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The emotional experience of children looked after in residential care and care staff: ‘Internal and external home or homelessness’
Get PDFThe research investigates the emotional sense of home and homelessness for
children who are looked after in residential care and the care staff who look after
them. Evaluation of the literature includes studies, which explored the historical
context of children’s homes, practice and perspectives, psychoanalytic concepts
and the contribution of child psychotherapy in working with and thinking about this
group of young people, their carer’s, and the organisation in which they live.
The study was undertaken using observation as a methodology, and the use of the
application of grounded theory to analyse and support the data. This explored
aspects of residential life for the young people in their home as they arrive, live and
leave care. The themes of containment, anxiety and conflict were identified by the
author, abstracted from the data and then linked to significant concepts associated
with home and homelessness, which are discussed in detail within the research.
The concepts are referred to using the following terms:
1. ‘Place’ – Containment linked to the experience of being emotionally held
and understood, a sense of belonging and identification.
2. ‘Wanderings’ – Anxiety linked to impact of early trauma, transition and
defences.
3. ‘Throwaways’ – Conflict, to indicate emotional distress and disturbance, loss
and separation.
These terms, which are commonly used to represent aspects of the homeless
experience, are also applied to the role of care staff. The research also discussed
the impact on the staff and organisation when working with children who have
experienced complex trauma, and the meaning of the observer’s presence for the
participants.
A number of conclusions and recommendations are considered regarding how the
emotional needs of these young people can be met during their journey through
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residential care, in order to support the development of an internal and external
sense of belonging
Urban child and adolescent mental health services: A responsive approach to communities
No full textUrban Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services weaves together different strands of mental health work undertaken in one inner-city Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service by professionals working in a range of ways. In particular, it provides examples of how an urban CAMH service has been responsive to, and influenced by, local circumstances, resources and knowledge. The book explores the relationship between professionals and the community context, which provides the background to the lives of individual service users and the families they serve, and how this relationship is integral to the development of a responsive service.
The chapters cover a range of settings and approaches, addressing the social, cultural, political and community contexts impacting on children, young people and families. In this way Urban Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services explores challenges and issues emerging in a responsive approach to child and family work in all community settings whether they be urban, suburban or rural.
Urban Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services is intended for mental health and social care professionals involved in therapeutic, social and pastoral work with children, young people, families and communities. The book will be of interest to policy-makers, mental health and social care professionals, health visitors, general practitioners, nurses and midwives , as well as to trainees in these professions including trainee clinical psychologists, social workers or psychoanalytic and systemic psychotherapists. It will also appeal to those interested in responsive communities and critical approaches to therapeutic interventions in mental health work, psychology, psychotherapy and counselling
'Border crossings': Reflections on undertaking brief psychoanalytic therapeutic work in community and primary care settings
No full textBeyond awareness of 'difference' and towards social action: 'Solidarity practice' alongside young people
No full textWho I am as a working-class black African woman cannot be disconnected from how I work. It shapes my lens with regard to power, difference and liberation. It is not surprising that I have been drawn to social justice approaches to psychological intervention, such as Narrative Therapy, Coordinated Management of Meaning (CMM), social constructionist systemic therapy and liberation psychology. These practices involve taking up the cause of the oppressed in ways that respect them as agents of their own liberation. In this article, I describe what I term ‘solidarity practice’ with young people and their families as a counter force resisting the increasingly blaming and individualising discourse of mainstream psychology, psychiatry and social policy
The quantum unconscious and the observant consciousness
No full textBased on the philosophy of Henri Bergson and the contemporary developments of Quantum Physics, I sought to demonstrate how these developments are incompatible with a positivist vision of reality, which is still influential in the scientific community. Specifically, in the field of Psychoanalysis, I have shown how this outdated epistemology has been responsible for a manic denial of the theories of Carl Gustav Jung and Wilfred Bion (later stage) as part of an immobilising allegiance to a schizo-paranoid functional tradition imposed by its founder. Finally, I have proposed that supported by the formulations of these renegade analysts, psychoanalysis can progress to a depressive position, eventually transmitting this integrated perspective of reality to the rest of the scientific community and postmodern society in general
To treat or not to treat: Puberty suppression in childhood-onset gender dysphoria
No full textPuberty suppression using gonadotropin-releasing-hormone analogues (GnRHa) has become increasingly accepted as an intervention during the early stages of puberty (Tanner stage 2-3) in individuals with clear signs of childhood-onset gender dysphoria. However, lowering the age threshold for using medical intervention for children with gender dysphoria is still a matter of contention, and is more controversial than treating the condition in adolescents and adults, as children with gender dysphoria are more likely to express an unstable pattern of gender variance. Furthermore, concerns have been expressed regarding the risks of puberty suppression, which are poorly understood, and the child's ability to make decisions and provide informed consent. However, even if the limited data available mean that it is not possible to make a conclusive treatment recommendation, some safety criteria for puberty suppression can be identified and applied
A Study of Michael Fordham's model of development: An integration of observation, research and clinical work
Get PDFThis portfolio of published work represents a discourse on Michael Fordham's model of development that extended Jung's theory to infancy and childhood. The papers were published over two decades and indicate how infant research, ideas from related fields and the author's own clinical
and observational work have contributed to her
understanding of development. The framework for her thinking has throughout been Fordham's model. In this essay the author contends that what she has learned from research and her own experience adds new contributions to the model, based on data for the most part not available to Fordham. The portfolio of papers is introduced by an essay
comprising Part I. It begins with an account of the author's professional life and clinical experience pertinent to the study. Next there is a substantial section on Fordham' s theoretical model and links he established with Kleinian and post-Kleinian thought. This exposition is followed by a section on the main sources for the author's work. Following this she proposes five areas that she considers to be her original contributions to the model: identifying and defining the features of massive surges of deintegration in the first year; identifying a period of primary self functioning; new considerations concerning the active participation of the infant in development; identifying precursors to projective and introjective
identification, and symbol formation. Part II contains nine papers, virtually all of which are theoretical and include clinical work and infant research and observation. They are divided into three sections: 'Theory', which are predominantly theoretical and aimed at making a theoretical point; 'Explications', which aim to elucidate concepts and dynamics comprising the model; and 'Extensions', which are those papers explicitly or implicitly containing the author's new links and ideas that add form and content to the model
Embracing darkness: Clinical work with adolescents and young adults addicted to sexual enactments
No full textThis paper described common themes and transitions in the treatment of adolescents and young adults presenting as addicted to sexual enactments. Central to their experience is a highly addictive reliance on a bad object, which both enables and relies upon sexually perverse enactments. The paper follows the therapeutic process with patients seen in either group or individual long-term psychotherapy. Their experience is understood in the context of theories central to the work at the Portman Clinic relating to perversion and addiction, combined with some ideas from the field of criminology. Patients usually start by noticing their relationship with their compulsive behaviour, moving from a passive stance to a perception of themselves as active agents. They discover moments that are described as ‘pressing a button’, at which they move from passivity to taking perverse action. Those insights lead to a slowing down of the addictive cycle and emergence of phantasies, core complex anxieties and even hopes, all desperately avoided by taking sexualised action. The paper follows a pathway of change and transformation, which when successful enables patients to reduce or cease addictive behaviours by coming in contact with a good object, enabling both emotional pain and the experience of potency and hope