Countertransference,enactment and sexual abuse

This paper examines the development of a therapeutic relationship with a sexually abused latency girl who, in the course of her two years of four times weekly psychotherapy, was placed in two different foster-homes. It is argued that the child's re-enactment of the abuse in the consulting room allowed her to move from a seductive relationship with the therapist to one characterized by basic trust. This was paralleled by her development of a capacity to think and to tolerate affect states. The use of an imaginary twin by the child and the use of powerful countertransference feelings in the therapist are seen as the main therapeutic tools in the treatment. The premature termination of the treatment – due to the therapist's departure – enabled the child to articulate for the first time her feelings, in the transference, about the trauma and the traumatizing agent. The child's progressing moves in the therapy are also presented.     

The conceptual distinction between projective identification (Klein) and container-contained (Bion)

This paper describes the use of play in the psychotherapy of a latency child from a severely traumatised background. It considers the meaning of play in relation to the role of the psychotherapist and to psychotherapeutic technique and explores its functions in terms of the child's development. The paper documents the psychotherapist's learning experience about the difficulty of trying to make the ‘right’ interpretations and her consequent realisation of the intrinsic value of play in psychotherapy. In considering these themes, the author explores how, by placing interpretation secondary to play, the therapy enabled the development of the child's creativity and self-agency, facilitating a movement from primarily paranoid–schizoid defences towards the beginnings of a depressive position.     

Primal splitting as a basis for emotional and cognitive development in children

This article discusses the importance of good primal splitting as the basis for the child's emotional and cognitive development. A theoretical introduction analyses the possible pathologies of primal splitting, as they were first pointed out by Melanie Klein and then by some post-Kleinian authors, in particular Donald Meltzer. This is followed by some excerpts from the clinical material of the first year of the psychoanalytic psychotherapy of a three-year-old child suffering from eating problems. Starting from the child's play activity, the author tries to identify the splitting problems that underlie the child's view of the world, and to address these with him. The article shows how at times it can be useful to speak also to the child's intelligence, combining the usual analytic work (containment of anxiety and analysis of transference) with the analysis of the child's distortions and cognitive misconceptions. The article also suggests that faulty primal splitting tends to be transmitted from one generation to the next.     

Narrative Child Family Therapy

In this article, child family therapy is presented as a hermeneutic activity shaped by an interest in the evolving narrative. Over brief, analytic play interviews, the therapist documents a child's narrative understanding of the presenting family problem. This allows psychological meaning to be jointly constructed in therapeutic conversation with the child and family. The idea of play as narrative integrates child psychotherapy into recent social constructionist thinking in family therapy. The article also discusses how narrative therapists can use prior theory and training.     

Overcoming a child's resistance to late adoption: how one new attachment can facilitate another

The paper describes the difficulty which late-adopted children may have in forming attachments to their new parents. It considers the nature of the disorganized attachment pattern which many of these deprived, abused children display and the origin of this pattern in experiences of 'fright without solution'. The psychotherapy of a 9-year-old, late-adopted boy is used to illustrate long-standing resistance to new attachments on account of defences on which security depends, and the persistence of loyalty to prior internal attachment representations. Change becomes possible through psychotherapy in which earlier negative attachment models are externalized together with their associated feelings of 'fright without solution'. For this boy, a long period of rejection of the therapist gave way to a new capacity to play together; this was associated with the development of positive attachments to the boy's adoptive parents.     

On becoming a child: Reverie in the psychotherapy of children

My aim in this paper is to examine the role of reverie in facilitating the development of the child‐subject, that is, the child's continuous motion towards subjectivity. I begin by briefly reviewing the concept of reverie and proceed with an examination of elements I believe are fundamental and common to both reverie and child psychotherapy, that is, primary thought processes and primitive impulses. I then describe and demonstrate the atmosphere created by these elements using three examples from the psychotherapy of 8 year‐old Jonathan. Next, I discuss an intersubjective parallel of Bion's reverie and a developmentally oriented version of Ogden's reverie, focusing on its relation to processes of destruction and recognition. I argue that reverie provides the recognition of the child's struggle for his own birth and growth as a subject, that is, of his child‐subject. Finally, I refer to the presence of reverie from the primary preoccupation of mother and father till the child's reverie of himself, his day‐dreaming.     

Ghostbusting Transgenerational Processes

Transgenerational processes contribute to organizing and disorganizing attachment. The past (in all its forms and potentialities) lives on in the present, influencing the affective field of the parent–child intersubjective matrix. In a child's construction of self, he or she may run up against the confounding presence of ghosts: the dissociated, and thereby unreflected upon past of their parents. This implicitly felt, yet explicitly unknown transmission interferes in the processing of emergent experience and impedes the child's development.

Attachment theory, informed by psychoanalysis, and nonlinear dynamic systems theory, is the main theoretical underpinning of this paper's examination of the mechanisms involved in the transfer of dissociated dynamics from parent to child. The child's symptoms grow out of an incoherent affective field that defies representational mapping into a flexible usable theory of mind. Through play a child therapist finds openings to enter the attachment system, reflecting on how a child's experience is being felt, yet unthought about by both child and parents. A parent's recognition process, thereby making what was implicitly felt explicit and consequently more coherent, supports the child in his or her efforts to reorganize aspects of the attachment relationship. Both clinical experience and quotations from literary works are woven into this paper in an attempt to convey the texture, emotional depth, and universality of the subject under discussion.     

Seven‐year‐olds’ aggressive choices in a computer game can be predicted in infancy

Concerns about the relationship between computer games and children's aggression have been expressed for decades, but it is not yet clear whether the content of such games evokes aggression or a prior history of aggression promotes children's interest in aggressive games. Two hundred and sixty‐six 7‐year‐old children from a nationally representative longitudinal sample in the UK played a novel computer game (CAMGAME) in which the child's avatar encountered a series of social challenges that might evoke aggressive, prosocial or neutral behaviour. Aggressive choices during the game were predicted by well‐known risk factors for aggressive conduct problems and the children's own early angry aggressiveness as infants. These findings suggest that children who are predisposed to aggression bring those tendencies to virtual as well as real environments.     

Reading between the lines: The child's fear of meaning

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.     

The Cocreation of Fantasy and the Transformation of Psychic Structure

This author argues that therapeutic action in child psychoanalytic psychotherapy rests with the creation and transformation of fantasy through play, which in turn shifts psychic structure. The paper details the treatment of an eight-year-old girl whose mother's inability to playfully participate in the inner world of her child interfered with the child's development of a fantasy life. The author suggests that the introduction of objective reality (i.e., interpretations that link the child's play with the real world) potentially impinges on and interferes with the transformational processes of fantasy. Developing the capacity to distinguish reality from fantasy does not take place through a forced accommodation to reality, but rather through the expansion of fantasy and a widening of the realm of the imagination. The elaboration of fantasy in concert with a parent or analyst is what builds the child's capacity to differentiate reality from fantasy.     

Absolutist thinking and emotional problems

Anger is a common emotional experience which can have a very distrubing impact upon the angered person, physically and psychologically, and upon that person's relations with others. The arousal of anger can be best explained in many instances as the reaction of people when they see or anticipate the violation of their demands, that is, as reflecting absolutist thinking. Such thinking can not only lead to anger but is also believed to play an important role in promoting other emotional problems, including those of anxiety and depression. This paper characterises the absolutist style of thinking and illustrates its hypothesized role in several emotional problems using brief case histories. It is suggested that the failure of a therapist to identify absolutist thinking, when it exists, deprives the therapist of considerable leverage in handling a patient's problems and may explain the limited effectiveness of cognitive therapy for such patients.     

CREATIVITY IN EXPERIENTIAL PERSONAL CONSTRUCT PSYCHOTHERAPY

We propose that experiential personal construct psychotherapy demands therapist creativity in engaging clients, beginning with the initial diagnosis and continuing through the entire therapy process. We suggest a number of ways of enhancing therapist creativity in the therapy room. We discuss making time for aloneness, seeking particular kinds of interactions with others, fantasizing, having a passion for one's work, trying on roles, exposing oneself to literature and the arts, leading a balanced life, reducing time pressures, making judgments, focusing on process, and seeing client growth. Finally, we consider creativity in the life of the therapist beyond the therapy room. We explore how the therapist's desire to be a part of lifechanging psychotherapy mandates the personal pursuit of creativity.     

Mindful Parenting: a group approach to enhancing reflective capacity in parents and infants

In this paper, the process of ending therapy is likened to the ordinary developmental task of ‘letting go’ that parents have to undertake, to help their child to grow up. ‘Letting go’ is contrasted with the process of ‘holding’ the child in mind that is so central to the therapeutic and parental task Following thoughts about some of the external issues that play a part in the decision to end a child's treatment, this developmental perspective of psychoanalytic psychotherapy is discussed through a clinical illustration of the ending of a 5-year-old boy's treatment. Different strands of the therapeutic relationship as highlighted during the ending phase of therapy are distinguished and attention is drawn to the role of the ‘new relationship’ between therapist and child and how this differs from the transference relationship. Countertransference issues in their broadest form are also considered.     

Gender Disparity in Video Game Usage: A Third-Person Perception-Based Explanation

This study took a close look at the mechanism behind gender disparity in video game usage by examining two perceptual variables: perceptions about others' video game usage and perceived influence of unrealistic video game character images on others. Both men and women perceived that young women play video games far less frequently than young men and also considered themselves less influenced by the unrealistic images than others. In addition, women, in comparison to men, perceived the video game images to have stronger influences on others. Furthermore, regression analyses revealed that perceived frequency of other women's video game play and perceived influence of the images on other women explained women's actual time spent on video games, but not men's time spent on video games. A discussion of these findings was provided, along with suggestions for video game developers, parents, educators, and video game researchers.     

Comparing Fathers' Physical and Toy Play and Links to Child Behaviour: An Exploratory Study

Increasing amounts of research show that fathers' involvement in children's lives contributes to the child's social, emotional and cognitive development; however, much of the evidence comes from fathers' caregiving and object play. This exploratory study compared the characteristics of 24 Australian fathers' play in two contexts – toy play and physical play – and examined the association of these play contexts with children's development. Correlational analyses revealed few conceptual similarities between toy play and physical play (rough‐and‐tumble). Rough‐and‐tumble quality was associated with children's emotional and behavioural functioning and self‐regulation, while intrusiveness in toy play related only to self‐regulation. The findings are discussed in terms of widening the conceptual and methodological reach of fathering measures in order to better capture the range of fathers' parenting behaviours and to be able to determine mechanisms of influence. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Dramatic pretend play games uniquely improve emotional control in young children

Pretense is a naturally occurring, apparently universal activity for typically developing children. Yet its function and effects remain unclear. One theorized possibility is that pretense activities, such as dramatic pretend play games, are a possible causal path to improve children's emotional development. Social and emotional skills, particularly emotional control, are critically important for social development, as well as academic performance and later life success. However, the study of such approaches has been criticized for potential bias and lack of rigor, precluding the ability to make strong causal claims. We conducted a randomized, component control (dismantling) trial of dramatic pretend play games with a low‐SES group of 4‐year‐old children (N = 97) to test whether such practice yields generalized improvements in multiple social and emotional outcomes. We found specific effects of dramatic play games only on emotional self‐control. Results suggest that dramatic pretend play games involving physicalizing emotional states and traits, pretending to be animals and human characters, and engaging in pretend scenarios in a small group may improve children's emotional control. These findings have implications for the function of pretense and design of interventions to improve emotional control in typical and atypical populations. Further, they provide support for the unique role of dramatic pretend play games for young children, particularly those from low‐income backgrounds. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at: https://youtu.be/2GVNcWKRHPk     

Maternal depression and children's attachment representations during the preschool years

This longitudinal study aimed to investigate the impact of chronic and transient maternal depression on children's attachment representations at 4 years of age measured with the Attachment Story Completion Task ( Bretherton, Ridgeway, & Cassidy, 1990 ). The impact of concurrent maternal depressive symptoms was also considered. A secondary aim was to investigate the continuity of attachment classification at 15 months with child attachment representations at 4 years. Children of mothers who were concurrently depressed were more likely to have attachment representations characterized by uncontained physical aggression. In contrast, there were no significant relationships between exposure to prior chronic maternal depression and children's attachment representations at 4 years, nor were there any significant relationships between behavioural assessments of attachment during infancy and later representational assessments. Findings are discussed in the context of caregiving behaviours that may foster secure attachment relationships and influence a child's social‐emotional development, limitations of representational measures, as well as poor attachment stability.