PHP Nested "SELECT" statement

As of today, I have hit a wall. I have a PHP script running MYSQL.

What I have done is created a database of categories, where the "PARENT" field contains the number to the UNIQUE id of a specific category.

Essentially my fields are:
id,parent,name,image,description

What I am trying to build is a hierachial display of my categories that is simlar to this:
(Example idea)

Cat Products
|
|+- Collars
| +- Spiked
| +- Electric
|
| +- Litter
+- Clumping
+- Non-Clumping

My current problem is, I don't think I can do this because it will change the index pointer every time I make a recursive call in the same databse. Do I have to re-connect EVERY time?

Am I even being very clear?

Please help!