Boarding School Syndrome is an analysis of the trauma of the 'privileged' child sent to boarding school at a young age. Innovative and challenging, Joy Schaverien offers a psychological analysis of the long-established British and colonial preparatory and public boarding school tradition. Richly illustrated with pictures and the narratives of adult ex-boarders in psychotherapy, the book demonstrates how some forms of enduring distress in adult life may be traced back to the early losses of home and family. Developed from clinical research and informed by attachment and child development theories ‘Boarding School Syndrome’ is a new term that offers a theoretical framework on which the psychotherapeutic treatment of ex-boarders may build. Divided into four parts, History: In the Name of Privilege; Exile and Healing; Broken Attachments: A Hidden Trauma, and The Boarding School Body, the book includes vivid case studies of ex-boarders in psychotherapy. Their accounts reveal details of the suffering endured: loss, bereavement and captivity are sometimes compounded by physical, sexual and psychological abuse. Here, Joy Schaverien shows how many boarders adopt unconscious coping strategies including dissociative amnesia resulting in a psychological split between the 'home self' and the 'boarding school self'. This pattern may continue into adult life, causing difficulties in intimate relationships, generalized depression and separation anxiety amongst other forms of psychological distress. Boarding School Syndrome demonstrates how boarding school may damage those it is meant to be a reward and discusses the wider implications of this tradition. It will be essential reading for psychoanalysts, Jungian analysts, psychotherapists, art psychotherapists, counsellors and others interested in the psychological, cultural and international legacy of this tradition including ex-boarders and their partners.

Product Description: Supervision of Art Psychotherapy will be an inspiration for advanced practitioners and students in training. It is the first book to formulate a unique theoretical base to current practice in art psychotherapy supervision. A central theme is the nature of the image in supervision, defining its difference from other forms of supervision in the mental health professions...read more

Product Description: How do gender and sexual difference influence the erotic transference? Gender, Countertransference and the Erotic Transference offers new insights into working with complex transference and countertransference phenomena. Including views from a wide spectrum of theoretical backgrounds, it makes a unique contribution to discourse on the themes of gender, sexuality and the erotic transference...read more

Product Description: In this book Joy Schaverien raises questions regarding the meaning of love and death in psychotherapy. The multiple layers of an erotic transference reveal the developmental path from infancy to adult sexual intimacy, engaging the analyst as well as the patient in a process of psychological transformation...read more

Art, Psychotherapy and Psychosis reveals the unique role of art therapy in the treatment of psychosis. Illustrating their contributions with clinical material and artwork created by clients, experienced practitioners describe their work in a variety of settings. Writing from different theoretical standpoints they reflect the current creative diversity within the profession and its links with psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, analytical psychology and psychiatry.In part I specific issues involved in working with psychosis are explored. These include discussion of the therapeutic relationship, the process of symbolisation, the nature and meaning of art made by psychotic patients and the interplay between words and pictures. Part II recounts the history of art therapy and psychosis, tracing its origins in art, to its present-day role as a respected treatment in psychiatric, community and therapeutic settings.Art, Psychotherapy and Psychosis extends the existing theory, develops analytical approaches in art psychotherapy and offers innovative perspectives for students and practitioners on the treatment of borderline states as well as psychosis.

Product Description: Schaverien painstakingly describes and defines "processes which have so far only been intuitively known to art therapists" (p6) by introducing and elaborating the psychoanalytical concepts of transference and countertransference in relation to the use of visual art objects...read more

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