An accurate reflection of the work of Hansi Kennedy requires the placement of her writing in the context of a life lived in the relatively early days of the development of child psychoanalysis. As a witness to and participant in the work of Anna Freud, Kennedy’s own perceptions of her early professional life include the pivotal period of the migration of psychoanalysis from Vienna to London. Her role in the Hampstead War Nurseries and later in the Hampstead Child Therapy Course and Clinic included much of significance in the evolution of psychoanalytic thought regarding children and their psychological development. Kennedy’s thinking was clear, disciplined and sophisticated, with a depth that demonstrated her understanding of development and of the mind of the child. Unburdened by concerns of what was and was not analysis, and whether child analysis was equivalent to adult analysis, she followed the children, first in the War Nurseries, then in the Hampstead Nursery School and the children she and others analyzed at the Hampstead Clinic, later the Anna Freud Centre. With Kennedy’s death in 2003 a chapter in child psychoanalysis closed. This book is an attempt to honor her memory and to share her ideas. Reviews: Hansi Kennedy is undoubtedly one of the giants of psychoanalysis, particularly the psychoanalysis of children. Her work has moved the field forward in dramatic ways, including in the treatment of borderline children and the use of developmental help. Miller and Neely are to be congratulated for bringing together an integration of her work that has the quality of crystal clarity characteristic of Kennedy’s clinical writings and supervision. The book is vibrant with compelling clinical examples that will be enormously helpful to novice and experienced child clinicians alike. Kennedy’s writings, like those of Winnicott, Bion and Bowlby, yield fresh insights to the reader with each re-reading. This book is of immense value and is destined to become a classic.” -- Professor Peter Fonagy “For many if not all of those fortunate enough to work with her, Hansi Kennedy and her gifted collaborative teaching opened the doors to understanding how to work with children and adolescents. Her accessible humanity softened what otherwise might have seemed rigid and formulaic; she therefore allowed her supervisees to see and to use connections and meanings in their work with their young patients, as they arose and as they developed. The selections in this book are just a sample of Hansi’s thinking and will go far in keeping the focus on the child’s developmental welfare and in exemplifying the best in psychoanalytic developmental thinking and technique.” -- Robert L. Tyson, MD Contents: Acknowledgements; About the Editors; Introduction; The Making of Child Analyst; PART 1: MEMORY 1) Cover Memories in Formation; 2) Problems in Reconstruction in Child Analysis; 3) The “Baby at the Breast” Experience: Memory or Fantasy? Some Further Thoughts on Reconstruction; 4) Both Sides of the Barrier: Some Reflections on Childhood Fantasy (with George Moran, Stanley Wiseberg and Clifford Yorke); PART 2: INSIGHT 5) The Role of Insight in Child Analysis: A Developmental Viewpoint; PART 3: CONFLICT AND DEVELOPMENTAL DISTURBANCES 6) Pseudobackwardness in Children: Maternal Attitudes as an Etiological Factor (Maria Berger and Hansi Kennedy); 7) Some Reflections on Infantile Neurosis (Rose Edgcumbe, Hansi Kennedy, Joseph Sandler and Clifford Yorke); 8) Childhood Neurosis vs Developmental Deviations: Two Clinical Case Histories (with Clifford Yorke); 9) Different Types of Sado-Masochistic Behaviour in Children (Marion Burgner and Hansi Kennedy); 10) Steps from Outer to Inner Conflict Viewed as Superego Precursors (with Clifford Yorke) 11) The Developmental Roots of Self-Injury and Response to Pain in a 4 Year-Old Boy (with George Moran); 12) For or Against Child Placement: A Clinical Illustration; 13) Growing up with a Handicapped Sibling; 14) Trauma in Childhood: Signs and Sequelae as Seen in the Analysis of an Adolescent; 15) Reflections on the Aim of Child Analysis (with George Moran); PART 4: ANALYTIC TECHNIQUE WITH PRE-LATENCY CHILDREN 16) The Technique of Psychoanalysis with the Pre-Latency Child; 17) Psychoanalytic Work with Under-Fives: Forty Years’ Experience (Mary Target and Hansi Kennedy); Complete Bibliography of Hansi Kennedy’s Publications and Presentations; Bibliography. |