Transforming Infantile Trauma in Analytic Work with Children and Adults

Book excerpt: This vivid and moving volume presents the clinical work and writings of Alessandra Cavalli, an internationally known child and adult psychoanalyst who taught and supervised widely, ran infant observation seminars in the UK and Europe and was closely involved in the development of child analysis training in Russia. Informed by a deep knowledge of theory, each chapter draws on many strands of both psychoanalytic and Jungian thought, integrating multiple analytic languages into a coherent clinical language specific to Cavalli. The book includes 11 of her most important papers about work with children and adults, with an introduction by the distinguished Jungian psychoanalyst Warren Colman. Her work was primarily concerned with the impact of trauma on the developing self and the importance of weathering emotional storms in search of meaning, and the book will be fascinating reading for clinicians of different psychoanalytic approaches working with adults and children as well as students of psychotherapy and counselling.