IARPP joins other organizations and mental health professionals in demanding the immediate reunion of the 2300 children who have been separated from their parents at the borders and placed in US detention centers.
IARPP was founded in 2001 to promote relational psychoanalysis as an approach to clinical work in which a core assumption is that psychological development and functioning derives from an individual’s relations with other people. The association is an international professional and intellectual community committed to reducing the damaging effects of privilege and discrimination in our field. Its ethos reflects a love of healing and learning. Currently, IARPP has about 2100 members from 42 different countries around the world.
As mental health professionals we are aware of findings from attachment theory research, research on the mother-infant relationship, neuroscience research, cognitive development research, and studies of the effects of mental, emotional and social development during infancy on later normal and psychopathological development. There are unique considerations regarding the needs of infants and toddlers during the first years of life. These and other contemporary research findings underscore the impact of early experience on the development of the human brain and mind. Children are totally dependent on the availability of consistent and responsive care from specific adults for the adequate development of their basic human capacities.
According to the World Association for Infant Mental Health (WAIMH) which works with infants and parents within different cultures and societies, there is a need to recognize the specific rights of infants beyond those which have already been specified in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC, adopted 1990) and the subsequent document from the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, General Comment Number 7, published in 2005, concerning the implementation of children’s rights in early childhood.
Based on the aforementioned research findings and the World Association for Infant Mental Health and United Nations recommendations and guidelines, and based on our clinical work with adult patients and with children, adolescents and families in particular, we know the severity of trauma (including severe psychological and medical symptoms) that abrupt separation of children from their caregivers results in. This is why as professionals tasked with preventing and treating human pain and suffering we are deeply worried and outraged by the ongoing consequences of the United States family separation policy.
We want to add our voices to strongly emphasize that Post-Traumatic Stress (PTSD) is a well-documented disorder and very likely to have lifelong consequences related to physical and mental health, sociopathy, violence and other similar societal implications. Children who have been separated from their parents suffer a serious offense to their basic human right to grow up and live a healthy life. Each day that a child remains separated from his or her parent reduces the likelihood of recovery from PTSD. Every day of separation increases the certainty that cost-prohibitive, ongoing psychiatric care and intervention from hospitals, courts, the school system and other governmental agencies will be required for years to come.
We ask those who bear the responsibility for the ongoing imprisonment of these infants and children to act with extreme urgency and to take every action possible to reunite all of the children with their parents.
Steven Kuchuck, DSW, President, IARPP Board of Directors,
Susanna Federici, Ph.D., Co-Chair, IARPP Child-Adolescent-Parent Committee
and the IARPP Board of Directors
