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There has been only a limited focus in psychoanalytic literature on the hyperactive child living in a ghetto environment. This paper attempts to add to the theoretical understanding and treatment of this particular population of children whose type of psychopathology goes “beyond the infantile neurosis” (A. Freud, 1971, p. 89) and into the realm of developmental failures and structural defects (1968, 1971, 1974, 1976, 1981).1
This paper follows upon earlier findings by the staff of the University Settlement Consultation Center of the treatment of twenty-three hyperactive boys (Rowe, 1982). The University Settlement Consultation Center is a community mental health clinic serving a predominantly Black and Hispanic population of the Lower East Side of New York City.
The area served by the Consultation Center is well known for its illegal drug trafficking, poverty conditions and mixed minority populations. It has been designated as a primary poverty area by the Community Development Agency of the City of New York (Nova Institute, 1978). Articles in major New York newspapers (Weiss, Clark & Marques, 1983: Giuliani, 1983) showed an alarming increase in drug trafficking by 1983 as well as an increase in the rate of crime in general.