The three articles in this special section, for the most part, document recent developments in the field of child and adolescent psychoanalysis that are internal to the profession. They cover expanding the place child analysis has in the structure of APsaA, creating new models for training child analysts, and conducting research to investigate the practice of child analysts.
Some of our readers may be concerned that TAP is focusing on internal developments at a time when the popularity and utilization of psychoanalysis, including child analysis, is at an all time low. Are we arranging deck chairs on the Titanic? Shouldn't we be more directly concerned with public image and practice development? The answer is that these three “internal” developments will enhance our capacity to address our external problems of image and practice.
For example, in the first article, Ruth Karush and Calvern Narcisi report on a new APsaA Council Committee called COCAP or the Council Committee on Child and Adolescent Psychoanalysis, which was created to promote the practice of child analysis and increase awareness of its value to the mental health community at large. They describe some specific steps COCAP is taking to advance these goals.
Penelope Hooks discusses one of four APsaA institute pilot programs that offer child analytic training without also requiring adult training. She points out that there are excellent, potential candidates for child training who do not apply because they either are not interested in adult training or do not qualify for it. As a consequence, we turn potential candidates away at a time when we sorely need more child analysts to develop the profession. Freestanding child analytic training programs respond to the real shortage of child analysts.
In the last article, Leon Hoffman describes a national research agenda sponsored by APsaA. The ultimate goal of the research will be to gather information about the children and adolescents in treatment, to describe the nature of the analytic interventions, and to document the treatment outcomes. One benefit of the findings will be the achievement of an empirical basis for defining and demonstrating the value of child analysis to the public.
The children in the photographs accompanying the Special Section on Child and Adolescent Psychoanalysis are models. The images are from the archives of Word Management Corp., to whom they belong.
Lee Jaffe, Ph.D., is a child and adult psychoanalyst and senior faculty member at the San Diego Psychoanalytic Institute.