Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute

Few conversations feel harder for a parent than explaining that someone the family loves has died. Yet talking to children about death, honestly and in language they can hold, is one of the most protective things an adult can offer a grieving child. Children sense loss long before they can name it, and the way the truth is shared shapes how safely they can begin to mourn.

The worn blanket that cannot be washed without protest. The teddy bear that must come everywhere. The particular scrap of fabric your child cannot fall asleep without. To a tired parent these attachments can seem puzzling, even worrying, but to the pediatrician and psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott they were something remarkable: evidence of a child’s healthy emotional developme...

Every child struggles sometimes. Tears, defiance, worry, and withdrawal are part of growing up, and most of the time they pass. So how do you know when a child’s difficulty is ordinary and when it signals something that deserves professional attention? If you have found yourself asking does my child need therapy, that question usually reflects careful, loving attention, not o...

If you have ever lain awake replaying a moment when you felt you fell short as a parent, you are in good company, and you may be reassured to know that one of the most respected thinkers in child development believed your imperfection is not a problem to solve. It is part of how children grow. The idea of good enough parenting, introduced by the pediatrician and psychoanalyst...

Some of the most influential ideas in modern psychology began with a simple shift in attention: from what drives us to whom we long for. Object relations theory turned psychoanalysis toward relationships, arguing that the human mind is shaped less by raw instinct than by the earliest bonds we form and the images of self and other we carry inside as a result. It is one of the ...