Introduction

Since Freud's publication of “Little Hans,” advances in psychoanalytic technique and theory have transformed our clinical work with children. Contributions by Anna Freud, Melanie Klein, and Donald Winnicott have influenced psychoanalytic play therapy and broadened the scope of practice with children. As contemporary psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic social work clinicians, we often find ourselves responding to misapprehensions and distortions about psychoanalytic theory and treatment created or promoted in the popular culture. Our clinical practices are subject to the disruptive influence of managed mental health care and, with the ascendancy of biological psychiatry, increasing reliance on psychoactive drugs in the treatment of children, often in the absence of sound research support.