Individual psychology and the child / Leonhard Seif [and others].

Date:
1933
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Individual psychology and the child / Leonhard Seif [and others]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Psychology, with the key to it all, by saying to her once: “I don’t want to be silly; I'll be all right when I’m sure I’m the most powerful here.” The futile diagnosis of moral imbecile is often given in such cases. The Munich Clinic is held weekly in an unpretentious school- room, and is attended by from thirty to sixty people, teachers, doctors, parents, students, judges, etc., many of whom are attending two or three lectures or seminars a week on Individual Psychology. Each case takes about an hour, longer if a first visit, so three or at most four cases can be taken each week. There are no paid workers, and treatment is always free. Children are referred by teachers, social workers, hospitals, and many by parents of children who have been helped. The person referring the case gives first what information he has; sometimes the voluntary secretary and social worker has been able to visit the home and can give a report. First the parent is seen, usually the mother, while the father comes later by request; the child mean- while remaining outside. Special difficulties must first be unburdened. Then the psychiatrist aims at getting the medical history, at forming an estimate of the physical equipment of the child, and at knowing as far as possible what effect organic inferiorities may have had on the child’s ideas of his chances in life. The first interview allows an absolutely free and frank statement of the methods of treatment at home before the mother has an idea of those approved by the psychiatrist; he is careful not to indicate his attitude, in order to get a clear picture of the influences which have affected the development of the child, also of any variation, conscious or unconscious, in the mother’s attitudes to different children. If talking freely of her past and present methods, she will usually let us see why the child is persisting in his tactics. For instance, she will show how zealous she is in reminding the forgetful child, in reassuring or comforting the fearful one, in punishing or warning the naughty one; she may state emphatically that Mary and John are not like Tom—‘if only he were like them!”—and we know how often Tom must have heard this; but the mother will maintain that her treatment must be right because it succeeded with the other two. It is quite striking how many parents of clinic children are well-meaning, industrious, very ambitious people, terribly anxious to have faultless, affectionate, or successful children. They have, of course, in every case done the best that their preparation has allowed them, just as their problem child is doing now; but the very goodness of their intentions and their ambition is often the chief stumbling-block to the realisation of their wishes for the child. It is too painful for them to see that