Emotional maltreatment

Nice to see the Government has released a paper on Emotional Maltreatment – What works. Except it doesn’t really prove anything. It does, however, assure me that the jury is still out and what I do is okay.

How do I know it’s okay? Well, the child improves no end and the foster carer, for example, says the client has become a child again (instead of a hyper-alert mini adult afraid or unable to play). Things like that, which warm the heart.

Sometimes I think this is all the evidence we need. And if we check up as we go, then we’d know when things needed adjusting.

I suppose shoving data onto CORE/SDQ forms makes us feel official and effective and conscientious and all the rest of it. But since every child and young person is different, it really isn’t achieving anything. As proved by the various inconclusive or slightly-less-than-thorough studies surveyed in the report above. Own goal, Mr Brown and/or DCSF.

I guess I’m feeling a bit rebellious today.

But I’ve also heard of a book that interests me, and may interest you. I was talking to someone yesterday and they mentioned The Emotional Experience of Teaching and Learning by Isca Salzberger-Wittenberg and her colleagues. It was written many moons ago (well, 1988, to be precise) and has been republished since. But it deals with some of the same important aspects of pupil emotional health in school, attachment and learning as do some very recent books. Some of the publisher blurb is:

“Based on the work done with groups of teachers attending the Tavistock Clinic, the book demonstrates how insights derived from the psychoanalytic study of the mind can heighten the understanding of the learning relationship.”

Sounds good stuff for a school counsellor to know, so I’ll be taking a look at it. Since it’s Tavistock in origin, it’s probably psychodynamic too – which is so useful as a way of understanding life in school.