The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child

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The Genetic Approach in Psychoanalysis

Heinz Hartmann & Ernst Kris

To cite this article: Heinz Hartmann & Ernst Kris (1945) The Genetic Approach in Psychoanalysis,
The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 1:1, 11-30, DOI: 10.1080/00797308.1945.11823124

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 THE GENETIC APPROACH
IN PSYCHOANALYSIS
By HEINZ HARTMANN, M.D. and ERNST KRIS, Ph.D. (New York)

1. Two Sets of Hypotheses

The word "psychoanalysis" is commonly used to designate three

things: a therapeutic technique, which we here call "psychoanalytic
therapy", an observational method to which we here refer as "the
psychoanalytic interview", and a body of hypotheses for which we
here reserve the term "psychoanalysis". Two groups of hypotheses
will be discussed: some dealing with dynamic and some dealing with
genetic propositions. The former are concerned with the interaction
and the conflicts of forces within the individual and with their re-
action to the external world, at any given time or during brief time
spans. The genetic propositions describe how any condition under
observation has grown out of an individual's past, and extended
throughout his total life span. Representative examples of dynamic
propositions are those concerned with defense against danger and
reaction to frustration. Genetic propositions state how these reactions
come into being and are used in the course of an individual's life.
Psychiatrists, social workers and even social scientists base their
findings frequently on a study of the past of the individual; however,
in doing so, they need not have and frequently do not have genetic
propositions in mind. The case record, that invaluable tool of .mod-
ern medical and social exploration, or the psychiatric interview, may
reveal that a conflict, a symptom or a pattern of behavior have occurred
before. In using dynamic propositions the psychiatrist may reduce
what appeared as a series of incomparable instances into a sequence
of similar situations; when such regularity becomes perceivable, de-
cisive progress will have been made. Thus we find the man who
tends to drop his effort whenever in love or work an immediate com-
petitor appears. This insight, however, is not gained with any genetic

11
12 HEINZ HARTMANN and ERNST KRIS

proposition in mind. The finding establishes that an individual reacts

similarly under similar conditions; in competition of a certain intensity
he prefers retreat to continued pursuit of the goal in order to avoid
what he experiences as fear and!or guilt.
If the investigator is guided by genetic propositions he will
take such findings as a basis 'upon which to establish a causal relation-
ship between the individual's retreat pattern in conflict situations and
earlier experiences, in which the pattern was gradually formed. Ex-
perience in this context need not mean a single event but, more often,
a constellation in an individual's early life that may have lasted for
a stretch of time; no one isolated constellation need be meant, but
rather the sequence of many that overlap in time and space. The
expression "forming a pattern" does not only refer to a single trait, a
symptom that is, as it were, attached to or superimposed upon the struc-
ture of the personality, but also to this structure itself. Investigators who
follow the lead of genetic propositions will inquire when retreat from
competition was "learned" or adopted as a solution; why, when the
competitors were father or sibling, that conflict was solved by retreat,
and what experiences had formed parts or earlier stages of the pattern
long before the coincidence of situation and response was established.
This pattern was learned through failure. The genetic propositions
trace the way not only to earlier situations, in which similar behavior
was displayed, but to situations in which different behavior was at
least attempted: the attack against the rival and its failure in response
to parental disapproval or to feelings of guilt.1 And thus new areas open
for the application of genetic propositions: when aggression was
barred, why was it turned against the self and not against other
objects or toward other activities?
The two types of propositions represent two aspects in the ap-
proach of psychoanalysis. The first is concerned with human behavior
in a given situation; the second with the explanation of this behavior
by an investigation of its origin. This investigaton regularly leads
back to events that partly cannot be remembered, and tends to embrace
periods of life when experiences could not be formulated in verbal
symbols.
The forecast of human behavior that psychoanalysis can make is
best, when based on both dynamic and genetic propositions. Generally

1. See in this connection the misapprehension of Lewin (1937) who assumed that,
in psychoanalysis behavior is merely traced back to similar earlier situations.
See bibliography for references.
 GENETIC APPROACH IN PSYCHOANALYSIS 13

speaking, one might say that the propositions concerned with psy-
chological dynamics are more fully elaborated and more widely
accepted. During the last decade they have gained some considerable
influence upon the total field of medical therapy, partly through the
studies in psychosomatic medicine, in which the dynamics of the "body"
were correlated to those of the "mind". At the same time the verifica-
tion of these propositions has acquired so independent a standing in
experimental psychology that one tends to speak of "experimental
psychoanalysis" as of a field of its own. Partly under the impression
of this expansive activity in neighboring disciplines, some of the
dynamic propositions of psychoanalysis are finding respectful con-
sideration in practices of social control, in welfare, and in the social
sciences. Briefly, they have deeply penetrated psychiatry and enlarged
its scope and influence.
In many practices of child care and education genetic propositions
have been hardly less influential. However, their influence in the
practical fields up to the present has outweighed by far their im-
portance in organized research. The academic study of child psy-
chology and child development has not sufficiently taken notice of
the genetic approach in psychoanalysis," Psychoanalysts, on the other
hand, have failed in many respects to take into account the data that
child psychology has assembled; an omission that has led to many
incongruities.
With this state of affairs in mind we here shall discuss two
problems: first the relation of dynamic and genetic propositions of
psychoanalysis, and second, the present stage of the development
of the genetic propositions themselves.

2. Dynamic versus Genetic Propositions

The importance of the detailed and specificstudy of the actual situ-

ation in which human behavior occurs is not controversial; any attempt
to apply any psychoanalytic hypothesis must start from here. Con-
troversy begins when we wish to establish how much the understanding
of the past, the genetically oriented investigation, can contribute to
the understanding of the present. Clinical impressions and methodo-
logical considerations are both being brought forward in support of

2. For th~ different reaction of psychiatry and academic psychology to psychoanalysis

see Herma, Kris and Shor.
14 HEINZ HARTMANN and ERNST KRIS

the view that the genetic propositions are unduly stressed in psycho-
analysis.

(a) Genetic propositions and psychoanalytic technique.

Objections to the value of genetic propositions have been
expressed by some clinicians since the early days of psychoanalysis.
Thus C. G. Jung believed that Freud's ontogenetic propositions did
not essentially contribute to an understanding of the actual conflict
in which pathological behavior occurred; this claim led Jung to
adopt the dichotomy that he has maintained for thirty years: he
focuses his attention on the present situation of the individual and
on the past of the race. Others do not share his interest in the racial
unconscious; however, they are inclined generally to stress that psy-
choanalysis is "too genetic" (Horney); less frequently do they object
to one or the other of the genetic propositions.
A detailed discussion of such objections or a historical survey
of the arguments used over a quarter of a century is not intended
here. Only one aspect of this controversy must be mentioned, since
it concerns the data upon which, in clinical work, genetic interpreta-
tions have to be based. Most of those who object to the importance
of genetic propositions also object to the technique of psychoanalytic
therapy. This is true of authors as divergent from each other as
Schultz-Hencke, Sullivan, Horney, or Thompson. The controversy
is best characterized if we relate it to the problem of "indication for
psychoanalytic therapy" in general (Alexander). Discussions center
around three topics: that of contraindication of psychoanalytic therapy
in certain types of cases; that of its modification in others; and that
of its modifications in order to save time. Modifications may then
lead to substitution of less time-consuming therapies with comparable
results; "(where better results are expected by the use of other thera-
peutic techniqueswe would assume psychoanalytic therapy to be contra-
indicated) . The value of such investigations is uncontested and their
urgency is great indeed. In the course of these investigations, however,
the tendency has developed to consider the technical procedures used
in psychoanalytic therapy as random procedures. The questions: "why
should the patient lie on a couch"-<>r "why should the analyst
refrain from guidance" are cases in point. There would be indeed
no reason for retaining either the paraphernalia of the interview
situation or the elaborate technical prescriptions in handling inter-
pretations, were we faced with accidental arrangements. What today
 GENETIC APPROACH IN PSYCHOANALYSIS 15

is being described as psychoanalytic tPerapy and its technique has

grown out of many experiments in therapy, initiated by Freud and
elaborated by others over many years. Some of the modifications
suggested today have already been given a trial period and were
rejected; others have been incorporated in what might be called "the
standards". This development, starting out with Freud's road away
from suggestive therapy, was largely due to the progress in psycho-
analytic knowledge. To quote only one instance: the detailed discus-
sions of techniques of interpretations, initiated in the twenties by
W. Reich and continued by A. Freud, O. Fenichel, E. Glover and
others, reflect the progress in understanding of the function of what
Freud defines as ego: interpretation should start as close as possible
to the experience of the patient-"from higher layers"-and elucidate
the structure of "defenses" before they proceed to what stems from
the id.8
These and similar rules aim essentially at obtaining the very
data upon which genetic interpretations given to the patient have to
be based: whatever traces of suggestive therapy survive in this pr~
cedure, whatever part cathartic discharges play-and their part is
considerable---the ultimate goal is the capturing of the repressed. By
the insight thus provided, the ego is given the strength to re-integrate;
even the process of "re-living the past" during psychoanalytic therapy
is part of that great venture in the acquisition of insight.
We formulate the following thesis: of all observational tech-
niques dealing with adult individuals known at present the psycho-
analytic interview is likely to lead to the most complete set of those
data to which the genetic propositions refer. Insofar as it is assumed
that genetic insight is a therapeutic asset, this thesis bears upon the prob-
lem of "indication"; the decision as to in which cases psychoanalytic
therapy is not indicated, in which it should be modified, .and in which
it is the most promising or only possible therapy should be discussed
with this point of view in mind. At the present stage of the dis-
cussion one frequently is tempted to believe that those who advocate
changes in technique, e.g., the predominance of guidance in psycho-
analytic therapy, are not aware of the consequences such changes will
have upon the set of data to which they will be able to obtain access;
and conversely those who do not appreciate the importance of genetic
interpretations tend to change their technique.

3. For a recent summary of views on psychoanalytic technique see Fenichel.

16 HEINZ HARTMANN and ERNST KRIS

(b) Limitations of cross-sectional studies.

Discussions based on clinical impressions tend to leave many
questions unsolved, and scientific decision in this area tends to be
delayed, since the criteria upon which such decision has to be based
lack decisiveness. A greater clarity might be expected from academic
psychologists, who in the last decade have reacted to the challenge
of psychoanalysis. As a first step, "objective verification" of psycho-
analytic propositions has been attempted. Sears recently surveyed
the methods used and the results obtained. The majority of these
investigations test propositions established by psychoanalysts under
controlled conditions, a procedure of considerable and manifold value.
It establishes anew that the psychoanalytic interview is a source' of
valid scientific propositions, and reestablishes unity in psychology
by introducing "man and his conflict" into the reach of academic psy-
chology. By reformulating psychoanalytic findings into clear-cut
propositions, work in this area is likely to force a greater logical
sharpness upon psychoanalytic writing itself, which in turn may
facilitate future scientific discourse. At the present stage, the reformu-
lation of psychoanalytic findings seems to have been most successful
where concepts of learning theory were used.' It is hardly necessary
to stress other advantages of these experimental investigations: the
rigor of the procedure which allows for quantification and the sim-
plicity of the experimental situation facilitate demonstration of hypo-
theses to those who are unfamiliar with details in the general area of
normal and abnormal behavior.
The limits of current experiments in the verification of psycho-
analytic hypotheses become apparent when we realize that, at the
present stage of investigations, the lack of experimental verification
rarely, if ever, implies invalidation of propositions. It proves rather
that the ingenuity of the experimenters has not been able to master
the translation from the area of life where the proposition was gained
into that of the controlled situation where the experiment is per-
formed. Sears has made this point very clear, and his review of work
in the field indicates the existing difficulties. While it was compara-
tively easy to reproduce situations in which "displacement" and "sub-
stitution" operate, no comparable success has been achieved where
other mechanisms of defenses are involved. Thus experimental in-
vestigations in the area of repression tend to remain disappointing;

4, /I. sucvey of these reformulations Initiated by Dollard and Miller Was recently
made by Mowrer and Kluckhohn.
 GENETIC APPR.OACH IN PSYCHOANALYSIS 17

repression, in Freud's definition, is a reaction to an experience which

seriously affects the psycho-biological existence of the person; repres-
sion takes place in order to escape from danger or to avoid anxiety.
All experimenters agree that danger cannot easily be induced in ex-
perimental setups.
The experiments select a limited number of factors and pre-
dictions are accurate only where these and no other factors operate,"
Thus, the intensive studies of frustration and regression by Barker,
Dembo and Lewin-a set of experiments in which the tools of re-
search were sharpened with the greatest skill-do not permit us
to generalize to what kind of frustrations and under what circum-
stances a child will respond with regression. Lewin and his collab-
orators investigated the reaction of children when suddenly de-
prived but still in view of highly desirable toys. When children
visit department stores with their mothers, many of them are in an
equally tantalizing situation. What will their reaction then be? It
will depend on what meaning the "you can't have it" and the "it is
too expensive" gains for the child by the way in which the mother puts
it to him. This depends on a variety of factors: on the child's relation
to the mother; on the mother's own relation to similar present and
past experiences; and how, in the child's own previous development,
tolerance for deprivation in general, and for certain specific depriva-
tions has developed. These are the complexities with which the
genetic and dynamic propositions of psychoanalysis grope. Only a
consideration of both establishes favorable conditions for a successful
prediction. The limitations of the experimental situation do not allow
for a reproduction of this complexity. It deals with a limited time
dimension and, however valuable in other areas, experimental investi-
gation has produced hardly any verification where the genetic propo-
sitions are concerned.
The genetic approach in psychoanalysis does not deal only with
anamnestic data, nor does it intend to show only "how the past is
contained in the present". Genetic propositions describe why, in
past situations of conflict, a specific solution was adopted; why the
one was retained and the other dropped, and what causal relation
exists between these solutions and later developments. Genetic
propositions refer to the fact that in an adult's behavior, anxiety may
be induced by paradoxically out-dated conditions and they explain

5. See for similar views, Bernfeld, Hartmann (1943) and for slightly different
.arguments, Rapaport.
18 HEINZ HARTMANN and ERNST KRIS

why these conditions may still exercise influence. However, in speak-

ing of the similarity of conditions eliciting anxiety we do not speak
of an identity of situations. The man who retreats from competition
in order to avoid murderous impulses against the man at the next
desk, and a child who may experience similar impulses toward a newly
born sibling do not live through the same situations. The various
parts of the personality of the adult have undergone fundamental
changes. Thus for instance, the appraisal of objective danger is
clearly different with adult and child. In fact, the whole area to which
a cross-sectional analysis of the adult's and the child's situation would
refer is fundamentally different. But one part of the adult's personal-
ity behaves as if no change had occurred: it has, as psychoanalysts
put it, not participated in the development. Briefly, the genetic propo-
sitions concerning fixation are in no way invalidated by Lewin's ob-
jections (1937).
The genetic propositions of psychoanalysis have grown out of
empirical work. Not only did Freud draw attention to a large number
of hitherto unknown facts concerning earliest childhood; but he-
soon was impressed by rules in the genetic relationship of psychological
phenomena. The elements that constitute this relationship are "over-
determined", interdependent, and their complexity has in many in-
stances not yet been sufficiently structured in a logical sense. The-
genetic propositions, however, made it possible to establish typical
sequences in development and to trace individual behavior historically
to its origins. As a consequence, psychoanalysis has adopted a pref-
erence to characterize psychological phenomena according to their-
position in the process of development. In the psychoanalytic study
of personality, character traits are not grouped according to their
similarity in a descriptive sense, but rather according to their common
genetic roots. Examples in kind are the "oral" and "anal" characters.
Here the procedure of psychoanalysis resembles that of biology in those
cases where biological classification is based upon genetics (Hartmann,
1929).
Why have such classifications been adopted? What is the reason
for the emphasis upon genetic propositions in this context? In order
to si~plify an extremely complex problem we start with an example:
experience has shown that details of behavior that in a cross-sectional
analysis appear indistinguishable may dearly be differentiated by
genetic investigation, Conversely, details of behavior that in cross-
sectional analysis appear different and are actually opposite may have
 GENETIC APPROACH IN PSYCHOANALYSIS 19

grown out of the same root, and may justify the same prognosis.
Pacifism may in one case be a reaction formation to the wish to attack
and in the other an expression of fear of being attacked by a superior
enemy. Extreme aggressiveness may be in one case the reaction to
fear and its concealment, in the other, the direct expression of sadistic
wishes. These are distinctions that the genetic methods permit us to
establish. What appears to be similar behavior with the individuals
when seen in the cross-section can be differentiated when we take
account of its genesis. If we are able to indicate the position
of such behavior in the longitudinal section what appeared as similar
behavior gains in each individual case a very different meaning. It
is here that we rely upon the genetic propositions especially when
dealing with what has been called the central areas of personality;
only the genetic propositions permit us to make perceivable the drives
that a behavior detail represents, their direction, their intensity and
their structural interconnection.
True, many elements of the past may actually be visible in be-
havior in a given field. But on the other hand, many elements of the
past upon which the application of the genetic proposition has to be
based are not contained as memories in "the field". We here refer
to what psychoanalysis calls the repressed and to the unconscious
parts of ego-defense. But they may appear in the field if a specific
technique, that of the psychoanalytic interview, is being used. And every
application of this method forcibly leads to a restructuring of the field.
The field theory as formulated by Lewin (who is inclined to speak
of a method rather than a theory, 1943) has produced the sharpest
and most logical formulation of the non-historical tendency in psy-
chology (Brown, 1937). It nevertheless has much in common with
psychoanalysis: the consideration of a large number of interdependent
factors, the assumption that every event results out of a variety of fac-
tors (over-determination), are derived from psychoanalysis. One of the
basic statements of the field theory, that "any behavior or any other
change in a psychological field depends only upon the psychological
field at that time", does not appear to be irreconcilable with psycho-
analysis, and it seems possible that if the field theory or other cross-
sectional approaches should develop new methods of investigation
their scope may be considerably enlarged." However, it seems essential

6. Thus Lewin in one of his latest papers seems to assume that those events of the past
that are of immediate relevance for the present can be investigated as parts of the field
and that such investigations may extend over "days and weeks" (1943). The analytic
approach de.6nitely postulates a reconstruction including the total life span.
20 HEINZ HARTMANN and ERNST KRIS

not to overlook the pragmatic side: the field theory has as yet not sug-
gested any definite answer to the question with which we are con-
cerned in this paper: under what conditions is "testing the properties
of a situation at a given time" the most productive and reliable method
for the understanding of the dynamic and structural properties of
psychological phenomena; and how far must such understanding be
based upon what to field theorists may appear a detour via genetic
investigation.
According to Lewin the postulates for an ideal topological investi-
gation of the field will consider what is psycho-biologically relevant
both in a phenotypical and genotypical sense (1935). No other
observational method seems fit to establish this relevance except the
psychoanalytic interview itself. It can reasonably be described as a
field situation in which two people react to each other within conditions
established by rules of procedure. The field situation is changed
from day to day not only by changes in the experience of the patient-
in his daily life but also by the interpretation given by the analyst.
The patient whose mechanism of retreat from danger has been mentioned
comes for analysis with no other complaint than that of lack of interest in his
work. The analyst's first impression is that the lack of interest may not
be genuine; a detail, the patient's affect when discussing events in his office
supplies the cue. A first interpretation draws the patient's attention to the
contradiction between lack of interest and intensity of emotional reaction.
The structure of the field is changed since the patient has been stimulated to
observe similar contradictions; for a time he has become allied to the ana-
lyst in observing under what conditions emotions of considerable intensity
arise. From this first step a way leads to the insight that the first set of condi-
tions is related to the second and that lack of interest occurs when continued
participation might lead to a clash with competitors. In the course of the
gradual elaboration of this pattern the following incident may take place: the
patient's lack of interest may shift from his work to the treatment, which he
may wish to discontinue. He has "suddenly" noticed other patients in the
analyst's waiting room and reacts to this observation with a desire to'
retreat. At this point the field is restructured by a transference interpretation.
He is told that the other patients have suddenly been noticed because he was
predisposed to discover rivals and that this rivalry is related to the growing
attachment to the analyst's person. The sequence attachment-rivalry-retreat
is discussed as one that has shifted from professional life to the treatment room.
When memory material supplies further cues a rivalry situation in childhood
in relation to siblings and parents may emerge. This, as a rule, does not come
about without the reexperiencing of repressed emotions. This in turn may
lead to a reconstruction of the "original situation", in which, for example,
the wish to attack was directed against sibling or parent, and in which attempts
in this direction had been undertaken; the reconstruction may then include the
dangers with which thought or action was fraught at the time, their suppression
 GENETIC APPROACH IN PSYCHOANALYSIS 21

by the parents or by the patient's conscience and a large variety of other details.
In many cases the reconstruction may then be supplemented by a recollection
of a formerly repressed memory. Such reconstructions based upon traces in
dream and fantasy life which supplement actual behavior may well be called
predicting the past; predictions of this kind have by "objective verification"
proved to be correct 10 astonishing details."

Based on these and similar experiences the psychoanalytic inter-

view itself has repeatedly been characterized as an experiment. But
this experiment, however rich, is fraught with uncertainties. Ob-
servers who used the same observational method have not reached agree-
ment on many points, especially on those referring to the genetic
propositions. And thus the problem of objective verification of these
propositions gains in importance; not only for those interested in
integration of scientific approaches but for all those who do spade
work in the field, for psychiatrists, social workers and educators.

3. The Present Stage of the Genetic Propositions

In the psychiatric and psychologic literature of the nineteenth

century, concepts concerning dynamics played a limited part; Herbart's
mechanistic dynamics reached Freud through the work of the neurolo-
gist Meynert, and his familiarity with the work of Lipps and with
French psychiatrists redirected this influence. But from nowhere could
Freud borrow models for an understanding of the ontogenetic develop-
ment of man's psychological structure. Genetic thought came to
him mainly through evolutionism; this accounts for the importance
Freud was inclined to attribute to phylogenetic explanations; they
play their part not only in his reconstructions of human history but also
in explanations of concrete features of human behavior under clinical
observation. Howr-er the recourse to the past of the race transmitted
by the inheritance of acquired characteristics, inspiring as it is in
Freud's presentation, does not find sufficient empirical support in our
present knowledge of heredity. Moreover it seems that in most cases
in which Freud introduces phylogenetic propositions, ontogenetic
propositions could be carried one step farther. For instance, Freud
argues that the intensity of the fear of castration experienced by the
male child in our civilization is unaccountable if we consider it as a
reaction to the actual threats to which the boy is being exposed in

7. For the theory of Reconstruction in Psychoanalysis, see Freud (1938); for an

example of verification, see Bonaparte.
22 HEINZ HARTMANN and ERNST KRIS

the phallic phase; only the memory of the race will explain it," To
this we are inclined to reply with Freud's own arguments. While in
many cases the child in our civilization is no longer being threatened
with castration, the intensity of the veiled aggression of the adult
against the child may still produce the same effect. One might say
that there always is "castration" in the air. Adults who restrict the
little boy act according to patterns rooted in their own upbringing.
However symbolic or distant from actual castration their threats might
be, they are likely to be interpreted by the little boy in terms of his
own experiences. The tumescent penis with which he responds in
erotic excitement, that strange phenomenon of a change in a part
of his body that proves to be largely independent of his control, leads
him to react not to the manifest content but rather to the latent mean-
ing of the restriction with which his strivings for mother, sister, or
girl-playmate meet. And then, what he may have. seen frequently
before, the genitals of the little girl, acquire a new meaning as evidence
and corroboration of that fear. However, the intensity of fear is
not only linked to his present experience, but also to similar experi-
ences in his past. The dreaded retaliation of the environment revives
memories of similar anxieties when desires for other gratifications were
predominant and when the supreme fear was not that of being cas-
trated but that of not being loved." In other words: pregenital experi-
ence is one of the factors determining the reaction in the phallic phase.
This simple formulation refers to a wealth of highly significant
experiences which form the nucleus of early childhood; to the total
attitude of the environment toward the child's anaclitic desires, when
the need for protection is paramount, and toward the child's later
erotic demands.
While phylogenetic speculation was suggested to Freud by the-
ories current in the 1880's, his insight into the relevance of ontogenetic
factors grew out of empirical material. When, in the quest for the
etiology of hysteria, clinical impressions led to the patient's childhood,
Freud attempted to solve what appeared to him then as an unexplained
difficulty; he made the assumption that one traumatic sexual experi-
ence, the seduction of the child by an adult, had been of decisive
etiological importance (1896). This assumption was soon dropped
and replaced by descriptions of regular phases in the development of
the child's instinctual needs.

8. See Freud, 1939, p. 124.

9. For a partly similar formulation, see Jones.
 GENETIC APPROACH IN PSYCHOANALYSIS 23

In establishing the sequence of oral, anal, and phallic phases. of

libidinal development, Freud did not distinguish between a biological
process-maturation determined by constitution-and processes of de-
velopment influenced by the environment. He simply presented the
sequence and its consequences for the future life of man. It will
remain an astonishing document in the history of science that from
material so far removed from direct observation of the child as that
of the analysis of adult neurotics, phenomena of high regularity in
biological development could have been so accurately reconstructed.
The genetic investigation then proceeded from the study of libidinal
development to that of the inhibiting forces. In the course of these
investigations one set of hypotheses has been elaborated in greater
detail than others. More is known in psychoanalysis about the devel-
opment of the superego than about that of the ego, in Freud's defini-
tion; thus the genetic propositions tend to be incomplete and in many
cases unsatisfactory, where psychoanalytic ego psychology is concerned.
The following discussion is aimed largely at this gap in our knowledge.
We start from Freud's greatest contribution to the psychology
of the ego: the reformulation of the problem of anxiety in 1926.
Anxiety is no longer traced to the transformation of libidinal energy
into fear. What might be called a toxicological hypothesis was dis-
carded. It was replaced by dynamic propositions that describe the
function of the ego under the impact of perceived threats. Danger
may come from within the organism itself when instinctual demands
increase; such increase may become a threat to the very organization
of the ego, or it may involve the individual in moral conflicts; but
the increase in instinctual demands may also create conflict with the
environment. The environment, on the other hand, may be the source
of independent danger, when its impositions reduce indulgence. In
each such case the function of the ego is related to what one might
call a condition of imbalance in the total situation; anxiety of low
intensity appears, as an emergency signal in order to stimulate action,
and anxiety of high intensity appears in the adult mostly when the
signal function has failed and the individual feels unable to restore
balance either by attack or retreat of any kind; if this is the case, a
traumatic situation, one of "no way out" and of helplessness, is ex-
perienced. Such situations have a tendency to revive the past. Past
experiences with danger have been summarized by Freud as three
main sets of situations: those in which the fear of the loss of the love-
object arises, which finally leads to the fear of loss of love; those in
24 HEINZ HARTMANN and ERNST KRIS

which the fear of castration arises; and later those which lead to the
fear of conscience-terms that refer to situations of high complexity
and long duration.
In summarizing what is explicitly and implicitly contained in
Freud's concept as far as genetic propositions are concerned, we sug-
gest the following formulation. In the life of each individual crucial
situations occur. They may be due predominantly to external events
or they may be due predominantly to predispositions in the individual
which then may invest insignificant situations with high significance.
In order to assess the predispositions of an individual that meet those
crucial situations, the data in every case would have to refer to his
total past. For a considerable time the reference to the instinctual
demands dominated the discussions of these predispositions and the
functions of the ego were either incompletely described or the de-
scription was limited to that of mechanisms of defense at its disposal.
Though at the present it is generally realized that the realm of the
ego is wider, clinical and theoretical discussions are not conducted on
the same level. While there is no hesitation to refer in clinical de-
scription to the capacities with which an individual is equipped in
coping with pressures of many kinds at any stage of his development,
this point of view is comparatively new in theoretical discussions.
If we turn to the ego as the psychic system that controls perception
and motility, achieves solutions, and directs actions, we have to insist
on distinctions that seemed irrelevant when Freud first formulated his
genetic propositions. A number of functions of the ego related to the
apparatus at its disposal develop largely outside of the reach of psychic
conflict; Hartmann(1939) actually speaks of a sphere of the ego
free from conflict. These functions gain for our discussion a specific
importance since they exercise a considerable influence as independent
factors; they determine together with other factors what mechanism of
defense an individual adopts and with what results, or what sub-
stitute goals he adopts for his instinctual desires. However, this dis-
tinction between psychological processes predominantly dependent on
biological maturation, and others predominantly dependent on in-
fluences of the environment, to which we here refer as "development",
is not limited to ego psychology. The growth of the teeth and of the
muscular sphincter control are according to Freud influential in deter-
mining the progress from one phase of libidinal development to
the other; but these maturational sequences determine also the sequence
of experiences that owe their special character to one or the other
 GENETIC APPROACH IN PSYCHOANALYSIS 25

of the libidinal phases. Similarly, the maturation of the apparatus

of motility or perception exercises influence on the progress of the
general development of the ego-an area of problems which however
has not yet been sufficiently clarified. Seen against this background,
one of the most general findings of psychoanalysis which by now
seems self-evident, gains a specific importance. This finding asserts
that the importance of an actual experience through which a child lives,
and the direction this experience may give to his life largely depend
on the specific phase of the child's development. This is the reason
why a superficial collection of anamnestic data concerning an indi-
vidual's childhood is frequently misleading. The question is not that
at some time in childhood a tonsillectomy was performed or that a
child was left in hospital care, but under what conditions and when
these events took place. The coincidence of hospitalization and the
fear of loss of love, that of tonsillectomy and fear of castration, thus
the coincidence of predisposition and experience, are the decisive
points.'?
Many of the child's experiences that are uncovered by psycho-
analytic therapy are of such specific importance; i.e., many of them
are traumatic. However, others of which the memory is recovered
by the patient or which are reconstructed by the analyst do not concern
experiences that in themselves necessarily had a decisive causal or
formative effect, and yet such experiences are of considerable im-
portance for genetic investigation: they are "signs", indicating im-
portant changes in the child's life and they impress us as symptoms
of his general development. This again leads back to the two inter-
acting chains of maturation and development.
Freud's insistence on this interaction has recently been misrepre-
sented as "overemphasis on biology". In fact, however, Freud clearly
stresses the existence of two aspects. He refers to the biological aspect
when he states that in tracing an individual's life history we describe
some processes that were bound to occur under alternative conditions
and following alternative pathways. The other aspect, with far
more momentous consequences, concerns the importance of the en-
vironment; the object of psychoanalytic observation is according to
Freud not the individual in splendid isolation; it is part of a world.
Psychoanalysis does not claim to explain human behavior only as a

10. A model of such coincidence in the regular normal development of the little girl
and her discovery of the Sex difference, is tentatively indicated by Rado, For similar
theoretical views see Erikson.
26 HEINZ HARTMANN and ERNST KRIS

result of drives and fantasies; human behavior is directed toward a

world of men and things. The approach of psychoanalysis in many
cases includes the structure of this world in its scope; and in this
sense psychoanalysis is applied Social Science (Hartmann, 1944). Thus
what we loosely call a child's "experience", is in psychoanalysis viewed
both in relation to the child's biological growth and in its relation
to the world around it, a distinction that proves its value, if applied
over a long period of observation to the wealth of data psychoanalytic
therapy brings to light.
We now define more closely the crucial situations in an indi-
vidual's development: There are typical phases of conflict, either be-
tween drives with opposite goals or between drives and the ego
structure, which regularly occur in both normal and abnormal develop-
ment. They may be brought about mainly by maturation, when new
demands or new tasks are brought into the individual's reach, or
they may mainly be brought about by demands and influences of the
environment, such as those regularly occurring in every human being's
life. The crucial phases of maturation and of development actually
coincide to a large extent; at which points they coincide, and at which
lines cross each other, will to a considerable degree depend on cultural
factors.
If we include these cultural factors it will become evident that
however rich and manifold the data are on which psychoanalysis
bases its views of the child's development, these data are on the
whole not sufficient to allow for the full and detailed formulation of
genetic propositions. In other words, it is essential to supplement
the data supplied by the psychoanalytic interview with data established
by other observational methods; there seems little doubt that in en-
larging the set of data we shall approximate the postulate that the
genetic propositions of psychoanalysis should be verified.
It might here briefly be recalled that up to 1909 the only data
available were gained from the analyses of adults. In the second
decade of this century unsystematic observations of children were in-
terpreted as confirming what had been gathered from this source. In
the third decade, with the systematic development of child analysis,
new material was made available; it has deeply influenced psycho-
analytic theory and technique and the more detailed propositions con-
cerning defense mechanisms largely stem from this source. The next
stage, the systematic observation of children by psychoanalytically
trained observers, has not produced more than isolated sets of data.
 GENETIC APPROACH IN PSYCHOANALYSIS 27

Though we have learned a great deal an independent verification of

the genetic propositions has only partly been achieved. Such verifica-
tions would have a different value from those concerning dynamic
propositions. There, verification has largely confirmative value and
serves, as we said, the purpose of scientific intercommunication. In
the area of the genetic propositions, we are faced with problems of
integration on a higher level. In many areas disagreement prevails.
In certain cases psychoanalytic observation was able to falsify a genetic
assumption; this we believe is true of the propositions concerning
the trauma of birth as suggested by O. Rank. In other instances, a
similar refutation has not been achieved. This is particularly true of
propositions suggested by Melanie Klein, and though the uncertainty
is partly due to a confusion of language it is also partly due to the
limits of the observational methods used."
One might have hoped for support in the experience and in the
data made available by academic students of child development.
Though the psychoanalyst is bound to find essential information in
their work, and could be warned of many miscarriages in theoretical
thinking by familiarity with it, it seems that the gaps in data to which
we here refer, cannot be filled by what has been observed independently
of a psychoanalytic orientation. It rather seems that only where the
psychoanalytic hunch is directly linked to observation, new areas of
problems are opened up.
As an example we refer to propositions suggested recently con-
cerning the influence of earliest relationship with the mother upon
survival and development of the child, by Ribble, Spitz and others.
Similar investigations are lacking in other areas. We quote two ex-
amples: psychoanalytic hypotheses assert that isolated symptoms such
as disturbances of concentration, eating difficulties, fears, and phobias
or obsessional rituals are frequent with children between three and
six. In other words, certain traits that are symptoms of neurosis in
the adult are spread among young children who later become, or do
not become "neurotics". A frequent formulation of this proposition
states that the infantile neurosis is ubiquitous in our civilization. New
data are required in order to determine under what conditions the
infantile disturbance will develop to the adult neurosis (A. Freud,
1945) .

11. For discussion of this controversy see Glover.

28 HEINZ HARTMANN and ERNST KRIS

We are hardly in a better position where the changes of puberty

are concerned; we are in many cases unable to predict both the extent
and direction of these changes, a problem of decisive importance for
child psychiatry; one which particularly suggests the importance of
observation of a large number of cases, in various cultural settings.
Briefly, only the systematic observation of life histories from
birth on can fill the gap. Such longitudinal research has been approxi-
mated with highly promising results by various groups, in relation
to comparative studies, especially by anthropologists. It has been
said that through the publications of Mead, Kardiner, Kluckhohn,
Erikson, Gorer, and others.P we know more about the growing up
in certain primitive civilizations than about the interrelation between
the modes of childbearing and the formation of personality in our
own civilization (Bateson, 1943). While this seems to be an exaggera-
tion it is a healthy one which draws attention to the lack of data to
which we here refer. If the longitudinal observation in our own
civilization were to be systematized and the study of life histories were'
to be combined with that of the crucial situations in Freud's sense,
many hunches might be formulated as propositions, and others might
be discarded. This goal could best be achieved by the constant
interaction of two observational methods, psychoanalysis and observa-
tion of life histories, which we here call the retrospective and prospec-
tive method. The method of retrospective research has been estab-
lished by the technique of psychoanalytic therapy; the methods of
prospective research have been elaborated by psychiatrists, psycholo-
gists, and anthropologists. The relationship of both observational
methods is manifold: the retrospective method was in the past in a
position to direct attention to new areas in the child's life, which
have gradually been investigated by observers with various kinds of
observational skills; there is no reason to assume that this function
of pointing to the essential is exhausted. The retrospective method,
however, can do more: it can establish interconnections between ex-
periences that are bound to escape observers who have less intimate
insight; it is here that child analysis may well be expected to playa
part. There are, on the other hand, areas of problems in child devel-
opment that have found little attention in psychoanalysis-or where
the access remains unsatisfactory: examples of the former are those
achievements of the ego that are independent of conflict; examples
of the latter are the experiences of the pre-verbal stage of child

12. See Young and Linton for divergent summaries.

 GENETIC APPROACH IN PSYCHOANALYSIS 29

development. Psychoanalysis is witness to the importance of this

stage for the future; child observation, however, will have to tell the
tale of these eventful years.

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