Analyzing Children

Edward I. Kohn, MD, is on the faculty of the Cincinnati Psychoanalytic Institute (CPI) and the Southeast Consortium for Child and Adolescent Psychoanalysis, serving as a training and supervising analyst at CPI and a child and adolescent supervising analyst at both CPI and the Southeast Consortium. Christie Huddleston, MD, is a psychoanalyst in private practice in Philadelphia. She is on the faculty of the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia and served as past director of the Adult Psychoanalytic Program. She is associate clinical professor at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and teaches and supervises psychiatric residents and fellow at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Children's Hospital of Pennsylvania, and Einstein Medical Center. Adele Kaufman, MSW, is training and supervising analyst and child and adolescent supervising analyst at the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis. She received the Chicago Institute’s 1988 Michael Littner Distinguished Scholar Award and the Joan Fleming Teaching Award for Distinction in Psychoanalytic Teaching in 2013; she was co-chair of the Child and Adolescent Committee from 2006 to 2010; chair of the committee until 2015; and co-dean of the Chicago Institute. She is in the private practice of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy in Highland Park, Illinois.

In four collaborative chapters, Kohn (Cincinnati Psychoanalytic Institute) explores in detail the case histories of two juvenile subjects to demonstrate the psychoanalytic process of enabling young children to assemble the elements of a traumatized or fragmented psychic structure into a cohesive self. Isabel, through the reported interaction with her therapist (coauthor Huddleston), eventually becomes able to fully express herself without fear of repercussions. Ella at first lacks the ability to verbalize distress stemming from specific family events that were beyond her immediate understanding but gradually learns to express her basic feelings through role-playing with her analyst (coauthor Kaufman), during which she learns to create meaningful maps or drawings representing the related feelings rather than act out aggressive impulses. In the subsequent nine chapters of the book, Kohn provides nuanced explanations of Freudian and post-Freudian concepts and therapeutic processes as illustrated by the two analyses, creating a useful reference for child psychotherapists, students of developmental psychology, and academic researchers.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and practitioners.

• Chapter 1: Isabel, Christie HuddlestonChapter 2: Discussion of Isabel’s Analysis, Edward I. KohnChapter 3: Ella, Adele KaufmanChapter 4: Discussion of Ella’s Analysis, Edward I. KohnChapter 5: Psychic Structure and Models of the Mind, Edward I. KohnChapter 6: Trauma and Fragile Psychic Structure, Edward I. KohnChapter 7: The Developmental Object, Edward I. KohnChapter 8: Fragmentation to Cohesive Self, Edward I. KohnChapter 9: Therapeutic Action, Edward I. KohnChapter 10: The Play Space, Edward I. KohnChapter 11: Relationship, Action, and Words, Edward I. KohnChapter 12: The Oedipal Phase and its Earlier Determinants, Edward I. KohnChapter 13: Termination, Edward I. Kohn