Child and Adolescent Analysis - Clinical Work Discussion Seminar | 21st March

Where does play take place?  Developing a psychoanalytic understanding of the ‘playful encounters’ in School settings. 

Children and young people spend a great deal of time in School settings.  How can we think about this place called ‘school’ within the child’s internal world and the role it plays within their psychological development.  Often parents can feel strangely displaced when new school relationships are felt to compete with the primary family relationships.  Similarly mental health professionals can underplay the significance of school relationships in a child’s psychological development.  Do we spend enough time considering the contribution a school might already be making to a child’s development before we recommend changes?  

I will use vignettes to illustrate ‘playful encounters’ taking place both in the actual school setting and in the development of an ‘internal school setting’ within the child/young person. 

I hope that the presentation will stimulate further discussion and sharing of experiences.  Particularly a discussion about the loss of the school setting during the recent Covid-19 Pandemic.

I am a Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist, Psychoanalysts and Child Analyst.  I have worked as a teacher in secondary and primary school settings, teaching both in mainstream school and teaching children with additional needs.  I am very interested in the way the whole school therapeutic milieu can support children with Autism.  I currently work in private practice in Liverpool and manage a School mental health Team in a special school for children with Autism and Communication Difficulties.  I teach Infant Observation and other seminars at the Institute of Psychoanalysis.  

Todd Hinds is a Fellow and Child Analyst of the British Psychoanalytical Society.  He works in full-time private practice in Liverpool.  Todd is a Child Psychotherapist, being drawn to this training from a background as a Teacher in special schools, working with children and young people who displayed signs of Autism.  Todd manages a team of psychologists and psychotherapists working in a special school in the Midlands.  Todd teaches Infant Observation and other seminars on the Post-Foundation course at the Institute of Psychoanalysis.