The IPA Fellowship for Research and Service in the Cornerstone Preschool Method

An "IPA Fellowship for Research and Service in the Cornerstone Preschool Method" was established in May 2004. The Cornerstone Method is a form of psychoanalysis applied in a therapeutic classroom. It involves a synergy between dynamic treatment and education, as well as parent guidance, creating a psychoanalytic orchestrated network of therapeutic influences on disturbed children. Results have now been followed for as long as 37 years. A pledge totalling $100,000 has been made to the IPA by two donors, and the first $25,000 has been received. The recipient IPA Fellow was chosen by a committee of members who work at The Children's Psychological Health Center, Inc., a San Francisco mental health agency which is experienced with the method, and interested in testing outcomes and and disseminating The Cornerstone Therapeutic Preschool Method. The committee's three members are Gilbert Kliman, M.D., Harriet Wolfe, M.D., and Nathan Szajnberg, M.D.

The first recipient is Alicia Asman Mallo, M.D., an IPA member, child psychiatrist and psychoanalyst practicing in Buenos Aires, Argentina, who has recently been trained in San Francisco in the Cornerstone Therapeutic Preschool Method. Gilbert Kliman, M.D., a member of IPA and of the above committee will, review her treatment videos, and regularly assess her Cornerstone work. The Children's Psychological Health Center has provided IPA Cornerstone Fellow Dr. Mallo a grant of a video camera, videotapes, scientific reprints, video documentaries of treatments previously conducted by the Cornerstone Method, and a manual of how to conduct The Cornerstone Therapeutic Preschool Method. The IPA fellowship stipend will be distributed quarterly for the remainder of the four year period. The Children's Psychological Health Center will support Dr. Kliman's review efforts.

The IPA's Fellow conducting the Buenos Aires Cornerstone project will augment an applied psychoanalysis research database as well as provide an important clinical and educational contribution to the treatment of disturbed and/or developmentally disordered young children in Buenos Aires. A particular emphasis of the outcome study will be on combinations of cognitive growth and global clinical changes, as measured by changes in Intelligence Quotients and Children's Global Assessment Scores.

PSYCHOANALYST REPORTS UNEXPECTED BENEFITS OF IN-CLASSROOM PSYCHOTHERAPY FOR AUTISTIC CHILDREN

January 8, 2007 San Francisco Psychoanalytic Society and Institute Scientific Meeting heard a statistical presentation and viewed videotaped examples of a method of an in-classroom psychotherapy called Reflective Network Therapy (RNT). RNT was originally designed for orphaned preschoolers and is now reported to have very surprising results with autistic preschoolers. Gilbert Kliman, M.D., a San Francisco Psychoanalyst, described 40 years of work with 1,000 disturbed preschoolers, among them being dozens of autistic children. The autistic children were subjects of special scrutiny in one of several studies of Reflective Network Therapy upon which Kliman reported. A sequential series of 10 autism spectrum preschoolers, six control and three comparison children, as well as 42 other reflective network therapy children were reported upon. The outcomes had statistically highly significant advantages for Reflective Network Therapy (RNT), especially showing IQ gains of 14-28 points among 52 RNT treated children. There were no such IQ gains among 115 control and comparison children. The potential taxpayer cost-benefit of the method was substantial, as RNT for children on the autism spectrum costs only one sixth of the cost of a widely used treatment called Applied Behavioral Analysis, in which individual aides are assigned to children. Kliman described how the clinical scope and effects of the method also appear much broader and deeper than with other methods. The Windholz Foundation of The San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute has given support, along with The International Psychoanalytic Association, and over twenty other private foundations to this work. Much of the data was derived from a service collaboration with the San Mateo County Departments of Education and Community Mental Health, as well as The Children's Psychological Health Center and The Wright Institute. For more information, write gil.kliman@cphc-sf.org.