CV
Dr. med., Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy. Psychoanalyst and Training analyst for children, adolescents and adults (DPV/IPA), Specialist for Psychosomatic Medicine. Studies in medicine, art history and empirical cultural science. Co-editor-in-chief of the scientific journal Kinderanalyse (Child analysis). Numerous publications on child psychotherapy, forensic child psychiatry, emotional adaptation of children with severe somatic disorders, early onset psychosis. Several monographs in English, among others “Playing the Unconscious. Psychoanalytic interviews with children using Winnicott’s Squiggle technique.” London: Karnac 2007. Editor of several books, among others (together with Samy Teicher): Dreams and Fantasies in Child Analysis. London: Karnac 2015. Director of the professional training curriculum in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy of the Medical Association College Nordwürttemberg and of the South-West-German professional training curriculum in Forensic Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. President of the International Association of Forensic Psychotherapy 2007-2009.
The Paradox of Illusions in Child Development.
Roots and Wings, Destruction and Catastrophic Change.
Michael Günter
Abstract
On the one hand, illusions are necessary for child development, but on the other hand, they must also be destroyed in order to make development possible. The lecture first traces this dialectic of illusion formation, destruction of illusions and establishment of new illusions in child development based on the considerations of Balint and Winnicott. Children and adolescents shape their detachment development with the help of illusions. On the basis of three case vignettes, I show how children’s fantasies and their transference can be understood under the aspect of a complex handling of illusions and made useful for treatment. In one boy, there was an inability to develop illusions and this resulted in a destruction of thinking and of symbolisation processes. In an 8-year-old girl, the illusions were so sexually charged that they increased arousal instead of serving as a “valuable resting place” for mediating inner and outer reality. With another patient, it was first necessary to acknowledge the meaningfulness of the destructiveness and the illusions associated with it. For me, “rooting” in this context means having or establishing a secure inner access to early illusions. This is impaired in severe pathologies in childhood and adolescence and thus in particular also the capacity for “negative capability” (Bion). On this background, analytic work with children has the task of supporting our patients’ ability to make playful use of illusions.