In search of a methodology for evaluating psychoanalytic psychotherapy with children

Boston, Mary

doi:10.1080/00754178808254832

Cited by 13 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…The earlier work of the workshop contributed to the still, sadly, so relevant book Psychotherapy with Severely Deprived Children (Boston and Szur, 1983). It also led to research to evaluate psychoanalytic psychotherapy for fostered and adopted children (Boston, 1989;Lush, Boston and Grainger, 1991;Boston and Lush, 1994). This is work and evaluation which continues.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

'Be a kid': the traumatic impact of repeated separations on children who are fostered and adopted

Kenrick¹

2000

Journal of Child Psychotherapy

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This paper is concerned with the cumulative nature of the trauma of repeated separations for looked-after children in transitional placements within the care system. Given early experiences of deprivation and abuse and lack of containment both at external and internal levels, these are children who have found themselves alone and unable to process or to attach meaning to experience. Later experience can reactivate earlier catastrophic anxieties.The description of the three-and-a-half-year psychotherapy of a young child shows how he made use of that therapy to make some sense of his experiences of separation and to form attachments with his therapist and signi cant care workers. This child's experience in transitional placement is contrasted with that of a child who, in spite of horri c early trauma, beneted from continuity in his care and in his experience of being understood within his family.The importance of children in transitional placements being given therapeutic help as early as possible, in order to support them in negotiating separation and change on their way to permanent placement, is emphasized.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

'Be a kid': the traumatic impact of repeated separations on children who are fostered and adopted

Kenrick¹

2000

Journal of Child Psychotherapy

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“…It is sometimes argued that research is only useful to the researchers and that it does not benefit either therapists or patients, or that it only proves what is already known through common sense (Boston, 1989). This is not borne out by my own experience as a research therapist.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Being a therapist in eating disorder treatment trials: constraints and creativity

Colahan¹

1995

Journal of Family Therapy

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This paper gives a brief overview of the sequence and content of the eating disorder treatment trials at the Maudsley Hospital in London, and describes the experience of the author working as a research therapist on these trials. It considers the different ways research constraints affected the therapist, how she learnt to make creative use of what appeared to be therapeutic restrictions, and how having her clinical freedom curtailed taught her to be more flexible and showed her new ways of understanding her patients. IntroductionEating disorders have intrigued researchers and clinicians for many years, and work by Mara Selvini Palazzoli (1974) and Salvador Minuchin et al. (1978) strongly suggests family involvement in the aetiology and maintenance of the condition. Current evidence, however, supports a multi-determined aetiology (Garfinkel and Garner, 1982) and whilst family therapy is frequently seen as the treatment of choice, it is only recently that formal research into the relative efficacy of different types of psychotherapy for patients with eating disorders has taken place at the Institute of Psychiatry and the Maudsley Hospital in London.This series of controlled treatment trials was designed to compare different types of outpatient psychotherapy, lasting one year, randomly allocated to patients suffering from anorexia nervosa and low-weight bulimia nervosa. The same therapists work in each type of psychotherapy, but are obliged to follow the requirements of the research protocol regarding the type of treatment offered and its duration. This paper will first give a brief overview of the content and sequence of the Maudsley trials (the trials and their results are described and discussed in detail by Russell et al. (1992) (this issue, Dare, in press)) and will outline the different types of psychotherapy used. I t will then describe the frustrations and creative opportunities experienced by the author working as a therapist on the trials, manoeuvring her way through the constraints and limitations imposed by the research protocol. Overview of Maudsley randomized controlled treatment trials for eating disorders(1) The trials Trial 1 offered family therapy or individual supportive psychotherapy to a group of adult (over 18) and adolescent (under 18) patients, following discharge from an inpatient hospital refeeding programme. Psychotherapy consequently started at a point when patients' weight was within normal range.Trial 2 offered family therapy, individual focal psychoanalytic psychotherapy or individual supportive psychotherapy to adult patients, also following discharge from an inpatient refeeding programme.Trial 3 offered family therapy or family counselling to adolescent patients, with no prior hospitalization or formal refeeding programme. Treatment thus started when patients' weight was very low.Trial 4, which is still in progress, offers family therapy, individual focal psychoanalytic psychotherapy or a low contact supportive psychiatric treatment programme (offered by psychiatric registrars)...

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“…Mary Boston and Dora Lush have in many respects led the way when it comes to our profession thinking seriously about research and I am very sorry that I did not refer to their ground-breaking work (e.g. Boston, 1989;Boston andLush, 1994, Lush et al, 1998). Having said that, I do feel the research they describe in these papers has a slightly different methodological basis to the kind of work I was trying to explore (but no less valuable for that), although I agree that their research topic -the finely-tuned, long-term evaluation of psychoanalytic child psychotherapy -falls completely within the second and -to some degree -third circles I described.…”

Section: Reply To Mary Boston and Dora Lushmentioning

confidence: 96%

Correspondence

2004

Journal of Child Psychotherapy

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In search of a methodology for evaluating psychoanalytic psychotherapy with children

Cited by 13 publications

References 18 publications

'Be a kid': the traumatic impact of repeated separations on children who are fostered and adopted

'Be a kid': the traumatic impact of repeated separations on children who are fostered and adopted

Being a therapist in eating disorder treatment trials: constraints and creativity

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