Fifty years of psychotherapy, but what about infant mental health and early childcare?

Peter Cook

doi:10.9791/ajpanz.1998.09

Peter Cook

DOI: https://doi.org/10.9791/ajpanz.1998.09

Abstract

In addition to quality psychotherapeutic treatment, primary prevention was, from the beginning, a parallel concern of those who founded the New Zealand Association of Psychotherapists in 1947. This arose both from theory and the experience that many emotional problems were essentially preventable. They sought to apply insights gained during psychotherapy to prevent emotional trauma and promote mental health, especially in infancy and early childhood.

Empirical confirmation came with Bowlby's 1951 Monograph, published by the WHO [8]. Like Suttie and Every, Bowlby was led to adopt an evolutionary perspective, which can illuminate the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of emotional disturbance in infants, young children and their families, with implications for healthy childrearing. This approach also led to critiques of Freudian theory, with calls for it to be reformulated.

Some preventive achievements are outlined, but it is suggested that the most significant failure has been the widespread denial of the emotional consequences for the infant of prolonged early non-parental childcare, underpinned by the now discredited ideology of cultural determinism.

Author Biography

Peter Cook

As recorded in 1998.

Peter S Cook qualified in medicine at Otago University and studied adult and child psychiatry in London from 1952 to 1956. From 1957 he practised adult and child psychiatry in Christchurch. From 1965 he worked in Sydney at the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children, where he became Director of the Department of Psychiatry. In 1974 he became a senior consultant in child psychiatry at the Queenscliff Health Centre in Sydney, and was adviser on child mental health. From 1982 until his retirement he was in private practice. FRANZCP, MRCP(UK)