Working with "Out-of-Control" Children--A Two-Systems Approach

The authors apply a two-systems approach to demonstrate improved treatment possibilities and outcomes in this group of children and suggest that psychoanalysis can be defined as a multimodal strengths-based learning experience. Using clinical material from the analysis of an aggressive, "out-of-control" child, they discuss how these behaviors and symptoms are better understood as an actively constructed effort at self-regulation than as a deficiency in capacity or primitive, lagging development. They illustrate how a two-systems framework can allow for an expanded repertoire of techniques and reclaim psychoanalytic concepts that have fallen into disuse.