ABSTRACT
The core of psychoanalytic psychotherapy centres on the transference and countertransference relationship. This chapter will begin by attempting to capture and convey a qualitative feel of what is offered by this form of treatment. I hope to delineate something of the psychic, mental and affective processes involved in a therapeutic relationship: what sort of experiences does therapeutic contact offer a particular child and how, too, does a therapist re¯ect on his or her part in the therapeutic engagement in order to understand the child?
