Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Pages: 174
•
Trim: 6⅜ x 9
978-1-4422-5607-1 • Hardback • January 2020 • $92.00 • (£71.00)
978-1-5381-2741-4 • eBook • January 2020 • $45.00 • (£35.00)
Dr. Gertrude Pollitt, executive director emerita of the Center for Psychoanalytic Study in Chicago, has had a long and distinguished career as a practicing social worker, clinician, and psychoanalyst, specializing in severely emotionally disturbed children, adolescents, and their parents. Her life’s work as a clinician is further informed by her own experiences as a Holocaust survivor in wartime London and as a director of camps for abandoned and displaced children after the war. Her memoir, Children of Separation and Loss, was published in 2014. She served as teacher and consultant to agencies, schools, and individuals.
Introduction
Foreword
Author’s Statement
Acknowledgements
Chapter One: The Implications of Working with Children in Clinical Practice
Chapter Two: Child Analysis and Child Therapy
Chapter Three: Psychodynamics of Play and Play Therapy with Children
Chapter Four: Anna Freud’s Contribution to Child Psychoanalysis
Chapter Five: Melanie Klien’s Contribution to Psychoanalysis and Early Childhood Development
Chapter Six: The Use of Fantasy Material in the Treatment of a Borderline Psychotic Child
Chapter Seven: Containing Rage and Anger in the Developmental Process
Chapter Eight: D.W.Winnicott’s Contribution to Child Psychoanalysis
Chapter Nine: Separation Trauma in Infancy and Early Childhood
Chapter Ten: Emotional Implications of Young Students with Special Needs
Chapter Eleven: School Phobia
About the author
This collection is a culmination of the extraordinary life and work of Dr. Gertrude Pollitt and offers an opportunity for both beginning and seasoned clinicians to learn from a master clinician who has worked first hand with the architects of child psychology and play therapy. Dr. Pollitt served as executive director emerita of the Center for Psychoanalytic Study in Chicago and worked in diverse settings and private practice for more than 65 years treating severely disturbed children, adolescents, and adults. In this treatise, Dr. Pollitt integrates and channels the essence and tenets of Anna Freud, Melanie Klein, and D. W. Winnicott and distills complex nuanced clinical concept and treatment approaches with a remarkable clarity and elegance. A survivor of Nazi Austria, Dr. Pollitt draws from the depths of her own traumatic losses, as well as he post-war work with displaced and orphaned children to develop keen empathic attunement with her patients. Moreover, her own resilience and psychotherapeutic skill are evident in her capacity to recognize and nurture the inherent potential in her very disturbed patients. This book offers an unparalleled honor and opportunity to be privy to Dr. Pollitt’s training and treatment room.
— Yonit Hoffman, director, Holocaust Community Services CJE Senior Life
Gertrude Pollitt is a gifted writer with a remarkable clinical background beginning with her early work with Anna Freud in the ‘Barn’ outside of London during the war. I am tempted to say that you will not find anyone else who can talk about these experiences in England seventy years ago with the clinical savvy and knowhow that Gertrude possesses. What impresses me most is her capacity to write in a deceptively simple and clear manner, which students will quickly grasp, and still bring to the reader an extraordinary integration of the work of Anna Freud, Mahler, Klein, and Winnicott— all well organized under focus of the individuation process that leads to ego identity and a mature adaptive capacity. I found myself realizing that her understanding of symbiosis, therapeutic regression in the service of ego development and ego adaptive capacity was easily understood. I believe this book has the key advantage of being accessible to parents and students and will also be of value for more experienced clinicians who work therapeutically with children, adolescents and their families.
— Dr. Barrie Richmond Ph.D, teacher and supervising and training child psychoanalyst, Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis
Dr. Gertrude Pollitt has created her hundredth birthday by continuing to make contributions to child and adolescent analysis and psychotherapy. In “The Psychodynamic Treatment of Severely Emotionally Disturbed Children and Adolescents.” Dr. Pollitt applies concepts of psychoanalytic thought to the treatment of these challenging and complex patients and their families.
Drawing on her more than 70 years of experience in the field of mental health, Dr. Pollitt in her clinical examples, follows the patient, not a theory, to enrich the psychotherapeutic dialogue. In her discussion of clinical process, Dr. Pollitt integrates the contributions of A. Freud, M. Klein, D.W. Winnicott, D. Stern and attachment theorists.
Clinicians at all stages in their careers will find “The Psychodynamic Treatment of Severely Emotionally Disturbed Children and Adolescents” a useful addition to their professional libraties.
— Edward P. Kaufman P. Kaufman, director, Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy Program, Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute
In this beautiful book, Gertrude Pollitt takes us from her experiences working with Anna Freud and Melanie Klein through a survey of the work of leading child psychoanalysts to beautifully rendered vignettes and case studies of her work with complex children, seeking, as children must, “to turn their frantic acts into speech”. What makes psychoanalysis so special is our tradition of learning from the wisdom of elders, and Dr. Pollitt’s book is a gift of her hard-earned lore about the beauty and complexity of children’s lives, and the power of psychoanalysis to open new possibilities.
— Michael O’Loughlin, Adelphi University
In this treatise on working psycho-dynamically with disturbed children, Dr. Pollitt has one eye on her lived history with major contributors to child analysis including Melanie Klein, Anna Freud, John Bowlby, Donald Winnicott and others, while focusing the other on the integration of their ideas clinically in the consultation room. She addresses the difficult technical problems in treating the child who is rageful, or borderline psychotic; as well as the child who has experienced early trauma or has special needs. Dr. Pollitt supplements her discussion of these topics with ample clinical examples bringing her approach alive for the reader. This book will appeal to those who work with a broad spectrum of children and to all those who wish to understand the value of and the history behind diverse psychoanalytic ideas.
— Christie Huddleston
The book includes: - First-hand account of working in the Barn in Essex with Anna Freud during WWII.
- Applications of Anna Freud, Melanie Klein, and D.W. Winnicott’s psychoanalytic concepts as a basis for clinical treatment of children and adolescents.
- Clinical vignettes with important examples of the transitional process.
- D.W. Winnicott’s concept of the Transitional Object and its manifestations, implications and function.
- Melanie Klein’s conceptual framework of play therapy and its implications and applications in treating severely disturbed children.
- How the controversy between Anna Freud and Melanie Klein led to the breakup of each of their conceptual frameworks, and how D.W. Winnicott took both concepts and incorporated them into his own theoretical framework.
- Verified research on certain psychoanalytic concepts.
- Manifestations and treatment of separation and loss in children, adolescents, and adults.