ABSTRACT
Psychoanalytic procedures have a long tradition in the history of child psychiatry and psychotherapy. Short-term therapies take account of the need to offer therapeutic help to a large number of children with emotional disorders. The Manual for Short-Term Psychoanalytic Child Therapy (PaCT) comprises 20–25 psychotherapeutic sessions in changing settings (parent–child, child alone, parents alone), in which a relational theme lying at the root of the symptoms is processed and worked through. This relational theme represents a psychodynamic hypothesis about the currently active interpersonal and/or intrapsychic conflict, and integrates it with the defence mechanisms associated with this conflict. The relational theme encompasses (1) the family relationships on which the symptoms are based; (2) the intrapsychic conflicts, and (3) the therapist–parents–child relationship. We call this the triangle of psychodynamic constellations (ToP, see Figure 3, Chapter Six (p. 149), in the section headed “The focus of PaCT: ‘triangle of psychodynamic constellations’” (ToP), pp. 147–148).
