Dr Robin Anderson, MRCP, FRCPsych, F Inst Psychoanal, is a training analyst in adult, child and adolescent analysis at the British Psychoanalytical Society. He was also a consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist and Chair of the Adolescent Department of the Tavistock Clinic until 2003. He now concentrates on teaching and working in private psychoanalytic practice.
He has published papers both on child and adolescent, and adult psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, numerous book chapters and has edited and contributed to two books, ‘Clinical Lectures on Klein and Bion’ and ‘Facing It Out: Clinical Perspectives on Adolescent Disturbance’ with Anna Dartington. He has a particular interest in early object relationships and the way in which they manifest themselves in later life especially during adolescence. Whilst at the Tavistock Clinic he developed an interest in adolescent suicidal behaviour that has continued. He has an interest in the way in which psychoanalytic work with children contributes to and informs adult analytic technique.
Lecture: The relationship between child and adult analysis: A glimpse of Florence’s story
Synopsis
Although the theoretical bases of child and adult analysis are very similar the practice looks completely different. The child is dependent and is also unable to lie on a couch for very long or to free associate. What young children especially do is play which they do in a play room and not a consulting room. They act-in a great deal causing the analyst to have to step in and control them at times. The analyst is part of the play at times so is used very differently. To practice child analysis it is very important to be able to recognise the enactments and to respond to them quickly and as far as possible to read them correctly. Bion’s advice to analyst to learn to ‘Think under fire’ is very apt to this kind of work but taking a close look at child analysis in action can also indicate what the adult analyst has to respond to in the more sophisticated and to an extent disguised world of adult behaviour.
What I am trying to show in my paper is that despite these marked differences there is much more similarity than is apparent and if we look at the similarities we can see in adult analysis how just as in child analysis the inner world comes to life and can be seen clearly when we see how much action takes place in adult analysis behind a quieter exterior.
I am suggesting that an understanding of child analysis is valuable to learning how to analyse adults
A clinical example is give to show how a painful story begins to come to life in a child’s analysis.