CHAPTER FIVE From Infancy to Childhood Infancy is

CHAPTER FIVE From Infancy to Childhood Infancy is the perpetual Messiah, which comes into the arms of fallen men, and pleads with them to return to paradise. - Ralph Waldo Emerson Language and the Discovery of Adult Behaviors Sigmund Freud’s contribution to psychoanalytic theory is not simply that he invented the discipline, but that he attracted so many talented students and acolytes who were able to expand theory into many productive fields. It’s true that Freud was very protective of his work and his position as the founder of psychology as a scientific and medical discipline. As a consequence he viewed any of his followers who disagreed with him as being traitors to his cause. He left behind strained relations with men who today are considered eminent theoreticians in their own right. But they were not all men, and one women who stands out as yet another psychoanalyst who came into conflict with Freud is Melanie Klein did not believe in Freud’s passive approach to analysis, in which the patient was encouraged to do almost all the talking, and eventually discover things about themselves at the gentle prodding of the analyst. Besides, she wanted to explore thinking processes of infants who had no language skills. For this, she needed to engage them on their level, and so she used puppets, puzzles and story-telling to observe and participate in the inner life of children. She firmly believed that through such activities she could penetrate the unconscious mind of the child. Who Cut God's Hair [Sample] – Chapter 5 – From Infancy to Childhood

Today, Klein is now credited as one of the main developers of the field of child psychology based on her decades of work with children. She died in 1960 in London, and left many followers (like Freud, she was both innovative in her theories and protective of them to the point that she would disown any followers who strayed from the true path as she saw it). The Kleinian school of child psychology, as it is called, remains prominent in Europe, but less so in the U. S. One of her principal followers in America is Dr. Chris Minnick, head of the Klein Academy in California. He maintains an active psychoanalytic practice and has also done extensive study on the latest neuroscientific advances. We will be using Dr. Minnick’s work to provide an up-date on the latest thinking of the sources of God-belief in children, as determined by the Kleinian model of child psychology. Central to Klein’s theory is the concept of the “baby core” of the personality, an aspect of our personality that is developed in our infancy and childhood, and which can dictate our behavior as adults. Klein observed that the very rich fantasy life of children revealed much about the relationship of the child to their parents, and any other adults who served as principal caregivers for the child. Minnick expresses the view, consistent with Klein’s observations as well, that the infant’s main task is to struggle to make sense of their new world, which appears frightening and unsettled considering how helpless the infant is. He writes: We are all regularly influenced, in the course of a day, by thoughts, feelings and attitudes that are emanating from unconscious structures, and states of mind, that had their origin in infancy. I find it useful in the consulting room with patients, and in my daily life outside of work, to think of we humans as having an array of positive and negative attitudes about ourselves, parents and families, and life in general. These began in infancy, in order to establish some Who Cut God's Hair [Sample] – Chapter 5 – From Infancy to Childhood