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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    confidence and support of society. The parents also feel this, that it is not only one man who is advising them to let the child go hungry, go late for school, make faults unreproved and un- punished, but that a number of ordinary people like themselves would not blame them for relaxing their well-meant discipline, but even support these weird suggestions and understand their problems from their own experience. , In the interview with the child it is important to know where he feels happier—home, school, or street; with whom he gets on better, father or mother; his attitude to his brothers and sisters; the influence of any organ inferiorities. Early remembrances, dreams, and favourite fairy stories all help to show where the child has felt insecure, and indicate his goal of superiority. All this is not only for the information of doctor and clinic, but for the enlightenment of the child himself, a bringing to conscious- ness of the background of his problems. He is led to see for him- self what an un-self-reliant attitude his methods show, and at the same time is given confidence that he can succeed in useful things. As he is always treated as an equal he is not advised or asked to give up any of his methods. Suggestions are, of course, present in every tone of the psychiatrist’s voice and every expression of his face, but the strongest one given in words is usually: “So you would not need those useless things.’ Particular faults or diffi- culties are seldom mentioned, never if they would embarrass the child. As all difficulties and delinquencies are only symptoms of the underlying defective social feeling and egocentric striving, it is immaterial for the treatment what form the difficulties take. Conversely, the disappearance of a symptom is not taken in itself for a cure. This is one of the strongest features of Individual Psychology child guidance, that symptom treatment cannot happen. So for instance, a child with an outstanding educational difficulty could not in an I.P. Clinic receive only the skilled help of a psychologist or teacher which might remove the particular difficulty but leave the cause untouched. ‘This symptom treat- ment is like stopping up the holes whence the smoke is issuing, but leaving the fire burning beneath. The following case shows the development of a vicious circle between parent and child, both striving for the upper hand; the clinic, unable to win the co-operation of the father, tries to immunise the girl against him, and explain to her how she may arrange her life better, even without his help. Mary, aged sixteen, was the fifth of seven children, and was brought to the clinic because she was so bad-tempered and unmanageable at home. The older children were boys, and there was great rejoicing in the family when a girl was born.