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Psychoanalysis is not ranked as a recommended treatment for obsessive compulsive disorder. Even so, in the case here presented, psychoanalysis began with a latency-age child with OCD based on an intuitive certainty that it might help him. The patient had suffered from OCD since the age of five and had received three types of shorter treatments, which had at first helped, but the effect had disappeared after some time. He expressed exhaustion over his symptoms and wished for a longer treatment. With psychoanalysis, the patient’s symptoms eased and his psychological development in the areas that had slowed down could progress. The object of my interest is what in our psychoanalytic collaboration helped him, but also, what significance the entity of shame might have had in the persistence of his symptoms. I also consider the applicability of psychoanalysis as a treatment for children by comparing my case with a case published in 2005 about the successful psychoanalysis of a 10-year-old boy with OCD. I reflect on the factors on whose basis psychoanalysis may be recommended as a treatment, even though the position of cognitive-behavioural and SSRI medication as primary treatments is superior in the light of scientific research.