In 1991 an unusual collaboration began between child psychoanalysts and police officers in the city of New Haven, Connecticut. Discussions begun by Donald Cohen, director of the Yale Child Study Center and training analyst at the Western New England Institute of Psychoanalysis, and Nicholas Pastore, chief of the New Haven Police Department, initially focused on mutual concerns about the increase in community violence and its effect on inner-city children. These discussions led to the development of a program that alters the ways in which both policing and clinical services are delivered to children and families who are most directly exposed to and involved in that violence.
While the collaboration of child analysts and police professionals might seem an unusual alliance, it draws on a rich tradition within the field of child psychoanalysis, which throughout its history has explored the emotional development of children through observations both within and without the consulting room. In settings as diverse as pediatric wards, institutional care facilities, the courts, child welfare agencies, and city streets, the earlier work of analysts such as Sally Provence, Edith Jackson, René Spitz, James and Joyce Robertson, August Aichhorn, Anna Freud, Al Solnit, and Joe Goldstein—to name but a few—has enriched both our understanding of the inner life of the child and the impact of significant environmental stressors on normative developmental processes. The findings of these analysts have also had an enormous impact on the ways in which children are thought about and handled by the professionals most directly involved in their care. Changes in policies and practices that have a bearing on the “best interests” of children—whether in pediatric wards, institutional care, foster placements, or custody disputes—have occurred only when psychoanalytic investigators or consultants have been able to engage their nonanalytic colleagues in the process of exploring the impact of their interventions on the lives of the children with whom they are involved. It is in this context that psychoanalytic principles of development have been used to develop a common language in which the observations, concerns, and approaches of the disparate professionals who deal with children can be expanded and explored.
Minimizing the potential for trauma in children's development has been a central concern of all previous efforts to apply child psychoanalysis in a social setting. As early as 1926, in “Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety,” Freud described the traumatic situation as one in which the individual has experienced feelings of helplessness in the face of a danger whose magnitude outweighs the “subject's estimation of his own strength.” With children and families exposed to contemporary urban violence, psychic trauma takes on another aspect when the “actual danger” comes in the form of gunfire, wounding, and death. Under such conditions, clinical services alone are unequal to the task of intervening on behalf of the large number of children whose development may be compromised by their acute and chronic traumatization. In the current collaboration between the Yale Child Study Center and the New Haven police, child analysts have turned to police officers as the professionals with the most direct and sustained contact with the children and families in the line of fire.
The Child Development–Community Policing Program capitalizes on new trends in policing and addresses the need to change the ways in which mental health services are delivered to some of the most vulnerable members of society. The CD-CP Program has five major components: (1) a core seminar for rank-and-file officers on the application of psychoanalytic principles of development and human functioning; (2) a fellowship that exposes district police supervisors to various clinical activities within the Child Study Center; (3) a fellowship for clinicians that orients them to police practices; (4) a 24-hour consultation service for officers, children, and families directly involved in violent incidents; and, (5) an ongoing case conference in which officers and clinicians discuss both clinical and policing interventions for victims and perpetrators of violence.
The CD-CP collaboration is based on the premise that while a violent event may precipitate a host of responses that compromise a child's developmental potential, it may also provide a window of opportunity in which psychotherapeutic interventions may be introduced. In addition, what has been learned in the consulting room may be used in coordinating a diverse range of services that may favorably affect the daily lives of children and their families. In turn, our early involvement with these children and families at the acute phase may also increase our knowledge about fundamental aspects of psychic functioning and traumatization, and about the techniques we employ in treating our patients.
Over the past three years, hundreds of rank-and-file officers and dozens of senior police supervisors have been trained in the principles of child development and response to acute trauma. Working collaboratively with mental health professionals, police in New Haven have referred over five hundred children who have witnessed violence or experienced it themselves, as well as dozens of children who have committed serious violent offenses. These children have often been seen within minutes of the police response to murders, stabbings, beatings, maiming by fire, death by drowning, or gunfire. The children and their families have been seen individually and as part of larger groups in their homes, at police stations, at school, in their neighborhoods, and at the Child Study Center. In the aftermath of violent events, child analysts and analytically informed colleagues have provided acute crisis intervention, parent guidance, consultation with schools and hospital pediatric staff, and long-term psychotherapy for individual children.
The Child Development–Community Policing program has became a national model for collaboration between mental health and police professionals and was included in the 1994 Omnibus Crime Bill as part of the community block grant package. The CD-CP program is being replicated in selected sites around the country under the auspices of the Justice Department's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Clinical findings and a description of the program have been presented at national conferences of mental health and law enforcement groups alike, as well as to a Senate subcommittee and to members of the congressional leadership. Already the subject of several journal articles and book chapters, the program will be extensively described in a book to be published this fall by Yale University Press.
Steven Marans, Ph.D., Harris Assistant Professor of Child Psychoanalysis at the Yale Child Study Center, is an advanced candidate at the Western New England Institute of Psychoanalysis.
In the program's efforts to increase the attention paid to children exposed to communal violence, it has been essential to establish a regular forum in which officers and clinicians have an opportunity to establish a common ground of concerns and a conceptual rationale for their collaborative work. A weekly seminar for officers and clinicians examines concepts regarding (1) basic human needs, (2) developing capacities for self-regulation and mastery, (3) phase-specific sources of danger/anxiety, (4) the link between behavior and underlying psychic processes (i.e., the relation between anxiety and defenses), and (5) individual variations with regard to life adaptations. The goal of the seminar is to demonstrate how officers' familiarity with psychoanalytic principles of development and human function can enhance the range of strategies available to them in dealing with various situations. Officers are afforded a more realistic appreciation of the impact these strategies can have on the lives of the children and families with whom they interact.
The ten-session seminar, co-led by clinicians and supervisory officers who have completed their respective fellowships, uses scenarios from the streets, clinical vignettes, videotapes from psychoanalytic research on children's play, and films, including the Robertsons' John and John Singleton's Boyz 'n the Hood, as illustrations and as segues into discussions of basic developmental concepts. While the discussions proceed according to a developmental sequence, they attempt to link the inner life of the child and the manifest behaviors seen in the initial phase to the forms in which these phenomena may be observed throughout the life cycle. The seminar thus provides an opportunity to think about the meaning of behavior as an essential consideration in determining effective strategies and developing collaborative interventions by police and mental health professionals on behalf of children and families caught up in community violence.
The convergence of principles of development and their application to policing strategies may best be illustrated by a discussion that emerged as one seminar group considered toddlerhood. Participants, asked to talk about their understanding of the salient features of the phase, responded with ideas about the “terrible twos,” tantrums, toilet training, and bossiness. These topics were elaborated in the discussion until participants began to make connections between the ways in which physical maturation, mastery, and the child's sense of omnipotence converge and at times clash with parental expectations and the notion of consequences. Issues regarding separation-individuation also entered into the discussion, as the behavioral assertion of strength, power, and well-being could be more broadly understood in terms of the child's developing sense of self, self-worth, and capacity for regulating and expressing urges and feelings. Again, the emphasis of the discussion moved toward the common theme of articulating the relation between observable phenomena and underlying motivation. Here the central importance of feelings of power, control, and mastery, and of the defenses employed when narcissism is injured, was discussed in terms of the toddler, but also of older children and adults. The concepts of displacement, turning passive into active, and reaction formation were illustrated in material brought from the streets by the officers in the class.
One of the more powerful illustrations of the relation between anxiety and defense arose after a confrontation that occurred between police, a group of young drug dealers, and community members. Several officers who had been involved, including the seminar co-leader, described the events. The day after a local drug dealer had been shot to death by a rival, a large group of teenagers gathered on a corner. When two beat officers arrived, the group began jeering and moved toward them. The officers felt threatened and called for backup. Within minutes, squad cars were speeding into the area; the arriving officers formed a line, with billy clubs at the ready, as the crowd grew more vocal and insulting. Other members of the community joined the crowd, and tensions continued to rise until supervisory officers intervened. They first ordered the line of officers to put their billy clubs away and return to their cars. Officers assigned to the neighborhood were asked to wade into the crowd and talk with the most vocal participants they knew—drug dealers and community leaders alike. This group was invited to attend a hastily convened meeting in a nearby church. As the group moved away, the crowd slowly dispersed. Over the next several days, community leaders accompanied officers on patrol as a way of supporting the peace. (This approach to potential confrontations between police and crowds has now become standard operating procedure and during the past three years has led to a significant decrease both in the number of civil disturbances and in police and civilian injuries when confrontations have nonetheless occurred.)
The discussion of the incident revolved around themes of intimidation, fear, and humiliation, as officers spoke of the experience of being prejudged and insulted by people who don't even know them. In response to questions from the seminar leaders, officers considered the psychology of the crowd and identified a range of contributing factors. Seminar members recognized feelings of powerlessness in the face of unemployment and life in a blighted neighborhood, and how a sense of despair might find relief in the excitement and rage that gets targeted on a highly visible enemy. As the discussion continued, the concepts of displacement and transference were discussed. The argument that developed over whether police should back down when faced by a of hostile crowd or instead stand their ground and demonstrate their power and control was examined in terms of individual and group responses to various sources of anxiety, the degree of perceived danger, and capacities available to defend against and diminish feelings of helplessness, fear, and humiliation. These themes and others are elaborated as the seminar moves through central concepts regarding the challenges and potential deviations attending oedipal, latency, pubertal, and adolescent development.
As the ten-week seminar comes to an end, officers increasingly refer to their responses to the scenes of violence and suffering they confront on a daily basis. Sealing over, “getting used to it,” distancing themselves as best they can; displacing frustration onto citizens with whom they interact or onto family members; viewing the world dichotomously, as “us versus them”; heightening the sense of vigilance—these are all common themes that emerge in the discussions. These responses are discussed in terms of the defensive functions they serve—against unwanted feelings of fear, inadequacy, sadness, despair, and the like—as well as the potential interference they may pose in achieving the desired goals of interventions.
Five years ago, SWAT operations in New Haven occurred, on average, once a week. In the past three years the need for these operations has decreased to no more than two times per year. The closure rate of homicide investigations is approximately 95 percent, as against a national average of 65 percent. The efforts of a local, state, and federal task force have dismantled three violent drug operations and netted federal convictions against major dealers. In coordination with the New Haven Police Department, the CD-CP program is examining these local changes in comparison to national trends. Anecdotally, it would appear that the development of relationships between a community-based department and members of the neighborhood in which officers work, in conjunction with community perception of a more personally engaged and responsive police force, has led to greater cooperation with regard to intelligence gathering after a crime and to problem solving in the realm of crime prevention. The shift from a solely reactive police role to a proactive role for community-based officers is based on developing and sustaining relationships with members of a community, as well as on increasing the array of available interventions. In both arenas, officers need an expanded frame of reference, as well as the resources and professional assistance that will allow them to respond to an increased repertoire of demands.
Where the seminar on child development and human functioning develops a general frame of reference that will allow officers to consider the relation between a child's inner life and manifest behavior, the Consultation Service provides direct service for officers who are dealing with children and families exposed to violence
and tragedy. The availability of immediate consultation has provided officers in the field an additional resource that has often allowed them to feel more effective in the face of tragedy. By brokering clinical services and attending to the emotional needs of the children involved, officers have found a new way of “taking control” and becoming active in the aftermath of violence, rather than simply feeling overwhelmed by it themselves, sealing over, and quickly turning away from the scene. For many of the children and families, the referrals may offer accessible and responsive clinical services for the first time; they may also afford them a new and very different experience of officers and mental health professionals. In many of these situations, police are viewed not simply as providing too little, too late, but as benign figures of authority who are able to play a role in reestablishing a degree of stability in the midst of emotional chaos.
Clinically, we are learning a great deal about acute exposure to violence. By following children and families from the initial disorganizing effects of traumatization, we are learning more about the various ways in which an external event is experienced and represented for children according to their phase of development, individual history, and maturational competence. We are working on research instruments that will allow the systematic collection of data from the material of ongoing treatment hours, as well as from evaluation interviews. In addition, we are working with colleagues at the West Haven VA Hospital to explore the coordination of neurophysiological and psychological processes in the mediation of acute stress and trauma.
Our current work allows us to explore and apply concepts derived from both the psychoanalytic consulting room and fields of natural observation. Without the work carried on in individual psychoanalysis, we lose our most precise instrument for gaining access to the inner life. Without access to the broader community and an array of mental health services, we lose the opportunity to apply and extend what we have learned.
At a time when psychoanalytic influence in public and private sector approaches to treatment, clinical training programs, and policy is threatened, the CD-CP program exemplifies the vital role that psychoanalysis can continue to play in addressing the concerns of individuals, families, communities, and the range of professionals involved with them. We have been especially impressed with the extent to which psychoanalytic concepts have been embraced by police officers, who are applying them in dealing with victims and perpetrators of violence, with juvenile offenders, with civil disturbances, and with colleagues who have been involved in especially disturbing events. We have learned that the best cops are like the best clinicians; they listen and observe well. In the CD-CP collaboration, translation of psychoanalytic ideas and their application to what is heard and seen has led to the extension of our clinical knowledge regarding violence and trauma and to an elaboration of intervention strategies both within and without the consulting room.