“Children unavoidably treat their parents as though they were experts on life. They, and other adults, are the people from whom the child learns what is necessary. But the extent to which children make demands on adults which the adults don’t know what to do with is not sufficiently remarked on. It is, for example, clear to everyone concerned that the adults are unable to answer, in any satisfactory way, several of the child’s questions. The so-called facts of life are hardly a convincing answer – for anybody – to the question of why people have sex, or where babies are from. Whether children are amusing, or irritating, or ‘little philosophers’, once they learn to talk they create, and suffer, a certain unease about what they can do with words. Paradoxically, it is the adults’ own currency – words – that reveals to them the limits of adult authority. The adults are not fully competent with their own tools, but there is nobody else for the child to appeal to. Children go on asking but eventually they have to settle for the adult’s exhausted impatience and the fictions of life. ‘In the unconscious,’ Freud wrote in The Interpretation of Dreams, ‘nothing can be brought to an end, nothing is past or forgotten.’ Curiosity is endless, as every parent knows, in a way that answers are not.”

Adam Phillips (1994)

Source : an extract from ‘The Experts’ by the psychoanalyst Adam Phillips in The London Review of Books Vol. 16 No. 24 · 22 December 1994.

On Saturday, September 19th, 2015  the next Limbus Lecture, Kid’s Company: Multi-disciplinary Approaches to Working with Children and Young People will be given by Jocylene Quenelle along with Lizzie Smosarksi.

It will take place at Studio 3, The Space, Dartington Hall, nr. Totnes, Devon.

Those attending are asked to arrive from 10am for a 10.30 start. Proceedings will finish at about  1pm.  The cost is £20. For further details of the presentation You can download a flyer here.
You can book your place in advance through the website www.limbus.org.uk.

Future Events 2015/16 – Dates for your diary
Nov 14             Stephen Roundhill                    Neuropsychology in context
Feb 27             Otto Rheinschmeidt                  On Dreams
May 21             Margaret Landale                     Attunement & Empathy
Sep 17              Sally Sales                             TBA

Jo Fogel, a group-analytic psychotherapist has written to us about an invitation she is sending out to teachers to become members of a Balint-type case discussion group for teachers.

Jo writes : Michael Balint developed this kind of group for GPs to help them think about patients who concerned them. The model lends itself well to other professionals – including teachers. Here is a good introduction and description of a Balint group and what is involved. Just substitute ‘teacher’ for ‘doctor’ and ‘pupil’ for ‘patient’.

The group will be co-led by a teacher and me, a psychotherapist. It will be held monthly on Tuesday evenings at the Tavistock Centre in NW London, five minutes walk from Swiss Cottage tube station. The dates up until March are:

Autumn Term – 29.9.15, 27.10.15, 24.11.15, 22.12.15

Spring Term – 26.1.16, 23.2.16, 22.3.16

Each group session will last for 1.5 hours, beginning at 7.30 p.m. or 8 p.m. (to be confirmed) and will have up to 12 members.

The group is ongoing and the fee for each session is £20, payable termly in advance.

You don’t need previous experience of this way of working but a curiosity about it is desirable. The content of discussion will be kept confidential.

If you are interested in becoming a member, please do contact me to discuss further any aspect of the above.

Joan Fogel

Group-analytic psychotherapist

joan@fogel.co.uk

07887 545 703

The new issue of the goodenoughcaring Journal is now online. This is our Mulberry Bush Issue which we publish  as a celebration and recognition of the work of the Mulberry Bush School and Organisation since 1948. This issue also considers the current work of the “The Bush” as it continues with new endeavours. In this part of the new issue  John Diamond the CEO of the Mulberry Bush provides an introduction to the Mulberry Bush articles  before offering Reflections on the development of the Mulberry Bush,1948-2015,  John Turberville explains  The Mulberry Bush Approach, Caryn Onions writes A multi disciplinary case study, Annabelle Rose looks at the role of psychodynamic theory in the therapeutic care of children while Zoe McCarthy  considers  The role of play in the development of traumatised children. Andy Lole proposes Integrating Ofsted into a truly school led system, Dave Roberts writes about The Mulberry Bush Training and outreach team and Ray Burrows  explains the  MBOX and illustrates it with an outreach case study.

The second part of this  issue is an  array of sensitive, thoughtful, reflective, and sensitive articles. Siobain Degregorio offers an additional article about her experience of student placement at the Mulberry Bush. Jennie Bristow gives us her article Helicopters or hands off: today’s parents can’t seem to win and Maurice Fenton stresses the importance of Doing the Right Thing for Children in Care and Support Seekers, and John Molloy gives more of his penetrating reflections on the  historic troubles of Irish child care in his article The Habit of Abuse. 

Michael J. Marlowe writes about Building Relationships with Troubled Children: Insights from Torey Hayden, while John Stein suggests Experience is the Best Teacher, Horse whisperer Bethlehem Taylor remembers A Cockney Childhood in the East End Of London :1945-1960  and Charles Sharpe reviews Inequality, Poverty, Education A Political Economy of School Exclusion by Francesca Ashurst and Couze Venn and, Leading Good Care: the task, heart and art of managing social care by John Burton.

We believe Issue 17 of the goodenoughcaring Journal is a very special one and  we hope you find something of interest to you in it.