Teachers and the Pandemic
by Andrew Skoirchet, MD with Alexandra Harrison The following piece was originally published on Alexandra Harrison’s blog entitled Supporting Child Caregivers in September 2020, which can be found here. A. Harrison: The colleagues I rely on most in my therapeutic work with young children are teachers. I know that teachers write about teaching and what it is like to be a teacher much better than I ever could, but as an outsider, I would like to offer some observations from my long collaboration with teachers. In addition, the...
read moreToward a Theory of Child-Centered Psychodynamic Family Treatment: The Anna Ornstein Reader
Toward a Theory of Child-Centered Psychodynamic Family Treatment: The Anna Ornstein Reader (Routledge, 2020) offers a clear introduction to Anna Ornstein’s ground-breaking work on psychoanalytic child orientated family therapy. Drawing on her writing from across her long career and including new material, the book sets out her important theoretical work on the mind, self, development, and parental influences, and the therapeutic consequences of these concepts. Anna Ornstein’s self-psychological work is unique and outstanding. First published...
read moreSelf Disclosures and Unknown Passions: Telling Stories – and Reading Them
Dan Jacobs, MD, is a Training and Supervising Analyst at BPSI. His remarks below originally appeared in the Spring-Summer 2020 issue of the BPSI Bulletin, which can be read here. In writing a novel, one invents characters who are, as in a dream, varying aspects of oneself. The challenge is to bring these characters—these different pieces of self—together in a coherent story. In this way, writing is an attempt at self-understanding and self-healing. Inevitably, our difficulties in understanding ourselves seep into the stories we tell. The...
read moreNonverbal Cues in Systemic Racism – AUDIO
In a recent episode of her new podcast series, Alexandra M. Harrison, MD, describes how nonverbal behavioral cues may be an important factor in system racism. Click on the player below to listen. Alexandra Murray Harrison, MD is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute in Adult and Child and Adolescent Psychoanalysis, an Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School at the Cambridge Health Alliance, and on the Faculty of the Infant-Parent Mental Health Post Graduate...
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Then and Now Again: Reflections on the Past in the Current Political Climate
Anna Ornstein, MD, is a Supervising Analyst at BPSI. Her remarks below originally appeared in the Spring-Summer 2020 issue of the BPSI Bulletin, which can be read here. Postcard of the town where the Brünn family lived prior to the War. Courtesy of the Cincinnati Judaica Fund, The Center for Holocaust and Humanity Education I don’t recall any time in my life when I was not aware of anti-Semitism. The village in northern Hungary, where I was born and lived the first fifteen years of my life, was an agricultural community; among its...
read moreReturning to Preschool During COVID-19
The following piece was originally published on Alexandra Harrison’s blog entitled Supporting Child Caregivers in September 2020, which can be found here. Panel on school reopening I participated in a great panel at the Cambridge Ellis School last night. It was a remote meeting for parents and teachers in preparation for the opening of school during the COVID-19 crisis. The panelists included Dr. Michael Yogman, the school pediatric consultant, Tal Baz, an occupational therapist and specialist in sensory processing, Dr. John...
read moreThe Burning Child: A YouTube Animation
Shari Thurer, ScD, is a BPSI Psychotherapist Member. Her below remarks originally appeared in the Winter 2019 issue of the library newsletter, which can be read here. While it is not uncommon for Freud’s bon mots to be written on posters, coffee cups, and greeting cards, they are now featured in an animated cartoon on YouTube. Commissioned by The Vienna Project at Harvard, a scholarly and artistic collaboration that explores Vienna at the turn of the century, the short film conveys the dream of the burning child as retold by Freud in...
read moreMore Thoughts about Parenting in COVID
The following piece was originally published on Alexandra Harrison’s blog entitled Supporting Child Caregivers in August 2020, which can be found here. I wanted to offer you some more thoughts about parenting during COVID. In Wordsworth’s famous autobiographical poem, The Prelude, he talks about “losing the props of my affection” when he was 8-years old. In saying this, he refers to the death of his mother. I have always thought that this way of describing parental function as “propping” was such an apt way of describing the way parents...
read moreWriting for the Public about the Mental Fitness of Political Figures
Leonard L. Glass, MD, is a BPSI Psychoanalyst Member. His below remarks originally appeared in the Spring-Summer 2020 issue of the BPSI Bulletin, which can be read here. For me, it began with reading and responding to posts on the American Psychoanalytic Association Members’ Listserv. Analytic colleagues were reacting to the candidacy and, later, the presidency of Donald Trump. They had a variety of opinions, sometimes stated with nuance, but often not. Others objected to this dialogue, feeling it was improper and irresponsible for analysts...
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