find expression in undermining the health of the subject under the form of neurotic symptoms.

Alfred Adler¹ reports the case of a girl of seven whose father was inclined to spoil her, but whose mother was very strict with her and extremely indulgent toward a younger child. Feeling herself to occupy an inferior position to this little sister, she reacted by becoming extremely conceited both at school and in the home. She had no love for her sister who was her constant rival. By making a lot of fuss about some minor ailments, she produced certain morbid symptoms by means of which she was able to gratify her feelings of revenge: her father devoted himself to her, and endeavoured to compensate her for the mother’s neglect by indulging all her whims and fancies. One day the mother reproached her husband for spoiling the child so outrageously. That very night the little girl had her first fit of neurotic anxiety. This was manifestly the effect of a violent revolt on the part of the child, inasmuch as the paroxysm made it necessary for the father to give even more time and trouble to his little daughter, and the mother no longer ventured to enter a protest.

In Man’s Unconscious Conflict (p. 239) Wilfrid Lay quoting from another author¹ instances a case of psychic blindness in a little girl. The morbid condition was found up...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Author's Note
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• Part One Complexes of the Object
• Part Two Complexes of the Ego
• Part Three Complexes of Attitude
• Part Four Relations and Regulations
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index