Lacanian Psychotherapy with Children: The Broken Piano

by Catherine Mathelin

In a groundbreaking integration of the work of Lacan, Winnicott, and Tustin, Catherine Mathelin reveals how a child's symptoms can be a striking reflection of its parents' unresolved conflicts. She shows how her patients' art, much of it reproduced here, can communicate both initial anguish and progress in treatment, and draws on her experience of working on a neonatal unit to argue compellingly that a child's mental health can be endangered even before birth.

"This is a book hard to put down, filled with the most fascinating brief case vignettes of parents and children who live in worlds disconnected from each other, hoping for experts to heal their suffering."
-Anni Bergman, coauthor of The Psychological Birth of the Human Infant

Genres: Psychoanalysis

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 17, 1999

Reviews

[Karlie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting read...I don't know Lacanian theory too much so some technical parts were a little confusing but the cases were fascinating and accessible...it's also a shorter book so was a quicker read..

[Brad · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of those books that gets better the further you read. The initial chapters are often extremely short case vignettes that sometimes don't have much clinical or theoretical utility. These early chapters function more as interesting anecdotes, although when more technical terms are introduced Mathelin has a succinct and relatable way of conveying their meaning.

The later (and longer) chapters are much more rewarding. Here clinical and theoretical nuance can be found. The groundwork is more well established and 'technique' expressed to the reader as vignettes are discussed. It is in these longer pieces that the underpinnings of the work seem to come to light.

Finally, it is important to say that this is not a primer on Lacanian psychotherapy with children by any means. In one light it is a description of what the work might look like. In another light it is a manifesto against 'popularized psychoanalysis' and against the inappropriate application of oversimplified analytic ideas.