THE ROLE OF PREVENTION AND WORK WITH PARENTS IN THE PSYCHOANALYTICAL KINDERGARTEN

Gisela Ammon created the concept the kindergarten of the Deutsche Grup pentherapeutische Gesellschaft are still based on. On the other hand t he ideas of Gisela Ammon herself have their origin in Ann Freud's Psyc hoanalytical Pedagogics. An essential aspect of her concept is to prev ent physical and psychical illnesses and to promote a normal developme nt of children by offering the optimal requirements thereto. From the point of view of the Dynamic Psychiatry the development of children as well as that of any human being is dependent on interpersonal, creati ve and social-energetic processes of exchange and means a growing diff erentiation of human functions and at the same time the integration of these functions. This development has its origin in the family as a p rimary group, the constructive, destructive and deficitary group dynam ics of which will be internalized by any child. For most of the childr en the kindergarten is the second important group in their life. Subse quently the organization of the psychoanalytical kindergarten of Munic h is presented as a model: The groups of parents meeting at regular in tervals at the kindergarten, play a central role, The group leaders re cruiting from psychoanalysts or candidates trained in the Munich Train ing and Research Institute of the Deutsche Akademie fur Psychoanalyse must have a high degree of sensibiltiy for the processes taking place unconsciously, since five different levels are to be distinguished in these parent groups; these five levels being present all the time, i.e . the level of reality, the level of direct educational help, the leve l of the Balint group orientated at the child, the group dynamical lev el in the here and now, and the level of therapy. The educators also n eed a continued education and supervision for their work in the kinder garten. Thus, the psychoanalytical kindergarten is composed not only o f the children groups, but also of the respective parent groups, a gro up of educators and a controll group for the respective group leaders. This enables the many social-energetic exchange processes responsible for the prevention of illnesses and the normal development of the chi ldren. A particular difficulty of this concept is that during the work with the parents therapeutical wishes are expressed by the parents ag ain and again; but since, according to the setting the boundaries of t herapeutic groups are not given, unconscious problems, which can never be worked through satisfactorily, can be acted out. By way of a first example the authors describe how a conflict arising in the daily kind ergarten's work may serve to intensify the work in the children groups , the parent groups and the educator group as a result of a process du ring which experiences became conscious that before had been acted out on the unconscious level. This conflict was caused by a questionnaire to be filled in by the parents and which was to show the chances and limits of prevention in the kindergarten. The children responded at fi rst by not sticking any more to the lines set up for the group and by playing off parents against educators. At the subsequent meeting the p arents blamed the educators with respect to sex-instruction of their c hildren. The educators on the other hand blamed the parents for seeing their children off and picking them up too lately from the kindergart en, thereby undermining their educational work. The group leaders inte rpreted the dynamics on the different levels of the work with the pare nts as follows: on the level of direct educational help, the difficult ies of the parents revealed, the difficulties to cope with their child rens' sexuality and splitting of from the family, on the level of grou p dynamics there was the unspoken rivalry among parents and educators; on the therapeutic level there was the anxiety of the parents to loos e the love of their children to the educators. This conflict could be solved at long last. In other cases, however, separations may happen i f certain dynamics prevail in a situation, which is compared by the au thors with unsuccessful separations from the family group where a rigi d break of contact often takes place instead of working through the pr oblems with the children. By the second example of a psycho-somatic an d depressiv child the authors show how the child's symptoms disappear: by the reflection of the family-dynamics in the groups of the childre n, parents and educators the too rigid boundaries of this primary grou p could be understood and opened then. The group dynamical processes a nd their interactions are outlined in the paper. The authors summarize the examples by stating that the psychoanalytical kindergarten change s the group boundaries of the family and may have a prophylactic funct ion in this way. This implies the readiness of the parents to undergo processes of learning and developmental stages together with their chi ldren and the educators, to stand the anxiety connected therewith and to become familiar with the own unconscious resistances. The children can only develop the way their parents' ability to get on in a group d evelops. With respect to prevention it is essential that a social-ener getic exchange takes place between the groups involved, namely the fam ily, the children group, the parent group, the group of educators and the controll group of the Training and Research Institute.