Wildest dreams: Aspiration, identification, and symbol-formation in depressed children⋆Alvarez, Anne
doi: 10.1080/02668739100700091pmid: N/A
Summary This paper explores some technical and theoretical implications of psychotherapy with deprived and severely depressed children. Phantasies about the future, and dreams of nobility, are seen to play a vitalising part in normal development. Grandiose lies may be similar to, but far more tentative and communicative than, the declarative communications of the manic child. The phantasies may sometimes need to emerge first in the mind of the therapist through a process which may be termed ‘anticipatory identification’. The need for a grammar of such communicative identification processes is discussed; so also are implications for processes of symbol-formation.
Evaluation of psychoanalytic psychotherapy with children: Therapists' assessments and predictionsBoston, Mary; Lush, Dora; Grainger, Eve
doi: 10.1080/02668739100700101pmid: N/A
Summary Meaningful and clinically relevant evaluation of psychoanalytical psychotherapy requires new models for research. Such evaluation needs to take account of the complexities of personality and innerworld change as well as the more simply assessed changes in external behaviour. A pilot study to develop a suitable methodology is described. These preliminary results are on a consecutive series of twenty in care and adopted children entering psychotherapy at the Tavistock Clinic. The project evolved from a previous study of psychotherapy with severely deprived children (Boston & Szur 1983), but the method could be used with any group of children in psychoanalytic psychotherapy, and possibly also, in an adapted form, with adults. Therapists' initial aims and predictions are compared with later assessments of both external, and a wide range of internal, changes. Methods of validation are discussed and case-illustrations given.
Good supervision: On the experience of being supervised⋆Crick, Penelope
doi: 10.1080/02668739100700111pmid: N/A
Summary This paper was written for presentation at a symposium of trainers when the author was a trainee in psychoanalytical psychotherapy. The original title was ‘Good Supervision: a consumer's guide’. The author drew not only on her own experience of being supervised but also on that of colleagues in training. It was found that it was essential to conceptualise the experience in terms of the triangular relationship between student, patient, and supervisor. Primitive feelings are evoked by the supervisory process and some of these are described. Characteristics of supervisors and the supervisory process and how these are felt to help, or otherwise, are discussed.
Initiating and developing a psychoanalytic approach to children⋆Sutton, Adrian
doi: 10.1080/02668739100700121pmid: N/A
Summary A description is given of issues encountered in providing a psychoanalytic approach to supervision of individual therapeutic work with children where this was not previously available. Using examples from supervision and treatment, I describe ways in which the manifestations of transference and countertransference can be explained and shown to be useful clinically. The anxiety generated in giving up previous approaches and developing new ones has to be contained in supervision, particularly when therapists are working with seriously damaged children in poorly-resourced services. With specific reference to children, two issues are highlighted: (a) the potential for ‘developmental resonance’ between the child's/adolescent's situation and the trainee/trainer dyad which may lead to enactment in supervision; and (b) the relatively common occurrence of therapy not developing beyond the stage of ‘mutual idealisation’. For some children this may be sufficient but it is suggested that for those with more severe difficulties this may compound their problems. This is highlighted as an area which requires further research in relation to choice of therapists and assessment for therapy. A detailed description is given of a supervision which is functioning well and facilitating therapy. Reference is also made to the experience of becoming a supervisor, with particular emphasis on the need to re-negotiate ‘the capacity to be alone’ as described by Winnicott. Initiating and developing a psychoanalytical approach to children is a complicated process which makes considerable demands on both supervisor and supervisee. The benefits of attempting it are seen in the developmental opportunities which accrue to the supervisor, supervisee and children with whom they are involved.
Reading between the lines: The child's fear of meaning⋆Beaumont, Mia
doi: 10.1080/02668739100700131pmid: N/A
Summary This paper explores the emotional factors that lie behind a child's failure to read. My observations are based on work as an educational therapist employed in a child guidance unit. In trying to understand the reasons for the child's neurotic reluctance to learn, the following sources have proved helpful: Klein on envy; Bowlby on the effect on the child of a relationship with an untrustworthy adult; and Bettelheim's Learning to Read. In conclusion some ways are examined in which the child can be helped to overcome his fear of the meaning of words.