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The making of mind
No full textTo understand how human beings come to have the mental faculties that they do, one would do well to consider the making of mind in at least two senses. First, an evolutionary perspective promises to specify what distinguishes Homo sapiens from nonhuman primate kin, and to set whatever is unique against a background of psychological abilities that we share with our ancestral relatives. Second, an account of individuals’ development from infancy onwards should enable one to see how humans’ species-specific biological endowment dovetails with what the environment provides to yield specifically human psychological capacities. In this article, I argue that to arrive at an overarching theoretical explanation, we should set the capacity to identify with the attitudes of other people at the very core of evolutionary and developmental accounts
Resilience as reflexivity: A new understanding for work with looked-after children
No full textThis article argues that the current model of resilience in the social work literature, through its predominant focus on outcomes and behaviours rather than the underlying processes of development involved, risks superficiality and appears to lack an underpinning psychological theory of the way in which resilience develops. In response, I propose a psychodynamic understanding of this process, which sees resilience as rooted in the capacity for reflexivity (defined here as an awareness of one's own mental state and the mental states of others), and which describes how this capacity develops. This holds that a strong-enough ego, with the capacity for resilience-as-reflexivity, is the necessary precursor of the child's ability to make use of positive experiences. This psychodynamic understanding of resilience development aims to give social workers a greater appreciation of how the mental health of children in the care system may have been affected by their experiences, and how they can be helped to develop the psychological foundations of resilience and therefore better mental health. I suggest that workers can use this understanding to assess the stage of resilience-development a child has reached, and to inform therapeutic work aimed at strengthening their resilience
The Buddha and the baby: Psychotherapy and meditation in working with children and adults
No full textThese dialogues with child, adolescent and adult psychotherapists and child psychiatrists focus on their personal as well as professional experiences. All the contributors have a long-standing practice of Buddhism or other forms of meditation. The relevance of this to their clinical work with infants, children, adolescents, families and adults is described. Buddhist principles such as suffering, impermanence, non-attachment, no-self and the Four Noble Truths influence the contributors’ practice of psychotherapy with children and with the child in the adult.
Similarities and differences between the two traditions of Buddhism and psychotherapy are highlighted in these dialogues, which are embedded in deep, personal and transforming experiences that are shared by the authors
Multi-layered systemic and narrative interventions with refugees and asylum seekers in a community child and adolescent mental health service
No full textIt is argued here that work with refugee communities requires a dif-ferent approach to standard therapeutic practice, in order to account for the specific contexts of refugee lives. The work of a Refugee team
based in a Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) at the Tavistock Centre in London is presented here as a multi-layered set of systemic and narrative-based interventions in the domains of direct clinical work with individuals, families and groups, communi-
ty interventions, consultation and teaching. Included in the paper is a detailed case example of the treatment of a young Afghani asylum seeker to illustrate the complexity of typical referrals to the team and the multi-modal approach used to address the presenting concerns. Work with refugee and asylum seeking families is fraught with complexity as many authors have noted (Papadopoulos 2002). Often member of such families have been exposed to violence, traumatic separations from loved ones, destruction of their property and other gross human rights violations, including violence from state institutions. The loss of trust in others has made people fearful and suspicious of external agencies even those purporting to offer them help. When they are referred to a mental health service whose task may be mysterious to them their suspicions of the role of professionals may be heightened. Furthermore the way that distress is shown cannot be related to a specific diagnosis or clear-cut mental health difficulty, but rather thorough traumatic experiences at multiple levels where even contact
with helping services can be perceived as potentially re-traumatising. Consider the following account of a session with an Afghani refugee:
Mr C said the two children shout and cry and then his wife does the same. It becomes too much to bear. ‘When they shout I need to go out’. When I commented on his poor health and how much pressure both were suffering he became angry and vented his frustration at the situation in Afghanistan. He spoke with fury about how Afghan society is broken and how the British and Americans originally supported the Taliban. At one point he seemed to be directing his anger personally at me as representing the British and what ‘we’ have done to his country. He was profoundly pessimistic about the prospects of any change saying it is their `very bad luck’. Here the attempt to help is politicised and associated with intrusion and invasion
