ABSTRACT
As with the initial conditions for “the evolution of open dynamic systems”, the conditions of the unfolding of the first meeting with a child and his/her family will have a bearing on the form of the indication at the end of the meeting. This is true even when the indication is limited to the offer of a second meeting. These conditions are based, first of all, on the child’s forms of associativity and their stumbling-blocks in the relationship between the child and the consultant. Next, and linked up with this first phase, it will be necessary to evaluate what can or cannot be shared, and at what level, with the parent(s). Let me add that by associativity (to indicate its difference from the model of free association, which is its reference), I mean, irrespective of the child’s age, any concatenation, any sequencing of elements, even the most minimal, playful, graphic, verbal, behavioural, and changes of register with their negative aspects, that is to say, when the latter has the significance of rupture.
