Analyzing Children - Kohn, Edward I.

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Résumé :
Freud described changes in the structure of the mind, including the consolidation of the superego with resolution of the oedipal complex. Important psychoanalytic thinkers since Freud have studied and emphasized the role of pre-oedipal development in the creation of psychological structure. While each of these authors developed his or her own language and concepts, they all described a fundamental transition in the structure and working of the mind that has profound importance for the psychological functioning of the child and the adult she later becomes. This book closely examines the analyses of two little girls. One began analysis having already achieved the transition to a more enduring and reliable psychic structure, a cohesive self. Because she had several experiences that overwhelmed her emotional capacities prior to entering the oedipal phase of development, her oedipal experience was filled with anxiety and overstimulation. At the start of her analysis , the second child contended with anxiety about loss of the object and abandonment, and she struggled with the process of separation/individuation. Her psychic structure, her self, was not cohesive, and she was vulnerable to fragmentation. During her analysis, her stymied development was freed up, and the authors trace the changes within her as psychic structure consolidated and oedipal material took center stage. Comparison of these two young girls and their analyses enables the authors to illustrate and describe important mental phenomena and psychoanalytic concepts. These include psychic structure, the self, the similarities and differences between a mind that is vulnerable to fragmentation and one that is not, and the internal states associated with fragmentation and trauma. By looking into the differences (and similarities) in the ways each girl responded to interventions by her analyst, the authors explore psychoanalytic technique and therapeutic action, including the many manifestations of interpretation and insight, the role of the analyst as a developmental object, and the development of psychic structure. The authors show how similar manifest behavior and content have different latent meanings and sources for each child, and they further illustrate the transformations of fantasies, anxieties, preoccupations, and ego structures over the course of their analyses....

Biographie:
Edward I. Kohn, MD, is on the faculty of the Cincinnati Psychoanalytic Institute (CPI) and the Southeast Consortium for Child and Adolescent Psychoanalysis, serving as a training and supervising analyst at CPI and a child and adolescent supervising analyst at both CPI and the Southeast Consortium....

Sommaire:

Chapter 1: Isabel, Christie Huddleston

Chapter 2: Discussion of Isabel's Analysis, Edward I. Kohn

Chapter 3: Ella, Adele Kaufman

Chapter 4: Discussion of Ella's Analysis, Edward I. Kohn

Chapter 5: Psychic Structure and Models of the Mind, Edward I. Kohn

Chapter 6: Trauma and Fragile Psychic Structure, Edward I. Kohn

Chapter 7: The Developmental Object, Edward I. Kohn

Chapter 8: Fragmentation to Cohesive Self, Edward I. Kohn

Chapter 9: Therapeutic Action, Edward I. Kohn

Chapter 10: The Play Space, Edward I. Kohn

Chapter 11: Relationship, Action, and Words, Edward I. Kohn

Chapter 12: The Oedipal Phase and its Earlier Determinants, Edward I. Kohn

Chapter 13: Termination, Edward I. Kohn