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Psychoanalysis in the age of totalitarianism

hand and leading them to safety, while one was drawn with a ruler and neatly labelled, and another was ‘a black wash of paint with no figurative representation at all’ (p 19). Waddell makes clear that different internal worlds, different ‘containment’, different understandings and capacities, nurtured by different families, each with their own cultures, will affect the ways children and adolescents deal – or are overwhelmed – with difficulties which might to an outsider seem similar. Throughout the book there is an insistence on the multitude of different factors which will influence how an adolescent thinks, feels and behaves. Thinking and understanding are important themes throughout the book. Waddell uses Bion’s K and – K to differentiate the kinds of learning demanded by exams from experiential learning which enriches relationships with others and the self. Learning facts, winning, beating the competition, can be used defensively, to avoid understanding and thinking painful thoughts. Several of her illustrations involve a collapse when such defences have failed for one reason or another, and a therapeutic process which provided a new resource, a new sense of having a secure home ‘inside’, rather than a terrifying emptiness. A stimulating and challenging book, particularly recommended for therapists of all kinds.