The Analyst's Act and the Child's Desire: A Retrospective Case Study.

In this paper, I lay out a blueprint for a child analysis, stipulating the terms and ethics of the Lacanian field of psychoanalysis, the position of the analyst in that field, and the invitation to the child to discover a space for desire in the work of play. Drawing on the grounding work of Freud, Lacan, Dolto, Lefort, Mannoni, and Mathelin, I describe the mainsprings of the psychoanalytic clinic with the child. I then offer a child case and its trajectory from the development of a phobia to a symptom, and show how the primal scene fantasy and its articulation can open a space for desire in a child's play. What is particular to this work of playing is the emergence of signifiers that chain across generations, and move into new metaphors that foreground the Real of the child's experience and desire.