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Creativity and psychotic states in exceptional people: The work of Murray Jackson
No full textCreativity and Psychotic States in Exceptional People tells the story of the lives of four exceptionally gifted individuals: Vincent van Gogh, Vaslav Nijinsky, José Saramago and John Nash. Previously unpublished chapters by Murray Jackson are set in a contextual framework by Jeanne Magagna, revealing the wellspring of creativity in the subjects’ emotional experiences and delving into the nature of psychotic states which influence and impede the creative process.
Jackson and Magagna aim to illustrate how psychoanalytic thinking can be relevant to people suffering from psychotic states of mind and provide understanding of the personalities of four exceptionally talented creative individuals. Present in the text are themes of loving and losing, mourning and manic states, creating as a process of repairing a sense of internal damage and the use of creativity to understand or run away from oneself. The book concludes with a glossary of useful psychoanalytic concepts.
Creativity and Psychotic States in Exceptional People will be fascinating reading for psychiatrists, psychotherapists and psychoanalysts, other psychoanalytically informed professionals, students and anyone interested in the relationship between creativity and psychosis
An independent mind: Collected papers of Juliet Hopkins
No full textAn Independent Mind: Collected Papers of Juliet Hopkins follows the professional journey and influence of an innovative figure in the history of child psychotherapy. Juliet Hopkins spans Kleinian and Independent psychoanalytic traditions and brings a critical scientific mind to these theories. Amongst her main influences were Winnicott and Bowlby - both of whom her work addresses. This book contains her most important papers, bringing together psychoanalytic theory, family and individual approaches, attachment theory and infant-parent work. With a writing style that is clear, straightforward and readily accessible, Juliet Hopkins promotes a scholarly integrative way of thinking about psychotherapy without compromising the basic psychoanalytic principles that inform her work.
The papers have been gathered chronologically into four sections, each given context by the Editors with a brief introduction: Trauma and child psychotherapy; Attachment and child psychotherapy; Infant-parent psychotherapy; Integrating and exploring Winnicott.
An Independent Mind: Collected Papers of Juliet Hopkins is a collection of classic papers whose relevance today is undiminished. It will be essential reading for established and trainee child and adult psychotherapists and psychoanalysts; counsellors, psychologists, psychiatrists interested in psychoanalytic approaches; social workers, nursery workers and those who work with children in voluntary organizations
The potential therapeutic value of therapist stuckness in systemic practice
No full textTheory development and research within the sphere of family therapy is an expression of who we are, where we are, and where our next horizon may lead us. The dialogical perspective introduces a new horizon to the systemic paradigm, a shift that supports new ways of observing practice. This project explored therapist stuckness, one aspect of the impasse phenomena, through this new lens. In response, the project introduced an alternative consultation model. The task of the model is to support a therapist when they encounter a stuck phase in therapy. Thus, the principal aim of this qualitative project was to ascertain if a consultation model influenced by the aforementioned perspective supports a therapist who is experiencing a stuck phase and if the stuck phenomenon is of value to the therapeutic process. Action Research methodology directed this inquiry. The research followed an action/reflexive cyclical trajectory with a marked responsiveness to the participant’s ideas and experiences as they engaged in the consultation and the participant/researcher dialogue. Hence, the primary method of data gathering entailed the engagement of family therapists in a consultation lead by the model. Each participant engaged in one consultation and one post consultation review. The analysis was directed through a synergy of lenses, namely: Interpretative Phenomenology Analysis, a dialogical lens and a Gadamerian Hermeneutic reflexive framework. The outcome of the analysis was translated through the Action Research lens with the outcome modifying the model format as required. The findings revealed that therapist stuckness could be described as a multi-positioned, responsive process. This description demonstrates the complex relationship between the therapist and client group. The description points towards the need to address stuckness in a way that observes how the therapist and client group connect and participate in the therapeutic trajectory. The developed Dialogical Consultation Model attempts to address this task. From this research, it is envisaged that the developed consultation model will provide a platform to develop a more advanced reflexive supervisory tool for use in systemic training and general systemic practic
Developing ways of working with parents and their infants to improve the core deficits of autism
No full textAutistic spectrum conditions (ASCs) are a group of conditions which impair aspects of social communication
and interaction. Genetic and epigenetic influences in utero and relational experiences all contribute to the
development of the child who goes on to be diagnosed as having an ASC (Crittenden et al., 2014). Our
clinical team works in London, UK, with families of children and adults who have received a diagnosis
of an autistic spectrum condition (ASC) and those with other neurodevelopmental disorders or learning
disabilities. This article describes some of our learning and clinical work over the past 15 years with this
patient group
Carl Jung’s relationship with Sabina Spielrein: A reassessment
No full textThe aim of this article is to give an accurate account of the relationship between Sabina Spielrein and Carl Gustav Jung, based on a close reading of the available documentary evidence. I challenge many of the commonly held assumptions about their relationship. These include the belief that Spielrein was Jung’s first analytic patient, that they had a long and mutually passionate affair, and that Spielrein was the inspiration behind Jung’s conception of the ‘anima’. I argue that there is little evidence for these and a number of other beliefs that have been passed down through successive cultural iterations without careful documentary analysis
‘Paralysed associations’: Countertransference difficulties in recognising meaning in the treatment of children on the autistic spectrum.
No full textChildren with autism can have a paralysing effect on the clinician’s capacity to associate freely: connections that seem obvious on reflection may be impossible to notice in the child’s presence. The author argues that this situation can be reached by more than one pathway, and that the degree of the child’s bodily and emotional cohesion is an important factor. Children may seek to immobilise the therapist’s thought processes through projective identification, whether to communicate their own experience of paralysis or because these thought processes are equated with a parental intercourse that produces a ‘baby’ (as described by Bion and Britton). Vignettes are offered to illustrate how the therapist may be nudged into overlooking this baby as well as a potentially growing part of the child that is identified with it, with important consequences for development. A second possible pathway appears to involve the much more primitive mechanism of adhesive identification, in which the child’s sense of continuing existence depends on sticking to the therapist’s surface and any movement can lead to a sense of bodily disintegration. In the clinical illustration, the therapist felt physically constrained and unable to recognise links in the material: it is suggested that this was in resonance with the child’s fear that movement, whether physical or mental, meant losing parts of his body and must be avoided at all costs. These levels can mask each other, and it seems essential to attend to both in order to avoid impasse or the overlooking of essential aspects of the child’s experience
Psychological support, puberty suppression, and psychosocial functioning in adolescents with gender dysphoria
No full textIntroduction
Puberty suppression by gonadotropin-releasing hormone analogs (GnRHa) is prescribed to relieve the distress associated with pubertal development in adolescents with gender dysphoria (GD) and thereby to provide space for further exploration. However, there are limited longitudinal studies on puberty suppression outcome in GD. Also, studies on the effects of psychological support on its own on GD adolescents' well-being have not been reported
Aim
This study aimed to assess GD adolescents' global functioning after psychological support and puberty suppression.
Methods
Two hundred one GD adolescents were included in this study. In a longitudinal design we evaluated adolescents' global functioning every 6 months from the first visit.
Main Outcome Measures
All adolescents completed the Utrecht Gender Dysphoria Scale (UGDS), a self-report measure of GD-related discomfort. We used the Children's Global Assessment Scale (CGAS) to assess the psychosocial functioning of adolescents.
Results
At baseline, GD adolescents showed poor functioning with a CGAS mean score of 57.7 ± 12.3. GD adolescents' global functioning improved significantly after 6 months of psychological support (CGAS mean score: 60.7 ± 12.5; P < 0.001). Moreover, GD adolescents receiving also puberty suppression had significantly better psychosocial functioning after 12 months of GnRHa (67.4 ± 13.9) compared with when they had received only psychological support (60.9 ± 12.2, P = 0.001).
Conclusion
Psychological support and puberty suppression were both associated with an improved global psychosocial functioning in GD adolescents. Both these interventions may be considered effective in the clinical management of psychosocial functioning difficulties in GD adolescents
