Dialogues with Children and Adolescents A Psychoanalytic Guide

Psychoanalytic work with children is popular, but the sophisticated language used in psychoanalytic discourse can be at odds with how children communicate, and how best to communicate with them. Dialogues with Children and Adolescents: A Psychoanalytic Guide shows how these aims can be achieved for the most effective clinical outcome with children from infancy up to late adolescence.

Björn Salomonsson and Majlis Winberg Salomonsson draw on extensive case material which reveals the essence of communication between child and therapist. They enfranchise the patient of all ages as an equal participant in the therapeutic relationship. Presented in letter form the cases contain no professional terms. Only the final chapter contains theoretical commentaries applicable to each case. These terms and theories help to explain a child?s behaviour, the analyst?s technique and the background to the disorder.

This is new creative development in child therapy and analysis which is written in a very accessible style. Dialogues with Children and Adolescents will be essential reading for beginners in psychoanalytic work with children and will cast a fresh light on such work for more experienced clinicians. It will also appeal to the non-professional lay reader.

INTRODUCTION

1 – THE LAND OF O
2 – THE HOLE IN THE ESCALATOR
3 – WHY ARE THEY DOING LIKE THAT?
4 – RAGING WITH LOVE
5 - HERE COMES PIPPI LUNDSTRÖM
6 – YOU’LL BE DEADER THAN DEAD
7 – WE DON’T LOOK INTO EACH OTHER’S EYES
8 – MY HEAD IS A MESS
9 – RESTLESS AND RUTHLESS – OR JUST ROOTLESS?
10 – LETTER FROM THE VOLCANO
11 – THAT TINGLING FEELING
12 – NO CONNECTION
13 – THE FIRST TIME THAT I SAW YOU
14 – THE LAST TIME THAT I SAW YOU
15 – COMMENTARIES TO CHAPTERS 2-12

Björn Salomonsson is a Swedish psychoanalyst in private practice and at the Mama Mia Child Health Centre. He is also a researcher at the Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm. He has published on containment, the analysis of children with ADHD, various subjects on infant-mother psychoanalysis and on case presentation methods. His book "Psychoanalytic Therapy with Infants and Parents" was published by Routledge in 2014.

Majlis Winberg Salomonsson is a Swedish training and child psychoanalyst. She is working in private practice and is lecturer at the Faculty of Psychology, University of Stockholm. Majlis is also a researcher at the Department of Women’s and Children’s Health, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm. She has published papers on psychoanalysis with children and adolescents.