ABSTRACT
Knowledge about psychoanalytic psychotherapy with children is lagging behind, not only behind what is known about other forms of psychotherapy, but also behind the corresponding knowledge of psychoanalytic psychotherapy with adults. Research in psychotherapy is traditionally divided into case studies and large-scale quantitative studies, this holding true for research in psychoanalytic psychotherapy with children as well. Although the study of the process of psychotherapy with adults has developed, progress in the empirical study of work with children has lagged behind. The complications of research in psychoanalytic child psychotherapy have had to do with training of researchers, organizational circumstances, and the function of the social system; but other complications follow more directly from the use of children as subjects of research. Psychotherapists and other staff groups who are trained in the treatment of children have been introduced, but they are rarely placed in positions where they have sufficient power to decide when or how research should be undertaken, if at all.
