The role of analytic neutrality in the use of the child analyst as a new object

The analyses of two children and one adolescent were presented to illustrate the concept that the neutrality of the analyst can be used not only to (a) establish a working, analyzing, and observing alliance, (b) permit the development, recognition, and working through of the transference neurosis, but also to (c) develop a sense of autonomy and self-esteem which had been contaminated by the neediness and lack of true empathy of the primary objects during the practicing and rapprochement phases of separation-individuation. For the patients discussed above, many ego functions which should have had a degree of secondary autonomy were either inhibited, enmeshed in conflict, or experienced as nongenuine, part of a "false self." It was as if the experience with the neutral analyst permitted an "autonomous practicing" that had not been possible during the period of separation-individuation.