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Child psychoanalytic psychotherapy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

M. Fitzgerald
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The goal of psychoanalytic psychotherapy with a distressed child is to alter the child's psychic structure and function. The technique is based on the same theory as adult psychoanalytic psychotherapy (see Box 1). The unconscious is central, as is the interpretation of defence, resistance, transference, working through and the reconstruction of earlier life. It differs from adult psychotherapy in that the child's age and level of development are at all times central to the work. In young children the focus of interpretation is on free play, while with adults it is free association of ideas. In the treatment of adolescents a combination of techniques, both adult and pre-adolescent, are used, while for late adolescents the technique is basically adult technique with attention to issues relevant to that stage of the life cycle.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Advances in Psychiatric Treatment , Volume 4 , Issue 1 , January 1998, pp. 18 - 24
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal College of Psychiatrists 1998 

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