ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author attempts to define the particular features of child analysis and to share his experience of the transformative role which the practice of child analysis can have on one's work with adults. S. Freud's position rested on the idea that child analysis could not satisfy what was then deemed indispensable for performing analytical therapy: a sufficiently developed ego and the presence of a repressed trauma which could be cured by being re-experienced in the transference of neurosis. The suspension of action has been the fundamentals of the analytic method so that even in child analysis the analyst is limited to accompanying or interpreting the child's games with words. As an instrument for the development of various possible stories, playing is in the end an essential instrument for analysts who privilege as the goal of analysis the expansion of the bi-personal field and the development of the mental container of both members of the analytic couple.
