Browsing by Author "Lazarus, Jana"

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    First contact : an exploratory study of the role of psychoanalytic infant observation in South African community psychology interventions
    (Stellenbosch : University of Stellenbosch, 2007-12) Lazarus, Jana; Kruger, Lou-Marie; University of Stellenbosch. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Psychology.
    Very little is known about the experiences of black children living in poverty in South Africa. This compromises the delivery of appropriate psychological services. This dissertation considers the contribution that psychoanalytic infant observation might make to a needs assessment process within the community psychology paradigm. To date, infant observation has predominantly been used for training psychotherapists and other professionals in Western contexts. The goal of the present project was to conduct a "classical" observation of a mother and child in a lowincome South African community in the first year of the infant's life, in order to ascertain what kind of description it would yield. The question was whether such a description is useful for the needs assessment process, and ultimately, whether infant observation is a viable tool for psychologists working in low-income communities in South Africa. The study was set in a poor, semi-rural, so-called coloured township in the Western Cape. The data were analysed using an intersubjective psychoanalytic lens and a social constructionist grounded theory approach. In overview, the findings relate to two main areas, namely a) the nature and content of the resultant description, and b) the effect of the process. The analysis of the case material showed that the observation produced an extremely detailed account of the experience of poverty and oppression, involving the way in which it influences all relationships, including the one between mother and child. The knowledge gained offers clear pointers to the kind of intervention that would benefit the particular infant in the present study, and potentially other infants in vulnerable social contexts as well. One surprising outcome was the extensive way in which the observation functioned therapeutically for the whole family. It is therefore concluded that infant observation can provide a very rich contribution to low-income communities on a number of levels, if it is able to make both the theoretical and practical adjustments needed. It is thus argued that it is necessary to look at infant observation in more critical ways, both in terms of how it has traditionally been conceptualised and how it is and can be applied across all contexts.
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    Small meetings : the application of psychodynamic thought in community work with South African children
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2003-12) Lazarus, Jana; Kruger, Lou-Marie; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Psychology.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Community psychology in South Africa has been defined in antithesis to more traditional psychotherapies such as psychoanalysis. It has been necessary, in the formative stage of community psychology, to be clear about what it is not, in terms of establishing a progressive psychology that meets an urgent need. So too, psychoanalysis started out needing to be very clear about how it differed from previous practices, and what its aims were. Over the last hundred years psychoanalytic thought has, however, undergone tremendous development. Perhaps it could be said that its transmutation into a South African psychology is still underway. Community psychology has been critiqued for its lack of theory, and few extended analyses of community psychology interventions exist. By contrast, psychoanalysis offers detailed theoretical accounts and case studies. It is proposed that both paradigms could benefit from an exchange of ideas. There is a common misperception that community psychology focuses on external problems, while psychodynamic therapy focuses solely on the intrapsychic. While this is not wholly true, it could be said that children are conceptualised very differently by these two perspectives, and that this has had implications for treatment. Recently, however, several South African practitioners have begun to introduce psychodynamic thought into community interventions in enriching ways. They are beginning to conclude that community psychology has necessarily been unable to utilise a depth psychology approach, for a variety of legitimate reasons, but that this is the next step in meeting the huge challenges of community work. This study provides a discussion of the contributions of psychoanalysis to an understanding of child development, as well as an examination of the ways in which community psychology has conceptualised and worked with children. Empirical examples of the treatment of South African children will be followed by a case study in which psychodynamic thought was combined with a community-style intervention. The authors conclude that the link between internal and external worlds is a complex one, especially in work with children. The internal and external seem, in effect, to be indivisible, and any intervention hoping to be effective splits these two worlds to its own detriment.