The Parent Alienation Syndrome: A Family Therapy and Collaborative Systems Approach to Amelioration,by L. Gottlieb

No abstract available for this article.     

Of “sleep and dream: A psychoanalytic essay' by Joyce McDougall (discussion)

Abstract

The author describes experiences gathered during several years of teaching psychodynamic psychotherapy with psychologists and psychiatrists within a 2-year-training programme in Shanghai, China. Questions and problems of the reception of psychoanalysis – shame, sexuality, harmony, abstinence – as well as the possibilities and limitations of exporting psychoanalysis are discussed. The possible future development of psychoanalysis in China is also outlined.     

Reading against the grain: female sexuality in classical South Asian Buddhism

Responding to and building upon José Cabezón’s groundbreaking work, Sexuality in Classical South Asian Buddhism (2017), this essay challenges a hermeneutic that capitulates to the androcentrism and misogyny of classical South Asian Buddhist views on female sexuality by suggesting avenues for ‘reading against the grain’ in search of alternative gynocentric views. In particular, it points to glimpses of a female sexuality that is relational, active, and creative in premodern South Asian Buddhist sources, especially vinaya. It also argues that a full and balanced treatment of sexual violence against women is an essential component of any comprehensive study of sexuality in classical South Asian Buddhism.     

Types of sexual transference and countertransference in psychotherapeutic work with children and adolescents

The question of normal sexuality begins to arise in the treatment of severely sexually abused or sexually offending patients. The author suggests that it is an interesting and delicate moment during the process of recovery when less perverse, more normal sexuality appears mixed with, or even disguised by, the more habitual perverse fantasies. Writers in the adult field have drawn distinctions between perverse, eroticized and normal erotic transferences, and between Oedipal and post-Oedipal sexuality. Some have also distinguished between countertransferences in the analyst of an erotised versus a normal erotic nature. The paper discusses whether these distinctions could have any relevance for child patients. Freud and Klein have taught us much about the child's sexuality in relation to his interest in and attraction to his parents as sexual beings. But can we also detect some origins in earlier experiences in infancy of the child's later capacity to feel himself a sexual being capable of being wanted by an other? How might such a feeling of sexual self-worth differ from narcissism and from sexualised exhibitionism? The paper asks how therapists might deal with such problems and such possibly healthy developments.     

‘And when you were a child?’: how therapists working with parents alongside individual child psychotherapy bring the past into their work

When a child is offered psychotherapy, it is common that regular meetings will be offered to the parents. However, there are debates in the literature about the degree to which such parent work should include a focus on the parents’ own childhood experiences. This study aimed to examine the way that those offering parent work as part of a study evaluating the treatment of adolescent depression dealt with this issue in their work with parents, both in the study and in routine clinical practice. Design: five therapists were interviewed on the subject of working with parents’ childhood experiences within parent work parallel to child psychotherapy. Data were analysed qualitatively, using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Findings: participants described the need to consider the different parameters of this work to individual adult therapy; in addition, participants felt that it was necessary to negotiate permission to work on the parents’ childhood experiences. They also spoke of making use of insight into the repetition of the parents’ history, the analysis of parental projections and offering containment within the relationship; this varies from the ‘transference work’ of individual therapy and a different style of interpretation was described. Conclusions: there is a need to give more attention to the neglected field of working with parents alongside individual child psychotherapy, especially at a time when such work is under threat within many public services. There are particular technical issues related to work with parents’ own childhood histories that are different to how one might work in individual therapy with a parent.     

Found Voices:

This article explores the cultural consequences of disability on women. The author interviewed four women with disabilities and two mothers and shares some of her own experiences with disability. The relationship between disability rights and feminism and ethnic identity and the impact of disability on the sense of self and personal goals are considered, as is the transformative power of speaking to the larger culture about how disability experiences inform human perceptions and social practices.     

Confidentiality protection in consulting with modern medicine following use of traditional medicine: perspectives of South African clients

This study explored the confidentiality values and needs of clients of traditional medicine practitioners who also consulted with modern medical care facilities. Participants were 12 clients of traditional healers who were also receiving modern medicine services (9 males; Sotho, Sepedi and Tswana speaking). The clients responded to an in-depth interview on their confidentiality values, needs and consultations with traditional and modern medicine, in the absence of a formal referral between the two systems. Data were thematically analysed using Tesch's (1990 Tesch, R. (1990). Qualitative Research: Analysis types and software tools. Bristol, PA: Falmer. [Google Scholar]) open coding method. Results indicated that clients valued their rights to confidentiality being respected by modern medicine and when also consulting with traditional healers. The clients also expressed concern about being ostracised by nurses for consulting traditional healers. Consultation confidentiality with regard to traditional medicine is important with traditionalist Africans.     

Contextual analysis of home environment factors influencing the acquisition of early reading skills in Zambian families

This study examined the effect of home environment factors in the acquisition of early reading skills (orthographic awareness and decoding competence). To assess these factors, a sample of seventy-two (72) first grade learners (females?=?55%; age range?=?7–8 years) and their maternal parents (age range 26–61 years old) from low SES in Zambia's capital city, Lusaka were recruited. Parents, in response to a home literacy questionnaire, reported on their attitudes towards reading, literacy teaching in the home, the home literacy environment, presence of reading materials for adults and children, parental education, occupation, family size and family possessions. Two measures of reading skill were administered at school. Correlations revealed that parental education, occupation and the size of the family were not significantly associated with the reading measures. Family possessions, parental reading attitudes, literacy activities, and reading materials significantly predicted orthographic awareness. In predicting decoding competence, only family possessions, parental reading attitudes and literacy activities were predictive. Regardless of the context, children experience literacy in varied forms and quantities.     

Sex and the Right to HIV/AIDS Education in Early Childhood

This study explored how early childhood teachers (n=5) and young children (n=174) (age range 7 to 8 years; males = 81; females = 93) in two primary schools constructed and interpreted the right to HIV/AIDS education. Data were captured using individual interviews with teachers and group interviews with young children. Analysis of the data showed that teachers viewed young children's right to health information positively but did not consider the right to sexual information. Teachers operated within discourses which upheld the image of the child as innocent requiring protection from sexual knowledge. Children's perceptions of their rights to knowledge of sex in HIV/AIDS education showed ambiguity. Some accepted the right to know whilst others felt that knowledge about HIV/AIDS was inconsistent with childhood innocence.     

Homophobia is the patient 1

This paper draws on psychoanalytic work with a heterosexual woman who struggles with the conscious and unconscious aspects of her homophobia. It reflects on the limitations of the classical psychoanalytic interpretations of phobia as a symptom in the light of contemporary philosophers such as Levinas, Foucault and Butler. It focuses particularly on the connection between anxiety and the relation to the Other.