Working Through Physical Disability in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy With an Adolescent Boy

The narcissistic injury that may be caused by physical disability in infancy and the possible familial traumatization may block the integration of the infant's body and self-image, and can consequently hinder the child's identity formation. This article presents how an adolescent boy with cerebral palsy in short-term psychoanalytic psychotherapy works through the mental impact of his physical disability using a story. Transference and countertransference reactions are discussed. The positive impact of short-term psychoanalytic psychotherapy highlights the importance of caring for the mental health of children with physical impairments.     

Brief psychodynamic psychotherapy in adolescent depression: Two case studies

In this paper the authors outline the basic principles of a manualized, brief psychodynamic approach that was evaluated as part of an outcome study within the National Health Service researching the effectiveness of two different forms of psychotherapy for major depression in childhood/adolescence: Focused Individual Psychodynamic Psychotherapy and Systems Integrative Family Therapy. As well as describing some of the difficulties encountered in short-term dynamic psychotherapy with adolescents, the authors present therapeutic work with two adolescents with major depressive disorder who were both seen as part of the research study. The authors depict some of the challenges and unavoidable difficulties which emerged during the therapy, arising from the needs of the research programme.