"Daddy, what is psychoanalysis?"

Dr. Sigmund Freud's couch in the Freud Museum, London

We were living in Chicago. My wife was posted to the South African Consulate there, and I had to take care of our children (aged 6, 4, and 2), finish my dissertation, and teach. Additionally, I began psychoanalysis: four years, four days a week, on the couch. One day, my son fell ill and couldn't attend school, so I had to take him with me to my session.

He was 6 years old. I made sure we arrived early so he could become accustomed to the waiting room, find the bathroom, and get comfortable with my iPad and the game he was playing.
When my session was called, I brought him with me, showed him where I would be, introduced him to my analyst, Dr. Dale Gody, and then took him back to the waiting area. He couldn't wait to get back to his game. I believe it was Minecraft.
About halfway through the session, we heard a small knock on the door and he entered. There I was, lying on my back on the couch, with Dr. Gody seated slightly behind me. I sat up, and he approached me, wanting me to show him something on the iPad, how to switch to a movie or something. I assisted him, and he left. About twenty minutes later, the session concluded, and I met him in the waiting room.
I strapped him into his car seat, and as we started driving back home, I asked, "Would you like to know what I was doing in there?"
"Yes," he replied, looking at me through the rearview mirror with those big blue eyes.
"I was in psychoanalysis."
"Oh," he responded, then fell silent. After a while, he asked, "Daddy, what is psycho... psychalysis?"
"Psychoanalysis?"
"Yes," he affirmed, still meeting my gaze through the mirror.
Where to begin? "You know Daddy's job is to work with people's minds, right? There where they go to work?"
"Yes," he replied. Then, full of enthusiasm: "Like when they're happy or fighting or sad, you need to help them be happy again so they can have fun!"
"Exactly. But the problem is, you cannot work with other people's minds if you don't understand your own mind."
He took a moment, then said, "Yes."
"So, psychoanalysis is what I do to try to understand my own mind."
"Oh."
"And do you want to know why Dr. Gody sat there in the chair behind me?"
"Yes."
"Well, it's because it's impossible to understand your own mind all by yourself. You need someone else to help you figure it out."
This time he didn't say anything. Just stared out the window.
Then, just as we pulled into our driveway, he said, "Dad, do you know what I think? I think the day you understand your own mind, on that day, you die."