A Model for a Psychoanalytically Informed Preschool

This paper is about my journey into unfamiliar territories as a child analyst when I was asked to direct a psychoanalytically oriented preschool project known as the Early Childhood Mental Health Program in a high-risk community in San Francisco. This ambitious project required knowledge of racial and class challenges and the way I approached it was to say: I am here to learn about you and your community. In the first six months, I sat in the classrooms and met with the director on a weekly basis. What follows is what I learned and how I think our mental health team was effective in having a strong therapeutic impact on the school environment, the teaching staff, and the families. By the third year of the project, the school environment was transformed into a growth-promoting, good-enough caregiving environment where attachment relationships developed between the children and the teaching staff. This model of early childhood mental health intervention/prevention in a high-risk community can be replicated in other public preschool settings. Even though, initially, this model requires significant funding, in the long run it is an economically advisable way to prevent a significant number of at-risk children from ending up in special ed programs or in the juvenile court system at great cost to the community and state.

Automated summary

This paper explores the author's experience as a child analyst leading a psychoanalytically oriented preschool project in a high-risk community, highlighting the importance of understanding racial and class challenges. The author's approach of learning about the community and working closely with the school director resulted in a transformative impact on the school environment, teaching staff, and families. The success of this early childhood mental health intervention/prevention model in a high-risk community demonstrates its potential for replication in other public preschool settings, ultimately saving costs for the community and state by preventing at-risk children from entering special education or the juvenile court system.