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Theory and Practice in Child Psychoanalysis: An Introduction to the Work of Francoise Dolto

Editor : Guy Hall, Editor : Francoise Hivernel, Editor : Sian Morgan

Reviews and Endorsements

'This book has a task that should strike us as odd: to introduce the work of an extremely famous French psychoanalyst whose name is a continental household word. A clinical and theoretical practitioner whose influence on the understanding and care of babies, infants and children is unsurpassed, is virtually unknown in Britain. Why is Dolto unknown? The reasons are surely multiple but the puzzle remains. Is there something alien here to British sensibilities? As her absence from our culture and practices is a serious problem, the question is worth asking.

'Donald Winnicott, her rival in this field, famously dismissed her as too intuitive; this is incorrect because, like the object of her research, she is intensely engaged in the process whereby language turns feelings into thoughts. The observations of Winnicott, Klein and Tustin on the one hand, and Dolto on the other, overlap or are compatible - the intellectual framework within which they are understood is different; the concept of the child is not the same. The cross-channel contributors of this volume have set themselves a crucial and difficult task: to introduce a writer who thinks differently. The result is fascinating and important.'
- From the foreword by Juliet Mitchell