Creative responses to compromised beginnings in life: how to support families struggling with early difficulties

ABSTRACT

This paper discusses forms of intervention based on psychoanalytic understanding useful to families who are struggling with the impact of a young child with special difficulties of various kinds. It proposes that the crucial contribution of the clinician is to find meaning in the disturbing behaviour of the child and to convey this to both parents and child while being attentive to the high level of parental distress.

KEYWORDS:

• Brief psychoanalytic interventions
• traumatic beginnings
• creation of a narrative
• integration of internal and external factors

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Margaret Rustin is a child, adolescent and adult psychotherapist. She teaches and supervises in the UK and in many other countries and has published many books and papers. Her most recent book is Reading Klein, written jointly with Michael Rustin.