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This fascinating book introduces, with many clinical highlights, the innovative psychoanalytic work with toddlers and their families which started at the Tavistock Clinic in the early 1980s, known as the ‘Under Fives’ Counselling Service’. Lisa Miller, a pioneer and very experienced child psychotherapist in this kind of brief work, describes in her Foreword how ‘the families arrive in pain and anxiety, pushed to enact internal states, taken over by forces they feel they cannot control either in the child or parents’ reactions to it. They don't know why they are behaving as they would not wish to behave. It is plain that powerful and complex understanding can take place in this brief work. Simply by coming the family announces its readiness to seek help and it is of the utmost importance that the families are seen without delay.’ This book is one of the contributions of child psychotherapists from the Tavistock Clinic in London to parent - infant psychotherapy. One can trace in it the theoretical influences of the work of Klein, Bion, Winnicott, brief psychodynamic psychotherapy, parent - infant psychotherapy, attachment theory, the family therapy work of Byng-Hall, and recent developments in the neurosciences. This book is a very welcome and important addition to the forum of infant - parent work, although its main focus is on work with toddlers and their families.
The first part of Pozzi's book covers theoretical ideas and technical aspects of short term and focused psychoanalytic counselling where young children are seen together with their parents and siblings in what ever combination they wish to be seen. The Tavistock model of infant observation is dealt with in a separate chapter, emphasizing its ever-increasing importance. The second part of the book consists of rich case histories.
The book covers the most common complaints and symptoms met in under fives’ counselling. These are dealt with in different chapters, including: eating problems, sleeping problems, s