Latency-age Boys Research Articles

The Importance of Promoting a Sense of Self-Agency in Child Psychoanalysis

ABSTRACTPromoting a sense of self-agency is a crucial goal of child psychoanalytic treatment. Some approaches to pathogenesis or technique risk encouraging a child to perceive himself as a passive victim of environment or constitution. Maintaining a focus on the role of internal conflict's contribution to pathogenesis helps to mitigate this tendency. In particular, the capacity to use affects as signals and the superego are important structural components to developing a sense of self-agency. The analysis of a latency-aged boy is used to demonstrate the importance of these factors and ways of analyzing that promote them.

Critical Clinical Moments at Crucial Developmental Times:A Case From Vienna

This article presents the psychotherapy of a latency-age boy that challenges both the patient and his psychotherapist. While the boy seems to develop well after a short time of treatment, the psychotherapist remains concerned about his continued submissive style. She explores ways to convey to the boy her understanding of his inner world but feels with each effort that the treatment is at the edge of failure. The critical clinical moment occurs in the session that the boy had secretly planned to be his last. This crucial juncture creates the opportunity for this dyad to develop a common language. In the pleasureful playing that unfolds, they use verbal and nonverbal exchange to build a new foundation for their relationship.

From "Dry Birth" and Mutism to Symbolic Birth and Thinking: The Many Dimensions of a Child Case

This article is about a 5-year-old boy who began therapy with symptoms of separation anxiety, enuresis, and selective mutism and through the impact of the co-transference slowly developed into a 9-year-old who could concentrate, regulate his emotions, and was developing a capacity of think. The initial birth trauma, resulting in a dry birth seemed to be the root of his symptoms. From the first session to the last, he implicitly and explicitly reenacted his trauma emanating from his engagement with the therapist through all the means that were available to him. By the end of therapy, he not only had developed into a 9-year-old latency age boy who was socially and academically successful but also was able to think and to speak coherently. His internalized capacity to regulate his affect and his external agency were substantially developed and clearly demonstrated.

How much is too much? Understanding the role and function of violence and its manifestation in the consulting room: intensive psychotherapy with a latency-aged boy

The aim of this article is to explore and lend meaning to the role and function of violence in children, in particular boys, who have had disturbing and traumatic early experiences. Psychoanalytic thinking about the role and function of violence, as well as its impact and management in the consulting room, will be central features of this exploration. In a research project involving a single case study, a number of clinical concepts emerged that have potential ramifications for child psychotherapists working with children exhibiting violent and challenging behaviour. The clinical concepts emerged via the application of grounded theory research methodology to clinical data and contribute to the thinking and theory of Meltzer’s use of ‘temperature and distance’ as a means of understanding and regulating emotional states in the therapeutic setting. ‘Time’ and ‘space’ were additional clinical concepts that emerged. These four concepts are considered crucial elements in providing the child psychotherapist with the means to apply transformative and modifying processes to the un-processed and raw externalisation of primitive, violent impulses.

The use of empathy and transference as interventions in psychotherapy with attention deficit hyperactive disorder latency-aged boys.

Psychodynamic-oriented therapies are uniquely positioned to address the internal experiences of a child whose external presentation is consistent with an Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) diagnosis, an area of treatment intervention that is conspicuously absent from common ADHD treatment modalities. This article presents two psychodynamic psychotherapy treatment interventions that demonstrate (1) the importance of empathy in the therapeutic relationship and (2) the use of transference in psychotherapy with ADHD children. Through the use of case examples, the use of empathy is demonstrated in developing the therapeutic alliance, facilitating the development of the child's reflective capacity on affective states, and organizing the child's affective experiences. The benefits of transference interventions with ADHD children are reviewed, and case examples are provided to demonstrate how the therapist worked with the idealized and mirroring transference. Interventions are presented in the context of Object Relations and Self-Psychology Theories.

Gender, Panic and Relational Scaffolding in the Therapy of a Latency-Aged Boy

This paper presents clinical material from work with a latency-aged boy, the son of lesbian parents, who presented with an unformulated panic around his experience of gender. While one might expect that lesbian, bisexual, gay, transgender, and queer parents might be especially comfortable with such concerns, the paper argues the opposite: that such concerns almost invariably trigger historical traumas and normative messages about gender, both within parents and in clinicians. Grappling with those messages and the attendant panic, both in patients and in the clinician's countertransference, is viewed as a crucial part of the unfolding work.

From Boys to Men: The Experience of Maleness in 4 Boys Aged 6-12 Who Utilized Art Therapy with a Male Art Therapist

:This research study explored the influence of hegemonic definitions of masculinity on the gender socialization of four latency aged boys (6-12) through the modality of art therapy. By providing a therapeutic space that was safe and comfortable to share personal experiences, the boys were able to explore, deconstruct, and examine what masculine identity means to them in an environment that was supportive, non-judgemental, and compassionate.

“My Brakes Are Broken”: Case Presentation of a Latency-Age Boy Struggling with Affect Regulation

Parental pathology and environmental stress impacts children and can derail the developmental achievement of affect regulation, an essential ego function that has its genesis in the early relationship between the infant and his caregiver. When parents are unable to provide consistent empathic care, articulate emotions, label feelings, and put words to experiences and behaviors, it leaves a child unable to understand his internal and external world. This clinical article demonstrates the link between the function of verbalization and the development of affect regulation in a latency boy growing up in a family suffering from multiple problems. Using the clinical material from the initial and middle phases of his analysis, the process of expanding his ego capacity for affect regulation is discussed as well as the therapeutic techniques that facilitated change.

Prevalence and predictors of emotional and behavioural functioning of children where a parent has cancer

This study aimed to evaluate prevalence and risk factors for emotional and behavioral problems in dependent children of cancer patients using a multinational research design. The sample comprised 350 ill parents, 250 healthy partners, and 352 children. Parents assessed the child's psychological functioning using the Child Behavior Checklist, parental depression using the Beck Depression Inventory, family functioning using the General Functioning subscale of the Family Assessment Device, quality of life using short-form questionnaire, and adolescents (N = 168) self-reported psychological functioning using the Youth Self Report. Children and adolescents, in particular latency-aged boys and adolescent girls, were of higher risk of psychosocial problems than norms. There was a higher risk of problems when the father was ill than when the mother was ill, but it remains unclear whether this difference was due to the different diagnoses of fathers and mothers, gender or other factors. The best predictor of internalizing problems in children and adolescents was parental depression, and the best predictor of externalizing problems in children and adolescents was family dysfunction. The results indicate the need for a family-oriented approach to psychological support of cancer patients.

Bridges over troubled waters: a relational approach to fatherless boys and a male therapist

Many children in need of psychotherapy are latency-age boys who have little or no contact with their fathers. Their problems typically include low self-esteem, identity problems, depression, difficulties in peer relationships, and aggression. Clinical material illustrates that the consequences for the child of fatherlessness depend on many factors, among them the mother's attitude to the father and other mature males. If the mother devalues all men, her son has little space to grow into a healthy adult. The male therapist may be experienced as a threat to the mother-son union, which may render his efforts to help the boy fruitless. If, in contrast, the mother's experiences of her own father and other men are more positive, her pride in her son's masculinity may strengthen his need to find support for his male development. These observations are discussed as affecting the capacity for triadic object representations in mothers and sons.

Limit Setting and Projective Identification in Work with a Provocative Child and His Parents: A Revisiting of Winnicott’s “Hate in the Countertransference”

Dealing with children who have disruptive behavior disorders can evoke feelings of frustration and anger in their therapists. D.W. Winnicott discussed the complexities in the treatment of enraging patients in his article "Hate in the Countertransference" (1949). In the following paper, I will depict the relationship between limit setting, projective identification dynamics, and enraging behavior in the treatment of a provocative latency-aged boy. I will argue that poor limit setting caused by powerful projective identification dynamics were central to the pathology of the boy and his family. These dynamics partially repeated in the boy's treatment--an outcome of which Winnicott had warned. The repetition contributed to the boy becoming physically out of control in my office and led to a disruption in his treatment. The establishment of solid limits by addressing projective identification forces was necessary for the improvement in the disruptive behavior of the child.

Case Illustration of a Boy With Nonverbal Learning Disorder and Asperger's Features: Neuropsychological and Personality Assessment

I present a case study of a latency-age boy referred for assessment of a nonverbal learning disability/disorder (NLD) who also had features of Asperger's syndrome (AS). I review NLD terminology, presumed brain–behavior relationship, neuropsychological profile, and diagnosis/classification issues. I discuss the challenge of differentiating NLD from AS in relation to the client's pattern of visual-spatial, communication, social-emotional, and behavioral NLD correlates. I integrate neuropsychological and personality assessment data with interviews, observations, prior testing, and input from teacher and therapist in formulating a diagnostic impression. I discuss Rorschach (Exner, 2003) and neuropsychological consultations in relation to subtle language and interpersonal features of the client's communication style. I provide parent feedback at 18 and 24 months posttesting. I discuss implications relative to a model of school neuropsychological assessment that includes the Rorschach test.

Gay Men Tortured on the Basis of Homosexuality

The explicit integration of political asylum advocacy into the frame of psychodynamic psychotherapy is described. Patients are eighteen gay, bisexual, or transgendered men from twelve countries at various stages in the asylum process. Some are HIV+ or living with AIDS. All were persecuted or tortured in their countries of origin because of their sexual orientation. All are at risk of deportation if they do not win their cases. When they were children, several of the men were sexually abused. As latency-age boys and as older youths, most were physically abused because they were gender atypical. Technical recommendations regarding the process of asylum advocacy are provided. Advocacy and psychotherapy are not separate activities, but complex psychotherapeutic experiences. The therapeutic relationship is likely to become the crucible for intense feelings associated with childhood physical and sexual abuse, as well as subsequent persecution and torture. Both the therapist and the patient are vulnerable to acting in the transference-countertransference. It is possible that the necessary, asylum-related activity of the analyst in the early phases of the treatment will be negatively experienced by the patient at a later stage. Obstacles to resolving negative therapeutic reactions are discussed.

Latency and the Capacity to Reflect on Mental States

The development of the capacity to reflect on mental states has its origins in the mother's function of accepting the infant's projections of unbearable states of mind and re-presenting them in a more tolerable form. During the oedipal period, the continued availability of a parent who can take in the child's mental states and represent them from a different perspective results in the emergence within the child of a reflective mode of mental functioning. This mental capacity allows the child entering latency to begin to be able to recognize that her experience is but one perspective among many. Reflection on mental states takes place within an intermediate area of experience that belongs neither to the inner world nor to external reality, but partakes of both. In latency, the capacity to reflect on mental states remains a vulnerable capacity that is dependent on the reflective function of a parent at times of crisis. When a parent who can contain and transform the child's experience is not available, the child's potential space for reflection can collapse, leaving the child unable to differentiate inner from outer reality. The mother's relationship to a loved object other than the child is necessary for her continuing ability to support the child's reflective function. The child's awareness of a parental relationship from which she is excluded is also essential to the child's internalization of the capacity to reflect on mental states because it creates a vantage point from which the child can imagine herself being observed from the outside. These points are illustrated with material from a first psychotherapy session with a latency age boy.

Play and Therapeutic Action

Children's play that goes unanalyzed within a psychoanalysis, yet leads to therapeutic change, is contrasted with interpreted play that leads to conscious insight. The therapeutic and development facilitating effects of unanalyzed play suggest that substantial analytic work goes on unconsciously. Technical issues arise, therefore, if play is conceptualized as a therapeutic force in its own right. Developmental considerations and inhibitions in play become greater considerations in analytic technique. Two clinical vignettes from the analyses of a latency-age girl and boy are presented to illustrate unanalyzed play as an agent in development and mastery of anxieties.

An Absent Father and His Son

Abstract This paper will present some of the more recent literature and theories related to the role the father plays in the development of boys. Then, it will attempt to integrate this theory into the ongoing treatment of a latency age boy, whose father left his home at the age of four. Further, it emphasizes the value of persistently addressing the issue of the absent father as it presents itself in the treatment and transference of such a boy, often in the face of severe acting out, absolute denial, and deep desire to repress.

Indicators of feminine gender identity in latency-aged boys in the Draw a Person and the Rorschach tests.

Seven diagnostic indicators were examined for their potential to identify latency aged boys who had feminine gender identity. Nineteen emotionally disturbed boys (average age 10.2) with feminine gender identity were compared on these indicators with 21 control boys. The indicators which were found to be valid were drawing the female figure with a greater value than the male figure in the DAP; difficulty in identification with the male figure in stories to the DAP; a low relative rate of male human responses and/or a high relative rate of female human responses in the Rorschach; and initial butterfly response to card V in the Rorschach. Using these indicators in combination reduced the false positive and negative rates associated with each individual indicator.

Sewing on the Shadow: Troubled Inner City Children Work to Integrate the Good Bad Opposites

The sandtray images of latency age boys of color in a residential treatment setting portray their struggle to identify and connect to their own personal "positive" shadows while fighting to free themselves from the "negative" shadow society projects onto them. Their sandplay process is seen as moving through three stages: (1) Differentiating the chaos of good and bad, separated and defined, (2) Understanding the meaning of the conflict on instinctual, personal and abstract levels, (3) Integrating the power and energy of "bad" anger and fighting with "good" goals and positive means. Gradually the battle scenes of killing and destruction transform into contests in which the meaning of good and bad becomes greater or lesser skill and winning means transcending the polarities, finding and claiming the treasure, the gold, the resilient, beautiful aspects of their own black shadows.

A therapeutic play group for children with hearing impairments

Three latency age boys with hearing impairments were involved in a therapeutic play group to promote their psychosocial development. Their relationships with one another, and with the therapist, are traced as the individual boys evolved into a social group during their three years together. Improvements which occurred in school, home, and community adjustments are also described.

Oedipal and Preoedipal Transference Transformations

The critical importance of both oedipal and preoedipal unconscious conflicts in child and adult analysis as these conflicts unfold through the transference is documented using analytic process data. Evidence is provided that demonstrates the equal relevance of these psychic conflicts and their continuous interactions. The concept of transference transformations is proposed to explain these and later psychic conflicts that are resolved through the mutative interpretations unique to psychoanalysis. Extensive clinical data from the analysis of a latency-age boy are presented in support of this thesis. Thus, transference neurosis that arises from the infantile neurosis, the structural residue of the Oedipus complex, would be subsumed within the group of transference transformations. This concept eliminates the obligation to emphasize one developmental phase over another.