ABSTRACT
The education of children was an organizing goal for psychoanalysts—literally—from its first hours. During the early conversations of Sigmund Freud and his “Wednesday night” colleagues, they wondered how they could apply analytic understandings to the education of children, including their own. Psychoanalytically informed thinking has colored educators’ appreciation and understandings of child development and psychosocial health as the foundation for learning. The earliest analytic-educational tradition involves psychoanalysts organizing and directing psychoanalytically informed schools for both normal and troubled children. Consulting with educators, schools, and occasionally larger educational systems is, by far, the most common way that analysts have worked with educators to further children’s learning and development. Psychoanalysts have lectured and led workshops at colleges of education on many occasions.
