Children’s Minds in the Line of Fire Blog


Intra-psychic, yet societally induced trauma is relevant to the ‘Mind in the Line of Fire’ theme chosen for our 53rd Congress in Cartagena, in 2023. Our IPA leaders (President Harriet Wolfe and Vice-President Adriana Prengler) have recognized that the pandemic exaggerated societal inequities long with us; they urge us to develop psychoanalytic theory relevant to societal effects on psyches. Children and adolescents are often the group most affected by cultural changes and catastrophes. They are like the canaries sent into coal mines to signal the presence of gases, imbibing cultural, societal and economic changes in a rapid and powerful way. In advance of the congress, COCAP (IPA Committee on Child and Adolescent Psychoanalysis) here initiates a blog entitled, ‘Children’s Minds in the Line of Fire.’

Dr. Mary T. Brady, COCAP Co-Chair
IPA Committee on Child and Adolescent Psychoanalysis

Self harming behaviours

Monday 29 January 2024

Humberto Lorenzo Persano asserts the presently observed increase in the incidence of self-harming behaviours may be related to features of our contemporary world and reveal a deep malaise among young people.

Kids these days… Precarity and its developmental dilemmas

Thursday 16 November 2023

Stephen Lugar writes...I think the children and young adults of Generations Alpha and Z do not want to grow up because of the profound sense of precarity that they have grown up within, echoed and amplified through the constant access to information.

SOS Brazil

Thursday 26 October 2023

We, as psychoanalysts in the twenty first century, cannot limit our work to the private practice setting. It is necessary to move beyond the walls of our consulting rooms.

There's a hole in daddy's arm

Thursday 17 August 2023

Ben Fife writes "If we as an analytic community, with what we know about the impacts of loss, cannot be present and attempt to help those in need understand these experiences, we risk becoming one more absent object in a time of need."

Adolescent Suicide

Wednesday 26 July 2023

The suicidal act exposes us to the mystery of life and death, of origin and end.It also sensitizes us to our limits in the face of the incomprehensible.

Childism and Beyond

Tuesday 20 June 2023

Jennifer Davids writes we cannot consider the minds of children without considering the interplay with the minds of their parents or carers, along with the multi-directional systemic influences of wider social forces.

The use of technology in the observation of the parent-infant relationship, Bick method, in the SARS

Wednesday 19 April 2023

Dr Ester Malque Latvian writes the use of technology was inevitable during the COVID lockdown, as it was the only way to give continuity to the observation of the parent-infant relationship. Like so many aspects of clinical work during the pandemic,

Weaving and Unweaving Webs of Gender

Tuesday 21 February 2023

Kristin Fiorella examines the way gender exploration can focus and expose ontological anxieties.

Medically Assisted Procreation and Mothering Alone During the Pandemic

Wednesday 04 January 2023

Katy Bogliatto writes on medically assisted procreation and mothering alone during the pandemic.

Bringing Alpha Function to Children in the Storm of Family Violence

Tuesday 18 October 2022

Psychoanalyst Kimberly Leary enjoins us to reach out to communities we want to join; don’t wait to be asked.