El “niño” en la obra freudiana

Abstract

This article shows partial results of an investigation whose general objective is to explore the notions of “child” that hold, implicitly or explicitly, the main referents of psychoanalysis, and how such conceptions impact on their respective clinical practices. In this opportunity, one of the axes of analysis corresponding to the notion of "child" throughout the work of Sigmund Freud is presented. From the analysis and interpretation of the Freudian texts, three moments to think the notion of “child” can be placed; a first moment associated with the seduction theory, which proposes the child as a “victim,” correlated to the cathartic method as a therapy. A second moment characterized by the discovery of the infant sexuality that poses the child as “sexed” and starts the psychoanalytical clinic itself. Finally, a third moment framed in the debate on the possibility of performing psychoanalysis with children in which the question if the child is a subject of the unconscious with the same status of adults. It could be thought that the notion of “child” that Freud holds throughout his work flows out in different clinical practices associated with such ideas.