Looking Through the Hourglass: The Importance of Our Words and Actions in Contemporary Child Psychoanalysis

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the relationship between our child analytic theories and what we say to the children with whom we work. This is a complicated relationship, one that involves the analyst’s conscious and unconscious ideas, formulations, and emotional reactions. This paper explores the complexities and vicissitudes of this relationship, and encourages an approach to intervention that is direct, simple, respectful, and at times focused on difficult aspects of the child’s intrapsychic landscape.

KEYWORDS:

• Interpretation
• countertransference
• therapeutic alliance
• psychosexual development

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. This paper was initially delivered as the Marianne Kris lecture on May 7, 2023, during the annual Association for Child Psychoanalysis conference. I want to thank Susan Sherkow, the ACP President, for giving me the honor of serving as the Marianne Kris lecturer, which was an unexpected privilege. As I wrote this paper, I revisited conversations with a number of my psychoanalytic teachers, including Sam Rubin, Walter Troffkin, Ed Kohn, and Tom Barrett, and I am appreciative to each of them. I also want to thank Brett Clarke, who helped me with aspects of the thinking and writing. But mostly, I want to say that this paper grew out of a multi-year collaboration with Lee Ascherman. Lee has been a longtime and valued teacher. I am deeply grateful that he continues to guide my thinking and development as a child psychoanalyst, as well as for the many hours that he devoted to helping me with this paper.

2. Throughout this paper, I will use the word “children” to designate both children and adolescents.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sydney F. Anderson

Sydney F. Anderson is a child, adolescent, and adult psychoanalyst in private practice in Bloomington, Indiana. She is on the faculty of the Cincinnati Psychoanalytic Institute, where she is an adult Supervising and Training Analyst, and a Child Supervising Analyst. She is also a Geographic Rule Child Supervising Analyst for two other psychoanalytic institutes. Dr. Anderson is the President-elect of the Association for Child Psychoanalysis, and a member of the Editorial Board of the Psychoanalytic Quarterly.