Child Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy in Primary Schools

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.

Katie Argent is Head of Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust. She has a special interest in the usefulness of psychoanalytic thinking outside the clinic.

1. Ordinary emotional development in the primary school years Dexter Benjamin and Francesca Benjamin 2. Using child psychoanalytic psychotherapy in primary schools Katie Argent 3. Tavistock child psychotherapy in schools: a brief history of a long relationship Milly Jenkins 4. Early transitions: child psychotherapy in a school nursery Kathryn Fenton and Anya Suschitzky 5. Children's group psychotherapy in a mainstream primary school Marta Cioeta 6. Parents' experience of a child psychotherapy outreach service: Isha and Sheikh Interview by Milly Jenkins 7. "I just thought I'm doing something wrong if she needs therapy": a grandmother's experience Mel Serlin 8. Conversations across education and mental health in a mainstream primary school Interview by Milly Jenkins 9. Slow movements that create hope: psychotherapy with a boy diagnosed with ASD Carlos Vasquez 10. From exclusion to inclusion: developmental group work in a primary pupil referral unit Fiona Henderson 11. A parent's experience of child psychotherapy approaches in a primary pupil referral unit: Lena Interview by Milly Jenkins 12. Working outside the therapy room in a therapeutic school Ruth Glover 13. Personal perspectives across education and mental health in a therapeutic school Interviews by Milly Jenkins 14. Evidencing child psychoanalytic psychotherapy in primary schools: a case example Marta Cioeta and Jocelyn Catty