Peeling the onion: understanding layers of treatment

How can a psychoanalyst account for and recount the process of understanding the therapeutic endeavor? What happens in those moments, co-created by patient and analyst, when the consultation room comes "alive" in ways that defy easy or simplistic answers? How does an analyst come to understand psychoanalytic treatment as a bidirectional, dyadic, dynamic, interactively regulated relationship? Understanding the psychoanalytic treatment process from a disciplined, yet spontaneous, nonlinear perspective is the focus of this chapter. The overarching treatment process will be considered through the presentation of vignette of a treatment with a school-aged child.