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The goal of this paper is to acquaint the reader with an understanding of the nature of child psychoanalysis: how the analyst interacts with the child, how one begins to decide whether psychoanalysis is the best treatment, and how child psychoanalysis is similar to and different from adult psychoanalysis.
Psychoanalysis denotes both a theory of the functioning of the mind as well as a method of treating mental dysfunction. In psychoanalytic theory, there are two basic assumptions: one, that a great deal of mental activity is unconscious; and two, that there is a continuity of thoughts—psychic determinism—which operates both when a person is free associating during an analysis (i.e., suspending conscious control over his trend of thought) as well as, historically (i.e., that there is a connection between what went on in the person's past and what goes on in the person's present). It is important to stress that there may be no conscious awareness of these connections. These two basic postulates enable the analyst to organize the conscious mental productions of a patient during an analysis. A major goal for the patient of the analytic procedure involves the gradual increase in conscious connections between disparate events in the present as well as connections between present life and the past.
Brenner (1982) defines psychoanalysis as a theory of the mind which looks at mental functioning from the point of view of intrapsychic conflict. This theory is derived from psychoanalytic clinical observation of opposing mental forces. When these forces work in concert