Solitude and Hope: Y'all Come Visit!

The image of Chestnut Lodge represents one of the early mental health facilities in the United States that attempted to provide individual and milieu care for those with seriously disturbed emotions (as opposed to "state asylum" or simply back-ward custodial care). For decades, Chestnut Lodge provided long-term residential care for emotionally disturbed adults, and later adolescents. Some of the renowned mental health staff members included Frieda Fromm-Reichman, Harry Stack Sullivan, Harold Searles, Ping Pau, E. James Anthony, Wells Goodrich and many others.

Enriching the lives of children and adolescents has always been the historic mission of residential or group care services for young persons. This mission continues, despite the prevailing public policies and managed care constraints that function to strangle the often desperately needed mental health care for children and adolescents.

The following list of books, journals and other references represent valuable contributions to essential readings related to some of the complexities of residential treatment, various aspects of contemporary psychotherapy, and the provision of psychotherapy for children and adolescents in residential treatment and group care. All of them also may be understood within a broader context of expressions that all convey a sense of hope and compassion, each in its own particular manner, for our own strivings to achieve a rich, metaphoric sense of "self."

Listing of Books and Journals:

(1). The Forsaken Child: Essays on Group Care and Individual Psychotherapy (Haworth Press, 2000), D. Patrick Zimmerman, PsyD.

(2). Transitions from Group Care: Homeward Bound (Haworth Press, 2003), D. Patrick Zimmerman, PsyD., and Richard A. Epstein, M.A. (Eds.).

(3). Psychotherapy in Group Care: Making Life Good Enough (Haworth Press, 2003), D. Patrick Zimmerman, PsyD., Richard A. Epstein, M.A., Martin Leichtman, PhD., and Maria Louisa Leichtman, PhD.

(4). Residential Treatment (W. B.Saunders/Harcourt-Brace, 2004), Bennett L. Leventhal, M.D., and D. Patrick Zimmerman, Psy.D. (Guest Editors).

(5). Relational Child Psychotherapy (The Analytic Press, 2002), Neil Altman, Ph.D., et al.

(6). The Beast in the Nursery (Harvard University Press, 1998), Adam Phillips.

(7). The Analyst in the Inner City (The Analytic Press, 1998), Neil Altman, Ph.D.

(8). Psychotherapy with Young People in Care: Lost and Found (Routledge, 2001), Margaret Hunter.

(9). Relationality: From Attachment to Intersubjectivity (The Analytic Press, 2000), Stephen A. Mitchell, Ph.D. The late Stephen Mitchell's final work, exploring areas of clinically relational responsiveness with respect, grace and compassion.

(10). Ritual and Spontaneity in the Psychoanalytic Process (The Analytic Press, 1998), Irwin Z. Hoffman, Ph.D. A seminal classic on modern individual psychotherapy.

(11). The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment: Studies in the Theory of Emotional Development (International Universities Press, 1965/1994), D. W. Winnicott, M.D.

(12). A Home for the Heart (Alfred A. Knopf, 1974), Bruno Bettelheim, Ph.D. Bettelheim's final attempt to present the story of an innovative therapeutic community, where the way people live and work together can create a setting that will benefit all who are, whatever their role, a part of it.

(13). Freud's Vienna and Other Essays (Alfred A. Knopf, 1990). Bettelheim's last work containing eighteen essays, many of which reminisce about the influence of Vienna's cultural and historical ambience, as well as the impact of the physical and psychological horrors inflicted by the Holocaust and Nazi persecutions.

(14). Porn: Myths for the Twentieth Century (Yale University Press, 1991), Robert J. Stoller, M.D. An honorable capstone to the career of the late Robert Stoller, who at the time of his unexpected death was Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, Los Angeles. As Otto E. Kernberg, M.D., praised it, this is "...an outstanding contribution to the psychoanalytic exploration of the erotic and...of mass culture...." This extraordinary document allows the reader to witness a rare, sensitive, and empathic talent for interviewing persons in situations of extreme degradation. It teaches us the possibility of hope in our efforts to reach an understanding of how persons might be trying to seek underlying wishes for personal salvation and self-validation through the self-destructive potentials that they present to us.

(15). The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (Bantam, Reissue 1993), Carson McCullers. At first glance, this might appear to be an unusual recommendation. However, readers of this brilliant first book by Carson McCullers consistently fail to recognize the underlying metaphoric theme as a strong plea regarding the wishes by those in emotional pain for an ever-attentive listener, who will also provide them with the security of a supportive sense of confidentiality. This is a sad and tragic story, but also at the same time a radiant, poignent classic novel.

Journals Representing Similar Interests:

1. Residential Treatment for Children and Youth (Haworth Press). To receive a free sample copy of RTCY, go to: http://www.haworthpress.com/store/SampleText/J007.pdf

2. Journal of Infant, Child, and Adolescent Psychotherapy (The Analytic Press).

3. Psychoanalytic Dialogues (The Analytic Press).

4. The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child (Yale University Press).

5. The International Journal of Therapeutic Communities (Association of Therapeutic Communities, UK).

6. Child Youth Care-Online (www.cyc-net.org).

7. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (Lippincott Williams & Wilkins).

8. Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics of North America (Elsevier Press).