The Enigma of Childhood: How our earliest relationships profoundly shape all our later ones, by Ronnie Solan

The Space of Shared Experience and the Art of Couplehood

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I would like to invite you to delve right in and explore the enigma of the art of couplehood and happiness. You may find you are one of those people who succeed in the practice of this universal art, or alternatively, discover you may resist it, unwittingly blemishing or spoiling your relationships with your children or spouse, or even with your co-workers, when part of a team.

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Yoga and Autism: Making a Connection, by Nicole Schnackenberg

How yoga can promote embodiment, connection, sensory integration, and anxiety-reduction in children

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Recent figures estimate that approximately 1% of the population in the United Kingdom has an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), which is almost twelve times higher than estimates made in the 1970s. According to the most recent edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, individuals with autism experience communication difficulties alongside repetitive and restrictive behaviours and sensory hypo/hyper reactivity. Those of us who parent and work with children with autism, however, know this is only part of the story.

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David Gee explores the mental health issues of youth recruitment on ‘Armed Forces Day’

PTSD, Suicide, Alcoholism, Child Recruitment, and Violence: Aspects of Mental Health in today’s British Armed Forces

Although not all veterans are severely affected, a military career carries significant mental health risks, particularly at times of war when substantial numbers of psychiatric casualties are usual. Research from the last decade shows that certain mental health-related problems in the armed forces, particularly harmful alcohol use and post-deployment violent behaviour, are a serious problem. Those who have left the forces during the last decade show markedly higher rates of a number of mental health-related problems, particularly PTSD and harmful levels of drinking. These issues are of particular concern in relation to ‘Armed Forces Day’, which serves among other things as a recruitment opportunity for the armed forces. But what are the mental health implications for those who enlist, particularly the youngest recruits who are most vulnerable to these risks?

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Leticia Franieck and Michael Günter: On Latency

On Latency: Individual Development, Narcissistic Impulse, Reminiscence, and Cultural Ideal

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In psychoanalytical terms latency is defined as a developmental period in which psychosexual maturation marks time – it occurs after the oedipal phase and ends with the beginning of puberty, and is a period of emotional abeyance between the confusion and dramas of childhood and adolescence.

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Meg Harris Williams explains the origins of the Harris Meltzer Trust books

The Harris Meltzer Trust, by Meg Harris Williams

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Donald Meltzer, who died in 2004, wished that the educational work disseminated over the course of over 30 years by the publications of the Clunie Press should continue to benefit both psychoanalysis and its applications in the world outside the consulting room. Clunie Press was started originally by Meltzer and his wife Martha Harris (Mattie) in memory of Roland Harris (a poet and teacher, who died in 1969). The new educational charity, the Harris Meltzer Trust, has been founded to continue the publishing work of the original Trust, in the spirit of these three widely loved and inspirational figures.

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A.H. Brafman explores the secret language of drawings

The Language of Drawings

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This book is the result of a long gestation period.  Life had taught me that I was a good communicator, meaning that somehow people I met soon seemed to believe that I was interested in learning of their thoughts and experiences.  When I began to work with children in my clinical practice I discovered Winnicott’s use of squiggles in his therapeutic consultations and I was simply fascinated by the apparently magical bridge that this simple game made between the child’s unconscious and the analyst’s professional scrutiny.

It happens that I never thought I had any artistic gifts and this raised doubts about my ability to engage in the squiggles game.  The obvious decision followed in that, when I found that the child or adolescent patient was at a loss to express his thoughts and feelings in words, I asked them whether perhaps they might be willing to make a drawing.  It was only when they could not engage in making a picture by themselves that I suggested we might play a game together – squiggles. It gave me enormous pleasure to discover that, in spite of my lack of confidence, my patient seemed to accept my squiggles as valid and meaningful.  But, as time went on, I found more and more young patients who seemed happy to make drawings.  Most of them would move from one sheet to the next one, but some would turn the page over and draw on the other side. And, to my surprise, one day when I picked up the sheet of paper on which a youngster had drawn on both sides, I found an unexpected meaningful image resulting from seeing that piece of paper against the light.

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