ABSTRACT
Liaison with parents or carers is essential to sustain a collaborative approach to Short-Term Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy (STPP) and has the aim of helping them to support their adolescent child’s therapy and of enabling the therapist and parent(s) to discuss any significant ongoing developments. STPP for young people with depression aims to focus not only on “symptom relief” but also on addressing some of the underlying vulnerabilities to depression, in order to try and create increased resilience and foster a capacity in the young person to manage difficult feelings and experiences. The transference relationship is central to STPP, as it is to all forms of psychotherapy that pay attention to unconscious mental life. R. Greenson and M. Wexler delineated three aspects of the therapeutic relationship: the transference relationship; the “real relationship”, based on the patient’s accurate observation of the therapist and their relationship; and the “working alliance”.
