{"title":"Editor’s Introduction","authors":"Kirkland C. Vaughans","doi":"10.1080/15289168.2022.2050657","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15289168.2022.2050657","url":null,"abstract":"It is with great pride, excitement, anticipation, and humility that I, as founding editor, in joint effort with the executive board, launch our Journal in this millennium year. The brainchild of developing a new, psychodynamically based child journal seems to fly in the face of conventional wisdom, when the psychodynamic perspective itself is under such vicious attack from so many different quarters. This is compounded by the fact that most practitioners are under pressure from third-party regulators to focus only on target-symptom reduction. These and other antagonistic forces have the effect of fomenting suspicion about the therapeutic utility of psychodynamically based treatments, as well as casting a persecuting shadow on those who continue to practice it. We have undertaken a labor of three years to bring this Journal into being because of our steadfast belief that the psychoanalytically informed orientation is of significant value to practicing clinicians and their patients. Since the first child psychoanalyst, Hermine Hug-Hellmuth, published her initial clinical paper in 1912 (Maclean and Rappen 1991), child psychoanalysis and psychoanalytically informed psychotherapy of the child have developed as a subspecialty of psychoanalysis, requiring their own separate training standards. Currently, however, there is a critical lack of psychodynamically informed child therapy journals (Seligman 1997). The primary mission of the Journal of Infant, Child, and Adolescent Psychotherapy is to fill this void. JICAP was conceived and designed with several objectives in mind. The first was to develop a psychodynamically based forum for the exploration and cross-fertilization of clinical theory and practice. Through this study (examination?) of divergent views, the Journal would serve as a means of enhancing the clinical practice of infant, child, and adolescent psychotherapy. To accomplish this task, we took note of Mitchell’s (1991) characterization of our present communication status as “ironic,” because, despite their status as Western culture’s most “highly trained and refined communicators . . . psychoanalysts have enormous difficulty listening and speaking meaningfully to each other” (p. 1). It is my contention that Mitchell’s observation is immediately applicable to the general field of psychotherapy, regardless of the analyst’s theoretical orientation. If analysts do not speak meaningfully to each other, then the question remains: How do they converse? What are the ground rules for listening —the basis for the professional “psychoanalytic frame”? (Langs 1977, p. 42). The ground rules for analysts and psychotherapists with different theoretical orientations seem to be a social etiquette of either polite tolerance or a polite avoidance of one another. (Sklar 2000). This standard seems to fly in the face of Adams’ (1996) characterization of psychoanalysis as not only a talking cure but also a “listening cure” (p. 1). Langs would contend that in order ","PeriodicalId":38107,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Infant, Child, and Adolescent Psychotherapy","volume":"44 1","pages":"3 - 5"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81433694","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Few Thoughts as We Celebrate Our 21st Volume of JICAP","authors":"S. Warshaw","doi":"10.1080/15289168.2022.2051968","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15289168.2022.2051968","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":38107,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Infant, Child, and Adolescent Psychotherapy","volume":"26 1","pages":"1 - 2"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"91038176","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
S. Tuber, Rebeca Honorato da Costa, Joan Eidman, Helen Feldman, Oded Hadar, Navkirandeep Kaur, Paula Zanotti, Talia Schulder, Karen Tocatly
{"title":"Dialectical Reflections on the Advantages and Disadvantages of Tele-Play Therapy","authors":"S. Tuber, Rebeca Honorato da Costa, Joan Eidman, Helen Feldman, Oded Hadar, Navkirandeep Kaur, Paula Zanotti, Talia Schulder, Karen Tocatly","doi":"10.1080/15289168.2022.2043058","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15289168.2022.2043058","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT It’s been just over 2 years now since the spread of the COVID-19 virus began in the United States, a time period extensive enough to already be an inflection point in our history, yet recent enough to make it extremely difficult to speak to its impact psychologically – both now and going forward. This is especially true for young children, whose lives are always so influenced by developmental changes over time, that to believe we can fully grasp the consequences for their subsequent growth post-COVID is presumptuous at best, if not downright foolhardy. In this paper, we therefore have a far more modest aim: We’d like to reflect on what it has been like phenomenologically for beginning child therapists to see their very first cases remotely. This paper will therefore review the dialectical aspects of advantages and disadvantages to remote work and provide glimpses into several of these early treatments that depict these plusses and minuses. Because we find fault with the pejorative aspects of the term “remote,” we offer the term “tele-play therapy” as an alternative.","PeriodicalId":38107,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Infant, Child, and Adolescent Psychotherapy","volume":"33 1","pages":"19 - 26"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76315346","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"What is a Cadence? Graduation Speech, 2012","authors":"A. Bergman","doi":"10.1080/15289168.2021.2000255","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15289168.2021.2000255","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This issue of Journal of Infant, Child, and Adolescent Psychotherapy (JICAP) introduces the final papers of students who completed the Parent-Infant Program, most of them in spring 2012. These papers are final in the sense that each student explores and remarks on the work they did in the Parent-Infant Program; however, these papers also represent the beginning of the students’ work with mothers and babies. What follows are my words to the class of 2012 on the occasion of their graduation ceremony.","PeriodicalId":38107,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Infant, Child, and Adolescent Psychotherapy","volume":"26 1","pages":"352 - 353"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90850032","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Scaffolding the Brain: Key Areas of Evaluation in Infant Parent Psychotherapy","authors":"R. Newton","doi":"10.1080/15289168.2021.1995690","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15289168.2021.1995690","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Clinicians are often challenged by the complexity involved in early childhood infant/parent dyadic assessments and interventions. Working within a right hemisphere developmental period requires clinicians to have a good enough natural relational style that moves easily between the nonverbal implicit worlds of the infant and parent while attending to the parent’s verbal narrative. The author suggests using an evidence informed neurobiological scaffold called Integrative Regulation Therapy (iRT) with evidence based Infant Parent Psychotherapy (IPP) and introduces an iRT assessment that creates a Probable Map of the parent’s neurobiological organization to facilitate intervention by assessing clinical impressions in nine key areas: 1) attachment experience, 2) self-concept, 3) arousal organization, 4) soothing of dysregulated states, 5) use of defenses, 6) use of instinct, 7) use of reflection, 8) hopes and desires, and 9) current level of agency. A composite case will be presented illustrating the clinical use.","PeriodicalId":38107,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Infant, Child, and Adolescent Psychotherapy","volume":"11 1","pages":"372 - 385"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83526593","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Hannah Dunn, Sasha Rudenstine, S. Tuber, Elliot L Jurist
{"title":"Examining the Relationship between Caregiver Mentalized Affectivity and Childhood Defense Mechanisms","authors":"Hannah Dunn, Sasha Rudenstine, S. Tuber, Elliot L Jurist","doi":"10.1080/15289168.2021.1999193","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15289168.2021.1999193","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Mentalized affectivity is the ability to draw from prior and present contexts to evaluate and modulate one’s emotions. Defense mechanisms are unconscious psychological strategies used to protect a person from anxiety arising from unacceptable thoughts or feelings. The present study explores the relationship between caregivers’ mentalized affectivity and children’s defense mechanisms. Children who underwent a neuropsychological assessment or an individual psychotherapy intake at a low-fee outpatient mental health clinic were recruited (N = 24 dyads). Caregivers completed the Brief Mentalized Affectivity Scale (BMAS), a 12-item self-report questionnaire to assess three components of mentalized affectivity: identifying, processing, and expressing of emotions. Children completed the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT); responses were coded based on Cramer’s Defense Mechanism Manual. The findings of the analysis are consistent with the hypothesis that denial is more prevalent at younger ages (<8 years), while identification is more common in latency and adolescence (>8 years). Among children older than 8 years old, lower caregiver mentalized affectivity was associated with significantly more primitive defense use (i.e., denial) on the part of the child. Although there were limitations to the findings, results from this exploratory study have important implications for caregiver-child therapeutic interventions and warrant further examination as the sample size grows.","PeriodicalId":38107,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Infant, Child, and Adolescent Psychotherapy","volume":"8 1","pages":"386 - 394"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84712743","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Paradox of Hope: A Psychodynamic Approach to Understanding the Motivations of Young People Engaged in Violent Extremism","authors":"Martha Bragin","doi":"10.1080/15289168.2021.2007685","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15289168.2021.2007685","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The 21st century began in a burst of political violence that terrified people around the globe. A series of programs designed to counter violent extremism grew up, entangling tens of thousands of children and young people in its web. The philosophy on which these programs were founded, seemed based on a fear driven mindblindness that assumed that even the youngest perpetrators were incorrigible in some fundamental way and thus only the most violent levels of power and control would be sufficient to prevent terror from proliferating. Twenty years later, tens of thousands of children and young people are incarcerated or part of surveillance and suppression programs. However, recent studies indicate such programs serve to fuel rather than prevent violent extremism. Evidence indicates that programs eschewing violence and promoting collaboration, compassion and restorative justice have measurably positive results. This paper outlines a psychoanalytic approach illuminating that evidence. Through the use of three clinical vignettes, the paper offers a psychoanalytic perspective on the motivations of young people convicted of political violence. The paper suggests a way that psychoanalytic, developmental perspectives may contribute to the creation of effective psychosocial programs that harness their idealism and need for agency in the face of terrible violence toward preventing, treating and reintegrating young people affected by violent extremism.","PeriodicalId":38107,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Infant, Child, and Adolescent Psychotherapy","volume":"2006 1","pages":"411 - 424"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"91315691","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jordan Bate, A. Golub, J. Bellinson, Phyllis F. Cohen
{"title":"Lenses and Mirrors: Reflecting on Dyadic Psychotherapy, Supervision, and Research with Families Involved in the Child Welfare System","authors":"Jordan Bate, A. Golub, J. Bellinson, Phyllis F. Cohen","doi":"10.1080/15289168.2021.2006484","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15289168.2021.2006484","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Historically, services for families in the child welfare system have been behaviorally and externally focused, rather than attuning to what is happening on the inside for parents and children. Rarely do families have access to psychodynamic treatment provided by highly trained and well supported therapists. The Building Blocks program was developed at New Alternatives to Children, a child welfare agency, to provide mentalization-based psychodynamic treatment to families with children in foster care or at risk of being removed from the home. This paper presents data from a case of a mother and her infant daughter, observed through three lenses – clinical observation, research and supervision – sharpening our understanding of factors that facilitate trust, healing and attachment within both parent-child and therapeutic relationships. To empirically evaluate the Building Blocks program, families participate in assessments at baseline and after 12 sessions. We observed meaningful changes in this dyad’s verbal and nonverbal behaviors, based on Coding Interactive Behavior System, confirming the clinical observations. Finally, reflective supervision supported positive movement, and the use of video aided therapist mentalization. Integration of clinical training and research can provide a more comprehensive view of clinical work and allow families to be more fully seen and known.","PeriodicalId":38107,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Infant, Child, and Adolescent Psychotherapy","volume":"44 1","pages":"395 - 410"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82591824","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Moral Development in Young Children Exposed to Domestic Violence: The Case for the Proactive Role of the Therapist","authors":"Cigal Knei-Paz, Esther Cohen","doi":"10.1080/15289168.2021.2003683","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15289168.2021.2003683","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Ample evidence shows that exposure of young children to domestic violence may endanger children’s social-emotional development. Yet limited attention has been devoted to ways of specifically addressing issues of moral development in therapy. We highlight the need to address the potential harmful effects of domestic violence on the child’s moral development, within the context of the child’s relationship with the non-offending parent. We suggest that therapists assume a proactive role in identifying and addressing both the child’s and custodial caregiver’s feelings, perceptions and values relevant to the immoral acts of the perpetrator caregiver. Proactively addressing potential distortions seems essential, even though such a purportedly judgmental position may arouse uneasiness amongst therapists. Reviewing cases from Child-Parent-Psychotherapy with families exposed to domestic violence, we identify six recurring themes, indicating risk to children’s moral development. Themes include identification with the aggressor, positive feelings toward the perpetrator leading to excusing the violent acts, ambivalence toward the observance of social rules, and difficulties with empathy, guilt, and remorse. Together with the enlisted support of the custodial caregiver, these provide opportunities for the therapist to clarify and repair moral perceptions and feelings, denoting a clear moral stance, thereby contributing to the prevention of intergenerational cycles of violence.","PeriodicalId":38107,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Infant, Child, and Adolescent Psychotherapy","volume":"259 1","pages":"425 - 438"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75765975","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}