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New Perspectives on Parenting:
Psychological, Cultural, and Psychoanalytic

Nothing has a greater impact on children's development than their relationship with their parents. Parenting, consequently, has long been a central concern of psychoanalysis and psychology. But the last decade stands out as a time of dramatic new developments in the understanding of this area. Our conference explores several major new explorations. James Herzog begins the conference by presenting this latest thinking. The inner world of the child, Herzog argues, is populated by the very conflicts and concerns that the parents were not able to contain between themselves. We then turn to the rich topic of culture and child development. Robert LeVine and Peggy Miller share their original research on how culture influences parenting and how an understanding of parenting in other cultures gives us insight into what happens in American society. One of the most exciting areas in recent years is the study of emotion and the crucial role it plays in interactions between parents and children. Using this perspective, Molly Romer Witten looks at the preverbal period of childhood and Paul Holinger focuses on the time when children first use language.

The Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis wishes to thank Anne and Marcus Wedner for their help in underwriting this event. Without their generous support, this conference would not be possible.

Target Audience

This conference is intended for both mental health professionals and the educated lay public interested in issues having to do with parenting and childhood development.

Planning Committee

James W. Anderson, Ph.D., chair
Bertram Cohler, Ph.D.
Joan Dutton
Arnold Goldberg, M.D.
Eva F. Lichtenberg, Ph.D.
Christine Kieffer, Ph.D.
Martin Laub, Ph.D.
Leslie Shaw, M.B.A., Ph.D.
Christine Susman
David Terman, M.D.
Jerome Winer, M.D.

Educational Objectives

Participants will:

• Become attuned to the ways that the material that parents cannot handle between themselves becomes implanted into the child's inner world and gets expressed through the child's play
• Become familiar with how the self develops not only from interactions within the family but also from the cultural surround
• Learn about contemporary parental beliefs about how to raise young children, and come to see how self-esteem, which looms so large in the American imagination, varies across cultures and historical moments
• Gain insight into nonverbal conversation between parents and their babies, and realize what is involved in motivating infants and young children to become more interactive and communicative
• Gain an understanding of the impact of the onset of language on the relationship between parents and their children
• Appreciate the crucial role that emotion plays in parent-child interaction

Program

Morning Sessions
James W. Anderson, Ph.D. - Chair

8:30 Registration and Continental Breakfast

9:00 Welcoming Remarks - David M. Terman, M.D.

9:05 James M. Herzog, M.D.
The Parental Relationship and the Child's Play Space
Discussant: Christine C. Kieffer, Ph.D.

10:15 Break

10:30 Robert A. LeVine, Ph.D.
Cultural Differences in Early Social Interaction:
Implications for the Development of Self

11:15 Peggy J. Miller, Ph.D.
Cultivating Children's Self-Esteem: How Parents Imagine a Cultural Ideal
Discussants: Arnold Tobin, M.D.
Bertram J. Cohler, Ph.D.

12:20 Lunch on Your Own

Afternoon Sessions
Barbara S. Rocah, M.D. - Chair

1:45 Molly Romer Witten, Ph.D.
What Gets Communicated Before Verbal Language?

2:30 Paul C. Holinger, M.D.
Toward Understanding the Transition from Infancy to Toddlerhood and Why the Twos Do not Have to be Terrible: The Onset of Language and the Magic of Translation

3:15 Discussion Between the Panel and the Audience
Panel Members: Drs. Herzog, LeVine, Miller, Witten, and Holinger

4:00 Adjourn

Conference Faculty

Bertram J. Cohler, Ph.D. is a member of the faculty of the Institute for Psychoanalysis and Professor, Departments of Psychology, Psychiatry, and Comparative Human Development, University of Chicago. His co-authored and co-edited books include The Essential Other: A Developmental Psychology of the Self and Parenthood: A Psychodynamic Perspective.

James M. Herzog, M.D. is a faculty member at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute and Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard University. He is the author of Father Hunger: Explorations with Children and Adults.

Paul C. Holinger, M.D. is a member of the faculty and Co-Chair of the Child and Adolescent Psychoanalytic Training Program at the Institute for Psychoanalysis and Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Rush University. His books include What Babies Say Before They Can Talk and Suicide and Homicide Among Adolescents.

Christine C. Kieffer, Ph.D. is a member of the faculty at the Institute for Psychoanalysis and the Department of Behavioral Sciences at Rush University. In addition to editing three books, she edited a recent issue of Psychoanalytic Inquiry on "Fathers and Daughters."

Robert A. LeVine, Ph.D. is Professor of Education and Human Development, Emeritus, Harvard University, and a research graduate of the Institute for Psychoanalysis. His books include Culture, Behavior, and Personality and (co-authored) Childcare and Culture: Lessons from Africa.

Peggy J. Miller, Ph.D. is Professor of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her published papers include (co-authored) "Listening is Active: Lessons from the Narrative Practices of Taiwanese Families" and "Self-esteem as Folk Theory: A Comparison of European-American and Taiwanese Mothers' Beliefs."

Arnold Tobin, M.D. is a member of the faculty of the Institute for Psychoanalysis. He has a long-standing interest in research and in cross-cultural approaches.

Molly Romer Witten, Ph.D. is an advanced candidate at the Institute for Psychoanalysis, Director of the Parent Child Workshop, which provides preschool parent-child therapeutic play groups in Chicago, and a faculty member at the Erikson Institute for Child Development and Loyola University.

Registration

Download the conference brochure (PDF, 668 KB) and complete the form to register.

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