Wednesday, June 11th, 15 inquiring minds congregated at the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis for “Where’s My Sanity? Applied Concepts about Kids“. The evening 
began with an introduction from Claudia Luiz, author of Where’s My Sanity?, that focused on the need to scratch beneath the surface of disturbing and destructive behaviors to understand the underlying feelings and emotions that need to be addressed at home and at school.
Getting to the underlying feelings, Luiz explained, is the first step towards being able to be therapeutic. But, she cautioned, parents and teachers have to tend to and understand their own feelings, and get help feeling comfortable with those feelings, before they can help children either in the classroom or at home.
As participants contributed, a rich and diverse range of emotions and dynamics was explored. Stories were told about families that depended on secrets being kept, where there was merging that prevented understanding and recognition of the other person, where there was anger and intolerance and where both teachers and parents felt overwhelmed.
When a parent is feeling hurt, critical, too angry, or afraid, for example, it’s best to find ways (maybe with another adult) to know, express, contain and even use those feelings productively. Once those feelings are worked through, it becomes possible to understand and deal with a child’s behavior. The analogy was used repeatedly of helping a parent or teacher to get their own oxygen mask on before tending to the child.
Discussion was also rich in examples of how children induce and arouse intense and powerful emotions which need to be talked about and sorted through. Many wonderful stories flowed, and every participant contributed to another rich and enjoyable evening at BGSP.
About Claudia Luiz
Claudia Luiz is a psychoanalyst. She also has an Ed.M. from Harvard University and an MA from the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis in Brookline, MA, this country’s first accredited psychoanalytic institute. That’s where Claudia got her clinical degree in psychoanalysis, training and then working modern analytically in the wards of Metropolitan State Hospital, Children’s Hospital, and dozens of other non-profit agencies in Greater Boston. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband and two daughters.