Page:The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis II 1921 3-4.djvu/49

 ON THE TECHNIQUE OF CHILD -ANALYSIS 303

creates in most parents distrustful and anxious feelings. This reluct- ance to lay bare family affairs proves a greater hindrance in the case of child-analysis than in the case of the adult, for the latter is willing to sacrifice, for the sake of his own recovery, the con- sideration he holds for his family. Another difficulty arises from the over-anxiety of the parents to further and hasten the analysis by their co-operation. The mothers, at all events, nearly always show a desire to make use of 'active therapy'. It is terribly difficult to convince them that their work lies in quite another direction and that they are really acting as helpers if they show the child during the treat- ment the greatest possible measure of patience and forbearance. They must develop the understanding that the young mind during the analysis has to go through a process of re-crystallization during which first the old values are destroyed; and this destruct- ive process cannot take place without disturbances, and these shocks have an outlet in an increase of the very difficulties and pecul- iarities which have to be eliminated. Quite usually after a striking temporary improvement in the symptoms (arousing in the parents premature expectation of cure in a few weeks or even hours in spite of the analyst's emphatic warning as to the duration of the analysis) a marked change for the worse takes place. Some children rebel more violently than ever against the parents' rules and regu- lations: others who have failed in their work owing to their ex- treme phantasy-life, will take advantage of the unwonted freedom to express now without check their secret thoughts and feelings. They lose themselves in their day-dreams, and for the time being, they turn away from their work more completely than before. This apparent deterioration in the outward behaviour of the child, which reveals his psychic condition, is regarded quite differently by the parents and by the analyst: the latter sees in it a good sign for the further progress of the analysis.

It is not easy to convince the parents that the renunciation of the desire for the children's success in work during the pro- cess of analysis holds out the promise of that very success when the treatment is over. They are very unwilling to allow as much importance to a psychic trouble as to a physical one. Just as no father would think of sending his child to school when suffering from pneumonia, so no demands must be made for study from the child suffering psychically.

The narcissism of the parents explains their extreme jealousy.