About the Book
This volume offers very specific illustrations of psychoanalytic ways of thinking and working in both clinical and pedagogical contexts with children. It is designed for professionals who work with infants, children, and adolescents, and who are seeking modes of working that respects emotions, that embrace context, and that privilege imagination and possibility. For professionals who already practice in ways that are sympathetic to these modes of working, the scholarly underpinning of this work offers a rationale for taking a stand in favor of emotionally focused, child-centered work and in opposition to systems that negate the lives of children. This book is for caring professionals who devote their lives to creating spaces for children to find their own paths and is intended to serve as a source of sustenance and support for such work.
Table of Contents:
The Uses of Psychoanalysis in Working with Children’s Emotional Lives
Table of Contents
Foreword: Nigel Williams
Introduction: Michael O’Loughlin
Chapter 1: The Uses of Psychoanalysis, by Michael O’Loughlin
Chapter 2: Listening with Two Ears: Caregivers Listening Deeply to Babies and to Self, by Enid Elliot
Chapter 3: Teen Parents and Babies in School Together: The Chances for Children Teen Parent-Infant Project, by Hillary Mayers
Chapter 4: Becoming and Being a Father - Some Developmental and Psychoanalytic Perspectives, by Nathaniel Donson
Chapter 5: Untangling Psyche and Soma: A Traumatized Adolescent with Lyme Disease, by Ann E. Alaoglu, Richard C. Fritsch, Paul M. Gedo, E. James Anthony, Andrew C. Carroll, Vincent Del Balzo, Richard Imirowicz, Karol Kullberg, Lauren Mazow, and Rebecca E. Rieger
Chapter 6: Growth Groups for Kids: A School-Based Psychoanalytic Group Intervention Project for Children Exposed to Community Violence, by Erika Schmidt, Aileen Schloerb & Bertram Cohler
Chapter 7: Anxiety and Violence in the Schools: Coping and not Coping, by Silvia Silberman & Arie Plat
Chapter 8: A Most Unusual Technique for Helping an Incarcerated Youth Who was Labeled “Learning Disabled” and “Anti-Social,” Learn to Read: A Retrospective Commentary, by Burton Seitler
Chapter 9: Which of You as Teacher Has Not at Some Point Experienced the Following?, by Sue Wallace
Chapter 10: Bullying and Social Exclusion: Links to Severe Psychological Distress, by
Marilyn Charles
Chapter 11: Shame On You, Child: On Shaming, Ed. Psych. And Teacher Ed., by
John Samuel Tieman
Chapter 12: Moments of Meeting: Learning to Play with Reading Resistance, by
Gail Boldt & Billie Pivnick
Chapter 13: “Why Do they Hate Learning French?”: Thoughts on Shifting Subjectivities and Psychical Resistance in the Language Classroom, by Colette Granger
Chapter 14:Love and Fear in the Classroom: How ‘Validating Affect’ Might Help us Understand Young Students and Improve Their Experiences of School Life and Learning, Alex Moore
Chapter 15: Tustin / Spotnitz “On Transference” Informs Education of Children with Autism, by Eileen Brennan
Chapter 16: The Power of Conscience: Jiminy Cricket’s Legacy, by Devra Adelstein & Judith Pitlick
Chapter 17: Conversations with Child and Adolescent Analysts About their Work with Children, by Almas Merchant & Leon Hoffman
About the Author :
Michael O’Loughlin,PhD, professor at Adelphi University, New York, is on the faculty of Derner Institute of Advanced Psychological Studies and in the School of Education. He is a clinical and research supervisor in the PhD program in clinical psychology and on the faculty of the Postgraduate Programs in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy at Adelphi. He is editor of the companion volume to this book, Psychodynamic Perspectives on Working with Children, Families and Schools, also published by Jason Aronson.
Review :
Michael O’Loughlin brings compassion, insight, and understanding to his work with children. He is learned in theory and cares deeply for his subjects in practice. He shines a light on the emotions of childhood—imprinting in our minds what it is to be a child and to suffer while his work simultaneously instills hope that psychoanalytic thinking, combined with empathy, can relieve the suffering of child subjects.
As Nigel Williams says, this work 'is a political and cultural manifesto that challenges the split between the psychological, the social, and the political' in our work and lives with young children and their families. So many wise pedagogues over the decades, Magda Gerber, A.S. Neill, and Paulo Freire, have pushed us to consider emotions as integral to learning and to acknowledge that all work is political. Yet, here in the 21st Century when we still are being brain-washed to believe that the only teaching of value is "evidenced-based practice," we have almost lost the moral ability to critically question: Which evidence? As identified by whom? In which contexts? This work is long overdue; it crosses boundaries, transgresses, and questions how much discreet and specialized professions can really do. The scholarly underpinning of this work will offer a rationale for taking a stand in favor of emotionally-focused, child-centered work and in opposition to systems that negate the lives of children. Whether students and I are working with migrating families from war-torn communities in Central America, second generation Hmong and Latino families, or a combination of multigenerational friends and loved ones, we will treasure these stories. Thank you to Michael O’Loughlin and the contributors to this volume.
