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IT JUST HAPPENED TO ME this moment—something that sometimes happens to me with a child: I expect things to go along smoothly and for them not to give me any difficulty when suddenly I slip, and I say, "Oh, oh, something unusual is happening, " and then I find out what's happening inside me. So I found out something about myself now in relation to you as my audience, from catching hold of a change of tension and awkwardness in front of you. You just have to watch yourself wherever you are if you want to make use of these things. But since this is not a psychotherapy session, we shall not pursue this any further.
With the psychotherapy of children, just as with adults, we've spoken a great deal about its being an art and about its being also a science. I think that's what we carry with us—I think most of us agree to that—and yet we don't spell it out. That is to say, we don't precisely describe what is the scientific part and what is the art. In general I think that, at a minimum, science has to do with the regularities, prediction, outcome, and communication of reliable information. However, our aptitude, style, and craft—a unique, original product whether it be part of a tradition, like abstract expressionism, baroque, rococo, or whatever, or whether it be something outside tradition, like the works of Hieronymous Bosch—still have that quality of being unique and original in their articulation and form. Finally, to be worthy of belonging to the category of art, it has to manifest significant