Reynard's Mirror: Reflections on Teaching Oppositional Adolescents; Letters to a British Psychoanalyst - Tapa blanda

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This is not a book about one more procedure or recipe to be applied universally to all students; it is about the process of learning to survive very idiosyncratic disturbed adolescents and coming to care for them. This book is the result of what I learned from Christopher Bollas and Lawrence Hedges, psychoanalysts. After obtaining my M.A. in Geography from UCLA and completing my first year of elementary school teaching, I stumbled into Mountainview, a private special ed school run by Paul, a playful, adventurous director who believed in the importance of the mental health of his students. To ensure this they were offered individual and/or group therapy. His teachers were offered weekly supervision by therapists. In that exciting experimental world teachers were free to try new and innovative ideas. During the 15 years I worked there I obtained a secondary credential, an M.A. in Psychology from Cal State Univ. at Long Beach and 2 special ed. credentials. We often presented case studies to visiting psychologists, and surprisingly, I became most interested in psychoanalysis. I was especially grateful for the mentoring of Lawrence Hedges, who taught me about the role of transference and countertransference in the classroom. Christopher Bollas was a visiting psychoanalyst from the U.K. who encouraged me to write my adventures down. I wrote to Bollas for about seven years and this book is the result of his patience and encouragement. The thought of my stories disappearing when I leave this earth fills me with despair. I self-published this memoir in the hope that other teachers will find the same comfort and self-understanding that Paul, Lawrence Hedges and Christopher Bollas offered me.