Search

Analysts and psychotherapists are beginning to have more thorough and probing discussions about how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected their work. Shifting to online teletherapy has been necessary due to the public health measures put in place to curtail the spread of the virus. Much of the existing literature addresses how using online platforms for teletherapy works for adults. This paper instead looks at its effects on working with children and adolescents. A contrast between Winnicott's notion of holding and Bion's concept of container-contained is reviewed through a summary of a paper by Ogden. This author finds that holding might be more applicable to online work during a pandemic when the collective relationship to time and its usual parameters is severely upended. Containing could be more arduous and challenging online due to the lack of embodied presence to communicate and detect tiny nonverbal cues. A short questionnaire affirms that child analysts and psychotherapists have struggled with dimensions of online work that are particular to the developmental levels of their patients. Further, teletherapy may often not be a good fit for someone with learning differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contains reflections on the use of the imagination in technologically-mediated therapy and analysis. As part of the individuation process the psyche is seen as needing to adapt to new technological ways of communicating. The notion of a technologically-mediated self is posited describing a self which can only be apprehended through, and by, the use of telecommunications. This self is seen as identical to the in-person self, a subset, or superset of it. There is a revisioning of our notions of the container and the field in this work performed through technological-mediation. The need to engage the imagination in approaching this kind of work is emphasized in order to create an imaginal play-space in which the body will be deeply affected. Some thoughts on how the process of individuation might look through such analytic work is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a synthesis of psychoanalytic notions about the symbolic function(s) of the skin, including the subject's relation to the specular image, the internalized reflection of the subject as outlined in Schilder's concept of the "body image," and Lacan's theory of the "mirror stage." The article also traces Esther Bick's work on the psychic function of the skin as a container and Didier Anzieu's development of the skin-ego, exploring the subject's identification with the skin and the internalization of the containment function in relation to the ego and the Other. The article suggests that it may be possible to conceptualize a transformation from the symptom to the sinthome to the skinthome throughout the course of psychoanalytic treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Résumé Cette recherche clinique porte sur des sujets présentant des troubles autistiques et bénéficiant d'une médiation thérapeutique avec le cheval. De précédents travaux ont montré l'intérêt de l'équithérapie pour les situations d'autisme. En effet, le cheval favorise dans un cadre relationnel adapté des expériences sensorielles susceptibles de soutenir la construction de l'image du corps et d'avoir des effets symbolisants. Notre hypothèse concerne spécifiquement le contact du cavalier avec l'animal. La monte à cru (sans selle) soutiendrait, par ses potentialités comportementales et psychiques, un rassemblement de son image du corps. Le cas présenté est celui d'un adolescent de 17 ans. Les séances d'équitation hebdomadaires s'étalent sur six mois. Le matériel clinique résulte de minutieuses observations qui ont été ultérieurement analysées. Par ailleurs, l'évaluation longitudinale est réalisée avec l'échelle d'Évaluation Psychodynamique des Changements dans l'Autisme (EPCA, Haag et al.). L'analyse du processus décrit est ensuite discuté avec celui de deux autres sujets autistes ayant bénéficié de cette même médiation thérapeutique. Cette étude montre la pertinence de la médiation avec le cheval et particulièrement l'intérêt de la monte à cru. Les expériences vécues auraient des répercussions sur le rassemblement de leur image du corps, leurs enveloppes psychiques et leur sécurité interne. Abstract This clinic research focuses on subjects with autistic disorders, which perform equitation therapy sessions. Early work has shown the interest of the horse as a therapeutic mediation for situation with autism. Indeed, the horse favors in a suitable relational framework sensory experiences that are likely to support the construction of body's image and symbolizing effects. Our hypothesis relates specifically to the contact of the rider with the animal. The raw lift (without saddle) would sustain, through its behavioral and psychic potentialities, a gathering of the image of the body. The subject followed is 17 years old and is called Yohan. The weekly equine therapy sessions were held over six months. The clinical material results from careful observations, which were subsequently analyzed. A longitudinal assessment is performed with the Psychodynamic Assessment Scale of Changes in Autism (EPCA, Haag et al.). The analysis of the therapeutic process is then discussed with that of two other autistic subjects who benefited from this same therapeutic mediation. This study shows the value of mediation with the horse and especially the interest of the riding without saddle. The experiences gained would in this context have repercussions on the gathering of their body image, their psychic envelopes and on their internal security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psychological distress, trauma histories and intra-family conflict are strongly implicated in the pathways towards homelessness. For many also, homelessness in itself may constitute a trauma – extending, deepening and complicating the person’s existing distress. In the context of policy prioritising housing-led service provision, this study examines homeless individual’s lived experiences of home across their lives. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 residents in a supported accommodation service for homeless individuals. Interview transcripts were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). (Inserted:) Three super-ordinate themes emerged relating to the experience of the first home as a ‘non-home’, the continuing repeating of the past in the present and the desire for and attempts to bring about a new start in their lives. These themes and the links between them are discussed with particular reference to object relations and attachment theory and the concept of cumulative trauma. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: The child, invaded by autistic processes, always presents to differing degree, psychomotor disorders blocking the harmonious development of the fields psycho-emotional, cognitive and instrumental. The psychomotrician in the team is often solicited to intervene in taking care necessary total for these autistic pathologies. It is then important that the relevance and the adequacy of a work in psychomotricity near these children are specified better. A work bearing on the body containers and the analogies body–space, and in an experiment shared by the child and the psychomotrician, allows the construction of the body (of oneself, other) like “object of knowledge by experience”, and the restoration of a more harmonious psychomotricity. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]