Small meetings : the application of psychodynamic thought in community work with South African children

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Community psychology in South Africa has been defined in antithesis to more traditionalpsychotherapies such as psychoanalysis. It has been necessary, in the formative stage of communitypsychology, to be clear about what it is not, in terms of establishing a progressive psychology thatmeets an urgent need. So too, psychoanalysis started out needing to be very clear about how itdiffered from previous practices, and what its aims were. Over the last hundred yearspsychoanalytic thought has, however, undergone tremendous development. Perhaps it could be saidthat its transmutation into a South African psychology is still underway. Community psychologyhas been critiqued for its lack of theory, and few extended analyses of community psychologyinterventions exist. By contrast, psychoanalysis offers detailed theoretical accounts and case studies.It is proposed that both paradigms could benefit from an exchange of ideas.There is a common misperception that community psychology focuses on external problems, whilepsychodynamic therapy focuses solely on the intrapsychic. While this is not wholly true, it could besaid that children are conceptualised very differently by these two perspectives, and that this hashad implications for treatment. Recently, however, several South African practitioners have begunto introduce psychodynamic thought into community interventions in enriching ways. They arebeginning to conclude that community psychology has necessarily been unable to utilise a depthpsychology approach, for a variety of legitimate reasons, but that this is the next step in meeting thehuge challenges of community work.This study provides a discussion of the contributions of psychoanalysis to an understanding of childdevelopment, as well as an examination of the ways in which community psychology hasconceptualised and worked with children. Empirical examples of the treatment of South Africanchildren will be followed by a case study in which psychodynamic thought was combined with acommunity-style intervention. The authors conclude that the link between internal and externalworlds is a complex one, especially in work with children. The internal and external seem, in effect,to be indivisible, and any intervention hoping to be effective splits these two worlds to its owndetriment.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University