Prelatency

Child Psychoanalytic Training (CPT)
2019-20, 1st Trimester — Fridays, 10:15-11:45am
Denise C.K. Fort, PhD
Flaviane Ferreira, MD LMHC

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Introduction

Welcome to our seminar on prelatency. Psychoanalyst Robert Tyson, the editor of Analysis of the Under-Five Child, called the years before five “the golden age for a psychoanalysis.”

However, many child analysts today have limited analytic experience with prelatency children.

And other mental health professionals generally have had little exposure to the benefits of psychoanalytic treatment for the very young.

The aim of this course is to gain knowledge and understanding of early developmental processes, illuminating the pleasures and challenges of analytic work with prelatency children.

The readings and class discussions will further your understanding of pathology in this age group. The readings are drawn from a combination of classical and contemporary articles. We will emphasize how to think psychoanalytically about the inner world of children with a focus on how that world is expressed in their relationships with significant others.

Our goal is also to provide you with an understanding of the manifold interacting elements that influence psychological development during prelatency years. We will examine the concepts of play, nonverbal communication, the role and efficacy of verbal interpretation, the analyst as transference object as contrasted with the analyst as developmental object. Our hope is that this seminar will enrich your work with this age group and their parents and equip you to conduct analytic treatment with young children.

September 13, 2019 — Foundations and Modifications Required in the Treatment of Diverse Populations

We begin with a discussion of the major historical, conceptual, and educational factors that have hindered a wider acceptance of psychoanalysis for those young children whose difficulties make this the treatment of choice. Then we will explore typical and problematic development in several domains: sense of self/agency, sense of others, use of defenses and other adaptations to the environment.

Tyson, R.L. (2001) Introduction. In Analysis of the under-five child. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, pp.ix-xv.

Nachman, P., Balas, A., Karush, R. (2013). Prologue: treatment of the under five child. Psychoanalytic Inquiry 33(4):309-311.

Tyson, P. (2005) Affects, agency, and self-regulation: Complexity theory in the treatment of children with anxiety and disruptive behavior disorders. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 53(1 ): 159-187.

Sugarman, A. (2018) The importance of a promoting a sense of self-agency in child analysis. Psychoanalytic Study of the Child 71:108-122.