ABSTRACT
Many children who have been in care for a substantial period of time, especially early in their lives, appear to suffer from learning difficulties. This problem is recurrent enough to suggest that a link can be made between very early deprivation and its impact on the equip’ ment that is necessary for a child to acquire and retain knowledge, but most of all, to think. Thinking is not to be seen as the unfolding of an autonomous function, but as deeply related to a child’s emotional development. The image of a haemorrhage, as opposed to vomiting and diarrhoea, seems to me to provide a good model of the depleting process that often occurs in deprived children and is at the root of their thinking and learning difficulties. This chapter outlines some of the massive obstacles one meets in the course of attempting to facilitate such internalisation in deprived children.
