Getting to Grips - Melanie Klein’s work with Dick - the first psychoanalytic treatment of a child with autism

Getting to Grips with Kleinian Concepts: Melanie Klein’s work with Dick - the first psychoanalytic treatment of a child with autism 

£30/£15 (bursaries also available - see below). Discount available for advance purchase of 4 events in the series

This event continues our exploration of Kleinian thinking with a focus on different aspects of child psychoanalysis. 

Maria Rhode will explore Melanie Klein's 1930 seminal paper, 'The importance of symbol formation in the development of the ego', which opened up areas that remained central to her groundbreaking psychoanalytic theories. As the editors of the Klein’s Collected Works pointed out, the paper describes the first treatment of a psychotic child. It shows how Klein managed to make contact with a little boy who had few interests and hardly spoke or played, but who made impressive progress during analysis. Klein's careful description of Dick makes it clear that today he would be diagnosed as having autism. Her paper is concerned only with the first week or two of Dick's treatment, but her notes on the rest of her time with him show the degree to which she anticipated recent findings from psychoanalytic work with children on the autism spectrum. These include the relationship between psychotic and autistic anxieties and defences, as well as bodily identifications and the body image. We also see repeated examples of the importance she attributed to external factors, though she is so often described as neglecting these in favour of the child's endowment. Maria will outline some of the main theoretical and technical points that Klein makes in the paper, and then consider some more recent work that is relevant to these, before ending with a brief clinical illustration.

Francesca Hume will open the event and contribute to the discussion, linking Maria’s paper with emerging themes from the Getting to Grips series.

All registered attendees will receive a link to the recording following the live event once it has been edited which will be valid for two weeks following the event. These events will be in English

Maria Rhode is Emeritus Professor of Child Psychotherapy at the Tavistock Clinic/University of East London, a member of the Association of Child Psychotherapists, and a child analyst of the British Psychoanalytical Society. She qualified in 1973 at the Tavistock, where she was supervised by Martha Harris, Donald Meltzer and Frances Tustin. 
When she returned to work at the Tavistock, Maria had the opportunity of supervising many cases of children on the autism spectrum. She has lectured and published widely, including papers and book chapters on autism, language development, and early intervention for toddlers at risk of ASD, and has co-edited three books on autism and childhood psychosis. She is a recipient of the Frances Tustin Memorial Prize and a board member of the Frances Tustin Memorial Trust and of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis.

We are a charity, and we rely upon income from events like these to continue our work. However, we do not want the price of entry to be a barrier to anyone keen to attend our online events. If the ticket price is prohibitively high for you at the current time, please email the MKT Administrator at contact@melaniekleintrust.org.uk, who has a number of free places available for each event.

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