Lost Childhood and the Language of Exile

A seminal work reissued with a new introduction from Judit Szekacs-Weisz and welcoming words from Ivan Ward and Carol Siegel. It features stories of great diversity from psychoanalysts, scientists, psychotherapists, doctors and historians on working with and being a part of exiled and immigrant populations. As relevant today as on first release. The book contains reflections from Eva Almassy, Jacqueline Amati-Mehler, Pina Antinucci, Antal Bokay, Julia Borossa, John Clare, Ferenc Erós, Susan Haxell,Eva Hoffman, Kathleen Kelley-Lainé, Leon Kleimberg, W. Gordon Lawrence, Judit Mészáros, Gershon J. Molad, George Pick, Rachel Rosenblum, Tamara Stajner-Popovic, Riccardo Steiner, Judit Szekacs-Weisz, Judith E. Vida, Shula Wilson, and Ali Zarbafi. Lost Childhood and the Language of Exile invites the reader to enter a territory which is not only multilingual but multidimensional: defined and shaped by history, politics, economy, and sociocultural transformations. The contributions give important insights on the psychodynamic processes involved in working with, and being part of, exiled and immigrant populations. The majority of the stories take as their base the upheaval caused by the Second World War but their stories are still, sadly, relevant today with the ongoing plight of refugees the world over. By presenting their experiences, the contributors provide a vital record of what it means to leave your homeland behind, to make a new life in a new land, and to live and work in a second tongue. The aim was, and is, to provide stimulus for further thinking and research. Two contributors, Ali Zarbafi and Shula Wilson, took up that challenge and we were delighted to publish their contribution to this debate in their edited work, Mother Tongue and Other Tongues: Narratives in Multilingual Psychotherapy (2021).

Lost Childhood and the Language of Exile is a long awaited collection of essential papers to be used as a tool not only by members of the helping professions working with people from cultures other than their own, but by all those who need to come to grips with the multidimensional and multilingual experiences of individuals and groups in our increasingly global society--and with themselves. --Edith Kurzweil This remarkable compendium on loss contains essays that are amongst the most moving and deeply reflective accounts of all the different types of loss we can undergo, whether it be the loss of one s country, one s mother tongue, or that loss we must all endure: the loss of our childhood. Although the book does contain essays that are for the specialist reader in psychoanalysis it s great merit resides in the diverse range of many poetically constructed essays and one hopes that Lost Childhood will reach readers outside the field of psychoanalysis as the editors have found writers for whom to write about loss is to bring out the very best in one s reflections on life itself. --Christopher Bollas Lost Childhood and the Language of Exile invites the reader to enter a territory which is not only multilingual but multidimensional: defined and shaped by history, politics, economy, and socio-cultural transformations. In this book we present you with stories of great diversity written by psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, writers, scientists, doctors, and historians. It gives important insights on the psychodynamic processes involved in working with, and being part of, exiled and immigrant populations. Published by the Ministry of Imago East West Cultural Heritage, Hungary Freud Museum