SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS— J. 485 



II. Fallacies in some theories as to problem children. 



Sound and fallacious arguments in favour of Nursery Schools and Child 

 Guidance Clinics. 



The supposition that a child's character is determined by its early environ- 

 ment and especially by its treatment by parents. 



Failure to allow for great innate individual differences in elements of 

 disposition and character. 



Many delinquent children come from ' broken homes,' but so do many 

 normal children. 



Unjustified assertions as to ' the only child,' etc. 



III. Some facts as to early social development. 



Social play and active sympathy in the first three or four years. Some 

 experiments on the social training of infants by one another. 



A critical consideration of the prognostic value of observations on early 

 social development. 



Dr. W. Brown. — Psychological problems of the mature personality (12.15). 



The age of maturity may be regarded as having begun when the individual 

 has finally chosen his mate and is satisfactorily and happily married. (The 

 problems of the unmarried and the homosexual are somewhat different, 

 but have analogous solutions.) Marriage itself involves some deep psycho- 

 logical problems. The necessity for the individual to shoulder his responsi- 

 bilities, to think for another as well as for himself, to develop the ' binocular ' 

 view of life, both masculine and feminine, might give rise to disturbances, 

 if not affecting conduct, at least affecting feeling and outlook. The great 

 danger at every stage of mature life is regression, a retreat to a previously 

 occupied position. It is because of this that deep mental analysis is so 

 helpful, enabling the individual to gain an insight into the persistent effects 

 of his earlier experiences. With the birth of children come new problems 

 of adaptation. The parent must be encouraged to live for his children in 

 an objective way, not in a narcissistic way, as though the children were his 

 possession. 



Another problem of maturity is settlement in a profession. Here, in the 

 most favourable circumstances, it is not the man who chooses the profession 

 but the profession which chooses the man. In this respect also there is 

 always the possibility of regression. The occupation not chosen may 

 have had a glamour of its own. It may have attracted him at one time, 

 and have been dismissed for one reason or another, but not completely 

 excluded, and when difficulties are encountered, or other special circum- 

 stances arise, such earlier ambitions may reassert themselves, sometimes 

 with very disturbing, even disastrous, effects for the individual. 



The fundamental problem before the mature personality is sublimation, 

 the opposite of regression, a movenment forward to a fuller development of 

 the personality instead of a stepping back. Sublimation means the direction 

 of the primitive instinctive energy towards ever higher social and spiritual 

 ends. As a rule it is the late forties or early fifties that the greatest ethical 

 demands are made upon the individual. He must consent finally to the 

 surrender of some personal ambitions for himself, he must abandon the 

 last vestiges of narcissism, he must find a philosophy to meet the needs of 

 his advancing years. He is at the parting of the ways, one way being a 

 process of continued sublimation, the other of regression, lost courage, and 

 futile depression. Here again much help can be given by some form of 

 analysis, taking him back into his past, enabling him to talk out his life and 

 to know himself : and then, through the emotional rapport which springs 



