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Dialogue With Sammy: A Psychoanalytical Contribution to the Understanding of Child Psychosis
This pioneering study shows that it is possible to establish a dialogue with a psychotic child and that schizophrenia in small children is treatable.
From the front inner sleeve of The Hogarth Press book's jacket
The story of Sammy, a 10 year-old American boy, whose struggle to convey the content and feeling of his psychotic inner world, forms the heart of this moving book. Driven by overwhelming anxiety, but also impelled by the human need for creation and self-expression, Sammy demanded that his analyst write down verbatim his fantasies and stories. Thus, in a sense, he is the prime author, providing the core material which stimulated Joyce McDougall and Serge Lebovici, two of France's leading child psychologists, to add the rich dimensions that a full account of a child analysis and related commentaries could bring. In following the detailed account of the psychoanalytic sessions, the reader can come to feel himself something of the quest together of child and analyst for understanding, in the continually unfolding human draa that is child analysis. He will admire and wonder at the tact, skill, warmth, and courage that are required of the analyst, and gain some appreciation of the value of psychoanalysis asa therapeutic and research tool in that as yet poorly known world of child psychosis. Yet, if one can yield to a fuller empathy, does not one find something of Sammy in each of us, and does not what he writes and says throw light on and open to question manifold areas of every man's existence?
Contents
Acknowledgements
Preface (D. W. Winnicot)
Introduction
Sammy's background
The Analysis
Notes on the analysis of Sammy's mother
Report from the Special School
Interview with Sammy's father
Note, May 1958
From the front inner sleeve of The Hogarth Press book's jacket
The story of Sammy, a 10 year-old American boy, whose struggle to convey the content and feeling of his psychotic inner world, forms the heart of this moving book. Driven by overwhelming anxiety, but also impelled by the human need for creation and self-expression, Sammy demanded that his analyst write down verbatim his fantasies and stories. Thus, in a sense, he is the prime author, providing the core material which stimulated Joyce McDougall and Serge Lebovici, two of France's leading child psychologists, to add the rich dimensions that a full account of a child analysis and related commentaries could bring. In following the detailed account of the psychoanalytic sessions, the reader can come to feel himself something of the quest together of child and analyst for understanding, in the continually unfolding human draa that is child analysis. He will admire and wonder at the tact, skill, warmth, and courage that are required of the analyst, and gain some appreciation of the value of psychoanalysis asa therapeutic and research tool in that as yet poorly known world of child psychosis. Yet, if one can yield to a fuller empathy, does not one find something of Sammy in each of us, and does not what he writes and says throw light on and open to question manifold areas of every man's existence?
Contents
Acknowledgements
Preface (D. W. Winnicot)
Introduction
Sammy's background
The Analysis
Notes on the analysis of Sammy's mother
Report from the Special School
Interview with Sammy's father
Note, May 1958
296 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1960
34 people want to read
About the author
Joyce McDougall
20 books14 followersJoyce McDougall was a New Zealand-French psychoanalyst.
McDougall wrote four major books in the field of psychoanalysis: Plea for a Measure of Abnormality (1978), Theatre of the Mind: Illusion and Truth On the Psychoanalytical Stage (1982), Theatres of the Body: A Psychoanalytic Approach to Psychosomatic Illness (1989), and The Many Faces of Eros (1996).
McDougall wrote four major books in the field of psychoanalysis: Plea for a Measure of Abnormality (1978), Theatre of the Mind: Illusion and Truth On the Psychoanalytical Stage (1982), Theatres of the Body: A Psychoanalytic Approach to Psychosomatic Illness (1989), and The Many Faces of Eros (1996).
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 17, 2021
No sé por qué no lo había leído ; estoy preparando un curso sobre The Piggle y en un texto mencionan los tres historiales más famosos , el de Richard, por Klein , The Piggle por Winnicott y Sammy por Mc Dougall y me di cuenta de que no lo había leído
Joyce estuvo en Hampstead un año y medio y en Paris atiende a Sammy supervisada por Lebovici
Trabaja en forma analítica con una frecuencia de 5 sesiones por semana , tarda en introducir juguetes pequeños y utiliza la interpretación “ conmocional “
Me parece un buen testimonio de un trabajo clínico
Joyce estuvo en Hampstead un año y medio y en Paris atiende a Sammy supervisada por Lebovici
Trabaja en forma analítica con una frecuencia de 5 sesiones por semana , tarda en introducir juguetes pequeños y utiliza la interpretación “ conmocional “
Me parece un buen testimonio de un trabajo clínico
December 11, 2024
A key case study in kleinian child analysis. It briefly describes each of the 154 sessions -five sessions per week- which include stories, dreams and materials that Sammy dictated verbatim to the analyst, plus her observations and commentaries on the material, which were, at Sammy's request read back to him in most of the sessions.
If you have undergone a kleinian analysis as a child, you will recognize the techniques, the analyst's vocabulary and characteric interpretations. It is a fascinating -and somewhat harrowing- case study as you can feel Sammy's deeply psychotic state and the analyst's struggle to help him. To quote from the authors' introduction:
Additional contents include a preface by D. W. Winnicott, a necessary but brief chapter on Sammy's background, some helpful and pertinent notes from Sammy's mother's analysis, the report from the Special School Sammy was interned into in the USA after his analysis and return to the USA from France, a maddenly short interview with Sammy's father, and an afternote by the authors.
In order to appreciate this book, the reader must have at least basic knowledge of Melanie Klein's psycho-analytic techniques and frameworks. As a lay reader, I rated the book with three stars, but I suspect any child analyst worth his salt will tend to rate it with five stars.
If you have undergone a kleinian analysis as a child, you will recognize the techniques, the analyst's vocabulary and characteric interpretations. It is a fascinating -and somewhat harrowing- case study as you can feel Sammy's deeply psychotic state and the analyst's struggle to help him. To quote from the authors' introduction:
Sammy's analysis, although interrupted so early, is particularly rich in fantasy productions which reveal certain fundamental aspects of the genesis of a psychotic relationship. This was manifested both in the development of Sammy's transference relationship to his analyst and in the fragment of the mother's personal analysis. All through his own analysis, Sammy brought forth in diverse form his anxiety of being brokenor internally torn to bits and pieces. Such fantasies are typical of those that form that constellation of anxieties described by Melanie Klein as the paranoid-schizoid position.
Additional contents include a preface by D. W. Winnicott, a necessary but brief chapter on Sammy's background, some helpful and pertinent notes from Sammy's mother's analysis, the report from the Special School Sammy was interned into in the USA after his analysis and return to the USA from France, a maddenly short interview with Sammy's father, and an afternote by the authors.
In order to appreciate this book, the reader must have at least basic knowledge of Melanie Klein's psycho-analytic techniques and frameworks. As a lay reader, I rated the book with three stars, but I suspect any child analyst worth his salt will tend to rate it with five stars.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews