A Model for a Psychoanalytically Informed Preschool. Issue 1 (31st December 2023)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Chehrazi, Shahla
• Is Part Of: Psychoanalytic study of the child. Volume 76:Issue 1(2023)
• Page Start: 217
• Page End: 226
• Publication Date: 2023-12-31
• Subjects: Psychoanalytically oriented preschool consultation -- on-site preschool mental health services -- mentalization -- high-risk community mental health support; Child analysis -- Periodicals; Child Psychiatry; Psychology, Child; Psychoanalysis; Enfants -- Psychanalyse; Child analysis; Psychoanalyse; Kinderen; Kinderanalyse; Aufsatzsammlung; Periodicals; Periodicals; 155.4; 616.89
• DOI: 10.1080/00797308.2023.2166771
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0079-7308

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This paper is about my journey into unfamiliar territories as a child analyst when I was asked to direct a psychoanalytically oriented preschool project known as the Early Childhood Mental Health Program in a high-risk community in San Francisco. This ambitious project required knowledge of racial and class challenges and the way I approached it was to say: I am here to learn about you and your community. In the first six months, I sat in the classrooms and met with the director on a weekly basis. What follows is what I learned and how I think our mental health team was effective in having a strong therapeutic impact on the school environment, the teaching staff, and the families. By the third year of the project, the school environment was transformed into a growth-promoting, good-enough caregiving environment where attachment relationships developed between the children and the teaching staff. This model of early childhood mental health intervention/prevention in a high-risk community can be replicated in other public preschool settings. Even though, initially, this model requires significant funding, in the long run it is an economically advisable way to prevent a significant number of at-risk children from ending up in special ed programs or in the juvenile court system at great cost to the community and state.