Introduction

In the nearly one hundred years that have elapsed since Freud's publication of his pioneering work with “Little Hans,” psychoanalysis has transformed not only our clinical work with children, but also has immeasurably enriched our understanding of normal child and adolescent development as well as developmental deviations and derailments. We have gradually come to understand childhood and adolescence as a complex tapestry of developmental themes, conflicts, and crises—sometimes discontinuous or discrete, at other times, harmonious and integrated, yet always occurring within a transactional matrix of environmental influences and internal experience.

Although libido theory and the Oedipus complex and its various resolutions, pathological and adaptive, once represented the overarching framework for understanding both developmental and clinical processes with children, contemporary psychoanalytic approaches to children and adolescents reflect theoretical and clinical heterogeneity. The development of the ego and of the self now command as much attention as the distribution of the libido once did; attachment theory and direct observational studies of infants and young children have augmented and, in some cases, supplanted earlier classical psychoanalytic notions about pre-oedipal experience. Similarly, ideas derived from object relations theory, such as containment and projective identification, have gradually gained currency for the contribution they make both to the clinical situation and to psychoanalytic developmental theory.

In this transdisciplinary anthology, eight authors explore the changing terrain of child and adolescent psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic therapy. The contributions are both innovative and varied, ranging from the highly abstract and theoretical to those which consider very specific dimensions of clinical process. Collectively, they make a compelling case for the continued relevance of psychoanalytic ideas in the treatment of children and adolesce