“Let’s Get Together and …”: Starting and Continuing Allen Creek, a Psychoanalytic School

ABSTRACT

In this paper, the authors describe the long tradition of psychoanalysts and educators working together for the benefit of children and families. They recount the inception and evolution of one nonprofit psychoanalytic school, Allen Creek Preschool in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in terms of the conceptual and practical underpinnings their group brought together. Stories of work by psychoanalyst “family consultants,” teachers, parents, and children illustrate the partnerships formed and the impact on all concerned in building emotional muscle and mastering developmental transitions and transformations.

KEYWORDS:

• Psychoanalytic school
• emotional muscle
• therapeutic alliance
• parent work
• social entrepreneurship

Notes

1. GrIP is available from Kerry Kelly Novick at [email protected].

2. We are often asked how the school came to be named Allen Creek. It was Joan Blos, one of our founding group, who suggested we find a name that would not be so specific to Ann Arbor that it would put off people from surrounding areas, but that would relate to a feature that Ann Arbor people knew about and could feel was their own! Allen Creek, named for one of the founders of the town, runs through Ann Arbor and is familiar to locals. We also enjoyed the imagery of the creek, which resonated with ideas of development and the free flow of good functioning.

3. Interested readers can contact Kerry Kelly Novick at [email protected] for a copy of the write-up from this research.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kerry Kelly Novick

Kerry Kelly Novick, AB, BA is a Training Analyst of the International Psychoanalytic Association. On the faculties of numerous institutes, she was formerly Lecturer in Psychoanalysis at the University of Michigan Department of Psychiatry, President of the Association for Child Psychoanalysis, and a founder of Allen Creek Preschool. She serves as a Councilor-at-Large for the American Psychoanalytic Association.

Jack Novick

Jack Novick, PhD is a Training Analyst of the International Psychoanalytic Association and is on the faculties of numerous institutes. Formerly Clinical Associate Professor of Psychology, Departments of Psychiatry at the University of Michigan and Wayne State University, he also chaired the Child Psychoanalysis Training at the Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute and is a founder of Allen Creek Preschool. He has served on the Board of the International Psychoanalytic Association, and is President of the Association for Child Psychoanalysis.