Steven Tuber

Self-regulation and internal resources in school-aged children with ADHD symptomatology: an investigation using the Rorschach inkblot method.

This study assesses the capacity for emotional self-regulation and internal resources in a sample of urban children with ADHD symptomatology using the Rorschach Inkblot Method (RIM). Because these children have profound difficulty with modulating their affect, it is hypothesized that this difficulty would be reflected on RIM variables that have traditionally been thought to reflect the internal resources necessary for these children to regulate emotions. Children with greater ADHD symptoms were found to display lower scores on variables indicating internal resources for emotional self-regulation and stress tolerance (M, EA) relative to a comparison group with fewer ADHD symptoms. The research and clinical implications of these findings are discussed.

The Clinical Implications of Aspects of a Child's Degree of Psychological Mindedness in Dynamically Oriented Child Psychotherapy

The recent empirical and conceptual development of the concepts of mentalization and reflective functioning (RF) have yet to be fully linked directly to the clinical process in psychodynamically oriented psychotherapy with children and adolescents. In this paper, two categories of mentalization or psychological mindedness are briefly described. In the first example, the child is deemed agnostic toward processes of mentalization, and treatment is geared toward setting a frame to this type of experience of self and other. In the second stance, the child is overtly antagonistic toward such processes, and treatment is aimed at responding to challenges to this framework. In the last category, the child is already showing arenas of psychologically mindedness, and the therapeutic process is aimed at broadening this framework to other affects. Two detailed clinical vignettes are then provided to demonstrate how the childs relative degree of awareness of the affective and cognitive states of themselves and others can be assessed and then enhanced in the therapeutic process.

Children's Rorschach object representations: Findings for a nonclinical sample.

Data are presented on the Mutuality of Autonomy (MOA) Scale for 40 preadolescent, normal Ss (21 girls, 19 boys)

Introduction to this Training and Development Issue of Journal of Infant, Child, and Adolescent Psychology

With the ardent support of Editor Susan Warshaw and the Editorial and Executive Boards, I am delighted to be introducing this special issue of Journal of Infant, Child, and Adolescent Psychology (JICAP), devoted exclusively to the work of beginning child therapists. I have often felt that a long-standing deficiency within the arena of the training of psychodynamically informed clinicians has been the near exclusive reliance on conceptual and clinical writings from the “masters” within our field. This certainly makes sense regarding conceptual additions to our development. It does take years of clinical craftsmanship, observation and thinking across a wide variety of settings before nuanced contributions to the how and why of health and pathology can be added to the literature. But when it comes to clinical cases, I do not think this is nearly as true. The gap between the typical, usually highly successful process and outcome of a case presented by a senior clinician and the day-to-day strivings of a novice therapist is cavernous. This gap, while certainly providing something for the beginner to strive toward closing, is equally likely to evoke feelings of inadequacy, if not self-castigation or even despair. Perhaps more deadly, it may evoke a false self persona by the budding therapist—a far too complete assimilation of what they think they are supposed to think, act and feel like when with a child patient, and a concomitant need to disown feelings of vulnerability. This not only runs the risk of interfering with their capacity to be with their patients in the consulting room, but also at its worst, it initiates a false dialogue in the supervisory process, whereby a loss of authenticity to be dreaded by all in the field may ensue. This is especially true when process notes as opposed to verbatim recordings are used as the sole source of data in the supervisory process. Selective remembering of the treatment process, on both a conscious and unconscious level, can distort the training of the trainee and limit both their and their patient’s development. While these phenomena are always at play in our training, they can be reduced by two major factors. One is the talent of the supervisor/teacher to create a milieu of trust and openness in the supervisory and academic settings, respectively. This is indeed an absolute necessity to the optimal development of any clinician. Another important factor is the role peers play in providing an arena where the safe admission of ignorance, clumsiness, and/or “blindness” can be tacitly