ABSTRACT
Emotional deprivation is hard to define and can occur in many contexts including the ordinary intact family, where there may be an area of experience which the child has felt as deprivation (Winnicott, 1966). Research studies indicate that discontinuity of emotional care in the early years may have serious effects on a child’s capacity to establish trusting and secure relationships as well as on the ability to think and to learn. Psychotherapy with deprived children, however, has often been considered difficult or inadvisable. Brill and Thomas (1965) found that once weekly treatment may not be sufficient. Dockar-Drysdale (1968) considered the provision of ‘primary emotional experience’ in a residential setting to be essential for some children before interpretative psychotherapy is possible. Paradoxically, it has been this supportive work, rather than theoretical considerations, which has led to further attempts to engage deprived children in psychotherapy.
