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THE DEVELOPMENT OF A TRANSFERENCE NEUROSIS, MANIFESTED BY SYMPtoms or the intensification of characteristic, pathological modes of perception and interaction in relation to the analyst, is, I believe, the sine qua non of psychoanalysis. Although every attempt at analysis does not result in a transference neurosis (or an analysis), when a full analytic process occurs, analysis of the transference neurosis is a central element. Many analysts believe it to be the pivotal mutative experience in adult analysis; this, however, is not the general opinion for child analysis. Until recently, most child analysts in the United States (other than the followers of Melanie Klein) saw the child as having a limited capacity to form and sustain a transference neurosis. Although this perception of analysis with children is changing, and a growing number of analysts today practice "adult-type" child analysis, there remain many who believe children do not develop transference manifestations and transference neuroses as adults do, in either frequency, endurance, or depth. The determinants of this belief lie both in the preconceptions and political struggles that mark the history of child analysis and in certain characteristics of child analysis itself.
I have not found intense transference manifestations developing around the person of the analyst unusual in children; quite the contrary, without it I find there is no analysis (though there may be very good psychotherapy). However, if the term "transference neurosis" is limited to the development within the analytic situation of a new neurosis, complete with a new set of symptoms, then I have to agree that this is not a regular occurrence in the analysis of children (or adults). This