Routledge Dialogues with Children and Adolescents: A Psychoanalytic Guide

Psychoanalytic work with children is popular, but the sophisticated language used in psychoanalytic discourse can be at odds with how children communicate, and how best to communicate with them. Dialogues with Children and Adolescents: A Psychoanalytic Guide shows how these aims can be achieved for the most effective clinical outcome with children from infancy up to late adolescence. Björn Salomonsson and Majlis Winberg Salomonsson draw on extensive case material which reveals the essence of communication between child and therapist. They enfranchise the patient of all ages as an equal participant in the therapeutic relationship. Presented in letter form the cases contain no professional terms. Only the final chapter contains theoretical commentaries applicable to each case. These terms and theories help to explain a child’s behaviour, the analyst’s technique and the background to the disorder. This is new creative development in child therapy and analysis which is written in a very accessible style. Dialogues with Children and Adolescents will be essential reading for beginners in psychoanalytic work with children and will cast a fresh light on such work for more experienced clinicians. It will also appeal to the non-professional lay reader. Review "This rare and important book will speak to a wide range of people, almost anyone who lives or works with children and sometimes wants to understand them better. Writing with decades of therapeutic experience, but with direct simplicity and humanity, we can feel the mystery of children's experiences, and yet how much they can make sense with patient, respectful and creative attention. I warmly recommend this book to interested parents, young people and to professionals who work with them. Like me, they may find it hard to put down!"-Mary Target PhD, Professor of Psychoanalysis, University College London. About the Author Björn Salomonsson is a Swedish psychoanalyst in private practice and at the Mama Mia Child Health Centre. He is also a researcher at the Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm. He has published on containment, the analysis of children with ADHD, various subjects on infant-mother psychoanalysis and on case presentation methods. His book "Psychoanalytic Therapy with Infants and Parents" was published by Routledge in 2014. Majlis Winberg Salomonsson is a Swedish training and child psychoanalyst. She is working in private practice and is lecturer at the Faculty of Psychology, University of Stockholm. Majlis is also a researcher at the Department of Women’s and Children’s Health, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm. She has published papers on psychoanalysis with children and adolescents.