Psychological Help for Young Children with Developmental Disorders and ASD in the Mother/Child Group ²⁰¹⁸

This programme is a methodology for providing psychological help in the field of socialization and psychological correction to young children with developmental disorders and autism spectrum disorders and their parents in a group setting. The model of child-parent psychotherapy group has been developed, based on the psychoanalytic approach. Assuming that it is dysfunctional child-parent relationships that underlie these disorders, the authors propose a three-stage process of support for mother/father and child pairs. The proposed programme implies leaning on the child’s spontaneous play with a significant adult. Enabling primary psychic differentiation between mother/father and child, the leaders prepare children for psychoanalytic setting in small therapeutic groups. The format of the three-stage joint group allows to create conditions for socialization, habilitation, and rehabilitation of their children, based on their individual needs.

Keywords: child-parent group, psychoanalysis, separation-individuation, group psychic envelope, skin ego, group unconscious, symbolic fee, intergenerational conflict

Column: Methods and techniques