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The evolution of childhood: relationships, emotion and mind

from the broader psychoanalytic understanding of sexuality and bisexuality to the descriptions of infantile sexuality, as described by Freud. Again all this is rendered in straightforward, down-to-earth language. Then quite a bit of space is given to the description of the Oedipus conflict and how it first appears in its early stages as described by Melanie Klein; the manifestations of the conflict in boys and girls are explored. Again analytic work and excerpts from observations are skilfully used to bring these conflicts to life in the reader’s mind. The last moving example of a child in a nursery working through the conflict about an absent daddy shows his struggles and the final resolution for a little moment. In chapter six, the epilogue, Gertraud Diem-Wille summarises the aims of this book. She says it was her intention, ‘. . . to connect complex metapsychological, theoretical constructions with illustrations taken from everyday life’, and in my opinion she has really achieved this. By contrast, I felt the least convincing bits were a couple of checklists, one on autism and a later one on possible symptoms of child sexual abuse. These struck me as different in style and did not quite compare to the subtlety shown in other parts of the book. Diem-Wille encourages her readers to study the original texts further and also evokes their curiosity about the fascinating inner world. I think that this could be a very helpful book for parents and parents-to-be and for any professional working with small children. It could also be a useful resource for teachers of child development, who will find the numerous examples very enlightening. It might also be enjoyed by adult psychotherapists who have studied these psychoanalytic concepts but may not have had the opportunity to do an infant observation themselves or to work with children analytically. It gives a vivid glimpse into the developing rich internal world of small children.