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Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies, Vol. 4, No. 3, July 2002 ( C© 2002)

Guest Editorial

Psychoanalysis and the Education of Children

From the first hours of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud and his“Wednesday night” colleagues wondered how they could apply analyticideas to the education of children: among them their own! These meetingsopened an evolving dialogue about the application of psychoanalytically-informed thinking and work to the education of young children. Freud cameto consider such an application as “perhaps the most important activity ofpsychoanalysis” (Freud, 1933, pg. 146).

Hermine Hug-Hellmuth—the grandmother of child analysis—was thefirst in a series of child analysts to detail how the psychological life of thechild colors and shapes the process of learning. She was also the first to rec-ognize and describe how mental health professionals can and need to workcollaboratively with parents and teachers to promote learning and develop-ment in and outside of the classroom (Hug-Hellmuth, 1914). This kind ofcollaborative practice provides the essential platform for helpful diagnosticinterventions and treatment, as well as the promotion of psychosocial andacademic strengths, which provides the foundation for primary prevention.Anna Freud, building in part, on Hug-Hellmuth’s work, created a frame-work for educators and child analysts to learn and teach together. Fromher early study group meetings with Siegfried Bernfeld, Willi Hoffer, andAugust Aichorn in the 1920’s, Anna Freud sought to systematically study anddiscover how analytic understanding might illuminate the developmental ex-perience of children and promote psychosocial capacities in and outside ofthe classroom. Miss Freud’s appreciation and focus on normal children andthe power of clinician-teacher-parent partnerships emerged from the firstsix years of her professional life when she was a teacher of young children.

A variety of individual and larger social “forces” initiated, then pro-moted a mental health-educational partnership in America at the turn ofthe last century: on the one hand, by John Dewey and other progressive ed-ucators who insisted on attending to the psychosocial as well as ‘academic’dimensions of the child; on the other, by the Settlement House movement;the first child psychological clinic established by Witmer, and the child guid-ance movement; and, finally, by national public health work that increasingly

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recognized the importance of “mental hygiene” (Levine and Levine, 1992).Nonetheless, it was to be child analytically-informed work that would deter-mine for many decades how educators, education professors, school-basedmental health professionals, in particular, and child mental health profes-sionals, in general, saw children and how they understood their learning anddevelopment in profoundly helpful ways.

A growing number of analysts and educators worked together in waysthat deepened the understanding of educators, parents, and mental healthprofessionals and formulated questions that would transform practice. Whatdoes it mean to understand a child from a developmentally informed per-spective? How can unconscious experience color and shape learning? Howcan we understand the variety of learning problems to address them re-medially or psychotherapeutically? How can educators and mental healthprofessionals learn from one another? How can we use our understandingof development to helpfully anticipate problems? These are just some ofthe questions fundamental to a greater understanding of children and theirdevelopmental processes.

Curiously, in the last quarter of the twentieth century, psychoanalytic-educational partnerships waned in America. There are a number of reasonsfor this. For one, educators have been attracted to behavioral and increas-ingly cognitive-behavioral perspectives, which lend themselves to concreteclassroom management strategies, specific teachable skills, and empiricalstudy. Then, too, many analysts and analytically informed clinicians havebeen drawn to clinical work alone with—seemingly—less interest in preven-tion and mental health-educational partnerships. And, the disinclination ofanalysts (at least, until the last few years) to engage in empirical researchhas resulted in analytic thinking being deemphasized (if not disparaged)in most clinical and educational training programs in this country (Cohen,1997).

On the American education scene today, academic standards and testscores are the dominant concern. Yet, there is growing awareness that learn-ing and psychosocial functioning are inextricably linked. There has been anupsurge of local, state, and federal interest, indeed, of support, for programspromoting social-emotional capacities. These programs not only reduce vi-olence and provide the foundation for healthy character development; theyalso often enhance academic functioning (Cohen, 1999). Today, most ofthese cognitively behaviorally informed programs are focused on skill de-velopment alone. Yet, educators, parents, and school based mental healthprofessionals are increasingly aware that skills without understanding areof limited value. The truth is that psychoanalytically-informed educationalwork continues to have much to offer teachers, parents, and our children, justas analytically informed practitioners have much to learn from educators.

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This current issue is the first in a series to present today’s thinking onapplied psychoanalytic-educational endeavors. We hope the journal will fur-ther a dialogue among analytically and non-analytically-informed educatorsand clinicians. In this issue, three psychoanalytically-informed educationalprojects are presented. In each case, the author was asked to discuss (1) Whatit is about this applied analytic work that makes it “psychoanalytic?” (2) Towhat extent does the work actually produce the desired results? And, (3) isthe work described “generalizable” and/or is it largely a function of the oneindividual who is practicing it?

In the first piece, Art Farley and Diana Manning detail the three-tieredapproach to working with young children. Established in Houston, this con-sultative and therapeutic-educational work grows out of the longest standinganalytic-educational tradition: consulting with educators and being directlyinvolved with working with young “normal” and troubled young children.Spearheaded by Anna Freud in Germany and then, in London, it is an ap-proach continued at the Yale Child Study Center, the NYC Jewish Boardof Child and Family Services, the Hanna Perkins School in Cleveland, TheLucy Daniel’s Center in North Carolina, The Allen Creek Preschool in AnnArbor, Michigan, and many other early childhood centers around the world.

In another essay, Bruce Sklarew and his colleagues describe the evolu-tion of their school-based mourning project. This project is one importantexample of how psychoanalytically informed understanding of developmen-tal experience, in this instance traumatic loss, can promote understandingand prevent the cycle of inner-city violence.

Finally, Carol Kusche presents a psychoanalytically informedKindergarten-through-12th-grade social and emotional learning (SEL) pro-gram that has been proven to reduce violence in schools, promote coopera-tion and other forms of “prosocial” behavior, and in many cases, academicachievement.

Social emotional learning programs seek to teach skills, understandings,and values that promote children’s awareness of self and others to solve realproblems and learn. Today, there are over 300 curricular-based SEL pro-grams available to educators. Most are of poor quality and unhelpful. Someare strikingly successful. The PATHS program that Kusche codeveloped anddescribes is one that is effective, illustrating how analytically-informed andcognitive-behaviorally-informed practice can be productively integrated.These presentations are followed by a discussion between a past chairpersonof an education program (who is also an analyst), an education professorwho has focused on the special education of children identified as learningdisabled, and a child psychoanalyst.

The three psychoanalytically informed educational projects presentedall underscore the fundamental importance of enhancing children’s

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understanding. Although the PATHS program emphasizes the promotionof skills, analytically informed educational projects do not tend to explicitlyfocus on or describe how their work effects skills or values. This is one of theways in which they are out of sync with the American educational landscape.As noted above, academic achievement in general and reading scores in par-ticular are the outcomes that matter most to the majority of school boards,educational leaders, and policy makers. Although a sadly limited goal, it isthe dominate one for educators today. Behavioral outcomes and interest-ingly, “character development,” matters but educational achievement is the“bottom line” that garners attention and state/national funding in educationtoday.

There is a growing consensus that we can and need to work togetherto foster a more socially and emotionally literate society. We hope, if thisjournal meets our goal—that is, to promote a dialogue between educators,analytically informed practitioners, and others—it would represent a step inthat direction.

Jonathan Cohen, Ph.D.Teachers College, Columbia University, andCenter for Social and Emotional Education300 Central Park WestNew York, NY 10024

REFERENCES

Cohen, J. (1997). Child and adolescent psychoanalysis: Research, practice and theory. TheInternational Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 78, 3, 499–520.

Cohen, J. (Ed.) (1999). Educating minds and hearts: Social emotional learning and the passageinto adolescence. New York: Teachers College Press.

Freud, S. (1933) (1964). New introductory lectures on psychoanalysis. In J. Strachey (Ed.)Complete psychological works, Stan. Ed., Vol. 22 (pg. 146). London: Hogarth Press.

Hug-Hellmuth, H. (1914). Kinderpsychologie, padadogik. Jahrbuch fur psycho-analytische andpsychopathologische forschungen, 6: 393–404.

Levine, M. & Levine, A. (1992). Helping children: A social history. New York: Oxford UniversityPress.