Conceptualizing the Nature of the Therapeutic Action of Child Analysis

In her introductory remarks, Marjorie Harley reminded the audience that adult and child analysis are aspects of a whole that are primary and entail interpretations of defense, resistance, and transference; reconstruction, working through, etc. Both aim at the internal revision of psychic structure and functions so that development may proceed in an optimal way. Both have, at their core, the analytic process. However, there are certain distinctive features which characterize child analysis: it takes place under conditions different from adult analysis, and child analysts must adapt their technique to the changing capacities of the child as he makes his way up the developmental scale.

Harley stated that concomitant with our increasing knowledge of early ego development there has been an increasing interest in examining the therapeutic action of analysis from the angle of the patient-analyst relationship. It is often difficult to ascertain which therapeutic results are attributable to the analytic process and which have arisen from other sources. One of these sources is the analyst as a new object—an object through which to experience