Errrm ... which bit? The only studying one child bit? I learned about Freud and child development during A Level Psychology - as you can imagine, a class of 17 year olds were not too kindly disposed to being told they had all lusted after their parents at some point, so it was rather amusing! Apparently Freud studied one child (was it Little Hans? I know there was a Little Albert but I seem to remember him being linked to a cruel experiment by another theorist involving sleep deprivation and an iron bar) and this child was particularly odd. He was absolutely terrified of horses, particularly white horses wearing blinkers. Freud deduced not only that the fear of horses was Hans' way of expressing his fear of his father (the blinkers looking similar to the father's glasses), and that Hans was afraid of his father because he feared he would castrate him. And that is where the Oedipus complex was born. You've got to wonder when you hear that! And the theories on girls are rather offensive - and he never studied any female children!

Maslowe's Hierarchy of Needs - yes I remember that. It was mainly used by business students in their research and development assignments, which tells you all you need to know!

As for Gestalt, we didn't learn much about that. It didn't feature much on the syllabus - we learned what it meant and that was about it. But Freudian psychoanalysis helped me numerous times through my degree, so I can waffle on about it for ages. The Oedipal and (especially) Electral complexes are rubbish in my opinion, but a lot of the rest of it just seems to work ...

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