From the author: I have been wondering for quite a long time what position it is possible to take when a parent comes into the office with a child. Ayten Juran's course “Psychoanalysis of a Young Subject” helped form some ideas that I want to share with you. And, of course, art helped me a lot. It seems that a child is a very fragile subject, and he deserves to be spoken about with the utmost care. Nowadays you can hear and read a lot about children. There are many experts on how to and how not to raise a child. But I want to talk about the ethics of communication with young subjects. Let's start with history. I was surprised by Francoise Dolto's appeal to the history of painting. She writes: “From the 15th to the 18th centuries, a constant element of painting was the disguise of a child as an adult.” “They [children] differ from adults only in height” (F. Dolto speaks of Bruegel’s painting “Satirical School Scene”). In the Hermitage, my gaze was caught by Louis Leopold Boilly’s painting “Billiards”, 1807: In the painting we see children. But they are somehow different. What attracted most attention was the figure of a boy squatting. It’s like he’s the son of some giant, big, completely disproportionate and completely out of place with adult society. To the left, a little girl is also wrapped around the aunt’s neck, whose size is clearly disproportionate to the sophisticated adults or to those children who in the picture, at least somehow in appearance (clothes, hairstyles, manners) are identified with adults, are in the social circle of adults, really are as if they were smaller copies of adults. The picture conveys some alienation between the world of children and the world of adults, who are together only in chronological time and space, united by a storyline - a game of billiards. But the different manner of writing the children's world, diverse and completely incomprehensible and cannot be understood, and adult life gave me the idea of ​​whether the intersection of these worlds is possible, or is it still possible to talk about some kind of obstacle that interferes with parents, adults , to be close to children. Francoise Dolto writes that in the 17th – 18th centuries a child was perceived as a certain thing. The death of a child was not even voiced through grief and loss. It’s as if some thing had disappeared. Freud, in the article “Introduction to Narcissism” (and this, note, is already the beginning of the 20th century), writes amazing lines: “Considering the attitude of affectionate parents towards their children, it is necessary to understand it as the revival and reproduction of one’s own narcissism , which they have long abandoned"[1]. This also shows an attitude towards the child as an object. Lacan, developing the thought of the logical steps of Oedipus, also draws attention to the child (enfant) as an object of the mother’s desire. To my surprise, it turned out that that in the environment that is close to me, a child is most often perceived as some kind of tribute to society, as if the duty to the demands of society has been fulfilled, the child is born in a complete family, and then he can be given to be raised, for example, by parents or nannies, and by the parents themselves life continues to go on as if there were no child. The thesis is quite common: “You should spend your vacation without children, you get so tired with them.” It turns out that with this approach, the child is also a kind of object that parents use in order to declare their, say, success in society. It would seem , there seems to be some emptiness in communication between the child and parents. But it would also be wrong to say so, since parents sincerely say that despite their fatigue and even irritation with their children, they still love them and cannot imagine how they could build their lives without children. The thought involuntarily creeps in, is it really possible that In the 15th century, nothing changed? This is too bold an assumption. And it does not correspond to what we study in psychoanalysis and in the course “Psychoanalysis of the Young Subject.” The very word “subject” sets us an analytical frame and separates subject and object. Why in psychoanalysis we are so persistentdo we say “young subject”, “subject of the unconscious”, “subject of desire”? The naming “subject” immediately eliminates the temptation to apply something objective to the young analysand. The young subject is already excluded from the relationship as an object, as something that can serve, for example, for the purposes of satisfying drives (be it even the drive for knowledge, when the young subject “turns” into an object of research and diagnosis). The subject in language takes an active position; he is both the subject of the utterance and the subject of the act of utterance. An object, if we turn to the structure of language, can only give some additional properties (that is, I want to note such a nuance that it may happen that in a relationship, for example, with a mother, a young subject will be in the place of the object of maternal desire). But this will be some state of the subject’s relationship in which he is with his mother. Let’s look at the boy in the picture. For some reason it’s quite difficult for me to say “young subject” about him. It's kind of disproportionate. Or as if this is a strange adult. But let’s imagine how a baby is brought into analysis with serious skin problems [2]. It is important for the analyst to accept this subject without judgment regarding his appearance and the history of his birth. But I am worried that I can I involuntarily wince that it would be unpleasant for me to interact with such a subject. Another plot that also evokes feelings regarding the notorious “objectivity” of a psychoanalyst. If a parent comes to the office with a young subject. And almost from the threshold it becomes “clear!”, “who is to blame” and “what to do”, a barrage of disapproval may fall on the parent for the methods of “upbringing” and relationship with their child. From such thoughts, after a sufficiently long time of studying at VEIP and at advanced training courses become awkward. At the border between “own” ideas and even assessments and the psychoanalytic position, a certain pulsating gap appears. Of course, this “own” has to be hammered out. The Register of the Imaginary gives a certain feudal effect of appropriation to those ideas that are libidinally loaded and influence the formation of relationships with other subjects. Our own analysis, as well as the ongoing process of entering into analysis through the works of psychoanalysts, conferences, joint readings, discussions of the most complex theoretical and clinical subjects help to find ethical fulcrum. Even just calling someone who has appeared in the analytical space a subject radically changes the position of the analyst. My reflections lead away from some kind of equality (“there are two subjects in analysis”), since we must always keep in mind that there are three present in analysis: there is also the speech of the subject. Now I’m afraid to say the word “respect” the analysand or “accept” his right. The fear is that in this way the subject is placed in a certain subordinate position from my condescension as an analyst. At the same time, Lacan writes about recognition, and Dolto never tires of repeating about the right of the young subject to know his history. The bad thing that adults are trying to protect him from has already happened to him; accordingly, the subject already has some knowledge, but this knowledge is unconscious. Recognition of the subject by the Other, giving him a place, transferring imaginary constructions into a symbolic register (thereby a certain re- construction) creates those conditions that can give this subject a chance to make a choice (if this choice has not yet been made), or to designate a different way of existence (“roll the dice”). There was once a heated debate in a student group about whether it makes sense to take a child to psychoanalyst for 50 minutes, when he finally returns home, and at home everything is still the same, for example, total inaudibility reigns, still leads me to the idea that even 50 minutes in the life of a young subject can create conditions for the commission of a psychoanalytic act. Total inability to hear and endless family anxieties about the child in the analytical space are transformed intospeech to the subject himself. Caroline Elyacheff in her book describes cases when she directly voiced to an infant his right to choose: to live or not to live. Surprisingly, the body of the young subject reacted, which was expressed in crying, smiling, calming down, staying awake, falling asleep, etc. In my practice, a word addressed to the young subject regarding the act of biting miraculously became the stimulus for the young subject to unclench his jaw and turned his gaze to me followed by a hug gesture. The thought occurred to me that if I talk about how much it hurts me, I won’t be understood. To demonstrate that I am truly in pain, I will have to bite the young subject myself. Of course, as you understand, this is unacceptable. Then, indeed, both of them, who are in the same space and clasped with their jaws, will be on equal terms. I am gradually becoming convinced that explanatory techniques, when there is some reason either in one’s own parental behavior or in the behavior of a young subject, can only give calm. Such explanations pass through the prism of one’s own understanding and attitude to what is happening from the position of “good” and “bad”, but the only question is: for whom? Also, an explanation of the reasons may provide some information to the parents, and such information will not relate to the child, but will be provided about the child. But the child himself will not be able to speak out and express his attitude to explanations and interpretations, since he is not asked about what is happening. Perhaps the feeling that a person is not being heard arises at an early age... In connection with these reflections, the question arises about the appropriateness of various analytical hypotheses. Are they necessary? Or is it still possible to do without such hypotheses? Now I can answer this question in such a way that a hypothesis is one of the analyst’s work tools, but not a guiding thread on which to string evidence to confirm or refute the hypothesis. Otherwise, there is again a danger of losing some connection with the subject. The ethics of psychoanalysis can be regarded as a clearly unpopular issue in our digital era, when almost all areas are captured by scientific justification, even to the point of trusting “British scientists”. Psychoanalysis and the ethics of psychoanalysis cannot provide verifiable evidence. The statement about the singularity of the subject is completely undermined by attempts to turn to the clinic and at least somehow classify prescription approaches to the cases under consideration. Hypotheses, as well as adherence to scientific achievements, taking into account the signs and symptoms described in certain registers (for example, in the ICD) close the subject from the analyst , interaction with the subject is carried out through a screen of already recorded rules. Since it is much more difficult to understand a young subject (he cannot say, for example: “I have a stomach ache,” he may refuse to eat), the temptation to turn to some lists of helpers above increases. But in this case, the question arises: how can the subject be heard? Will the subject not become a kind of object of pleasure for the analyst, when, through the coincidence of already known signs or symptoms, the analyst will rejoice in his omnipotent knowledge? It turns out that in such a position the subject has already been assigned a place in advance. Accordingly, the conditions for making a choice are not created, and even more space is given to chance than to the subject himself and his creative path. As a result of reflection, I looked somewhat differently at both Bruegel’s painting “Satirical School Scene” and Louis Leopold Boilly’s painting “Billiards” . I would like to think that the artists depicted children as smaller copies of adults Bruegel) or as children who were excessively large in their proportions, almost on a par with adults (L.L. Boilly) deliberately, thereby emphasizing, giving a place to the child: it is different from the place of an adult, and, at the same time, next to him. An adult subject must (even despite the conditionality of obligation) if not recognized as equal, then at least take into account the young subject, recognize his place, and the differences between them in