Light and movement: making contact with a traumatised and embattled latency girl |
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Authors: | Louise Allnutt |
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Institution: | 1. Mosaic Children's Services, c/o Child and Family Department, Tavistock Centre , 120 Belsize Lane, London , NW3 5BA , UK lallnutt@tavi-port.org |
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Abstract: | This paper shows a child psychotherapist learning and developing her technique as she attempts to make contact with a child who is extremely hard to reach. It is based on the first two years of three-times-weekly intensive psychotherapy of a latency girl who had little faith in a helpful therapeutic relationship. Her defences against such a relationship were entrenched and hard to shift. In this clinical work, the psychotherapist relies on close observation and her countertransference to develop a relationship with the child, in order to begin to make sense of her non-verbal emotional experience and communication. |
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Keywords: | intensive psychotherapy countertransference trauma second skin formation projective identification technique |
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