Chicago Psychoanalytic Society

Tuesday, February 26, 2019 – 7:00-8:50 PM

Location: Robert Morris University, 401 S State St, 8th floor auditorium

Admission is free

Medical Treatment or Mistreatment of Children

in the 1960s State Mental Hospital System: A Memoir

Presenter: Douglas “Cliff” Wilkerson, MD

Discussant: Diana Kon, EdD

Cliff Wilkerson provides a vivid account of his experience as a young psychiatry fellow who, while in training as a child fellow, encountered the condition of children at a state mental hospital in the mid-1960s.  He describes the poor level of care and treatment they received and how he attempted to relate to these young patients and to help their caregivers better understand the dynamics of child behavior.  His account has relevance to questions regarding the current climate of pharmopsychological, psychiatric, and psychotherapeutic treatment of children, questions that Diana Kon, Co-Executive Director of the Orthogenic School, also addresses in her discussion of Cliff’s talk.

Douglas “Cliff” Wilkerson, M.D., has had a distinguished career as a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who works with children, adolescents, and adults. He has consulted at many institutions, including several high schools and nursery school, the Clearbrook Center in Rolling Meadows, Northwestern University, and the University of Chicago, where he was a Visiting Faculty Member.  He is a training and supervising analyst at the Institute for Psychoanalysis where he has taught and served on numerous committees. He has chaired the Child and Adolescent Psychoanalysis Committee, and he had a central role in developing the Institute’s case history writing program.

Diana Kon, Ed.D., is Co-Executive Director of the Sonia Shankman Orthogenic School and the Brooke Whitted Center at The University of Chicago.  Prior to her time at the School, she was a teacher for the Children’s Unit at Chicago Lakeshore Hospital and she opened and helped develop the Therapeutic Day School at Children’s Memorial Hospital.

Learning Objectives:  After the presentation the participant, will be able to

1. Appreciate the central roles of connecting and empathizing with, and understanding the behavior of, children in psychiatric and psychotherapeutic treatment;
2. Describe the function of the milieu in an institution for the psychotherapeutic treatment of children.

Admission is free. There are no reservations required. Continuing Education Credits are offered exclusively to Society members in all membership categories.