Child Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy in Primary Schools

Tavistock Approaches

Katie Argent

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781032023182
• eBook ISBN: 9781000406023
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Counseling

This book investigates the experiences of severely troubled children and their families, teachers, and child psychoanalytic psychotherapists working together in primary schools.

The book begins by looking at children's emotional life during the primary school years and what can disrupt ordinary, helpful social development and learning. It examines what child psychoanalytic psychotherapy is, how it works, and why it is offered in primary schools. The following chapters intersperse accounts of creative child psychoanalytic approaches with interviews with parents, carers, teachers, and clinicians. A section focusing on mainstream primary schools presents parent–child interventions for a nursery class; child group psychotherapy with children from traumatized families; and consultation to school staff, with personal accounts from parents, a kinship carer, a family support worker, a deputy head, and a child psychotherapist. Chapters then focus on alternative educational settings, featuring a school for children with severe physical and cognitive disabilities; a primary pupil referral unit; and a therapeutic school. These chapters show psychotherapy with a non-verbal boy with autism; therapy groups with children who have missed out on the building blocks of development alongside reflective groups for school staff; and child psychotherapy approaches at lunchtime and in breaks, with insights from a parent, a clinical lead nurse, a head teacher, and a child psychotherapist. Finally, there is an evaluation of evidence about the impact of child psychotherapy within primary schools.

Recognizing the increasing importance of attending to the emotional difficulties of children whose relationships and learning are in jeopardy, this book will be invaluable to all those working in primary schools, to commissioners of child mental health services, to parents and carers, and to experienced and training clinicians.

Index

abandonment, and displacement, intergenerational family history of, 85

abuse:

experience of, 161, 229

intergenerational profound, parents’, 197

ACE, see Adverse Childhood Experience

ACE-aware schools, 214

ACP, see Association of Child Psychotherapists

acquired mental health disorders, 161

acting out, 175, 214, 221

class clown, 24, 26

children:

with ASD, 142

excluded, 163

and keeping sessions safe, 91–92, 98

mental health difficulties expressed via, 142–144

protecting self through, 97

in school, around holidays, 154

action plus status, 229–231

addiction, parental, 160

ADHD, see Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE), 209

Ahlers, I., 227, 230

Aldgate, J., 111, 112, 114

Alvarez, A., 71, 153

Anna Freud Centre, 48, 55

Anscombe, E., 232

antisocial behaviour, 160

antisocial tendency, 160

anxiety, clinician’s, high levels of, 39

Argent, K., 1–10, 30–46, 55, 83

Armstrong, D., 25

art therapy, 2, 4, 218

ASD, see autism spectrum disorder

Ashley, C., 126

assessment sessions, 35, 36, 119, 231

Association of Child Psychotherapists (ACP), 40, 49

asylum claims, political, 161

attachment difficulties, 209, 214

attachment theory, 49

attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), 70, 114, 161, 162, 209, 211

attention deficit-related disorders, 243

attention difficulties, 210

austerity measures, 22

autism assessment service, 187

autism diagnoses, 209

autism spectrum disorder (ASD), 131, 161, 162, 181, 18...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Series editors’ preface
• Acknowledgements
• About the editor and contributors
• Introduction
• I Why have child psychoanalytic psychotherapy in primary schools?
• II Child psychoanalytic psychotherapy in mainstream primary school
• III Child psychoanalytic psychotherapy in alternative educational settings
• IV Evidence from experience and audit
• References
• Index