Reclaiming Childhood

Wisdom

Tommy the Chimp Is an Animal, Not a Prisoner

Helene Guldberg Ph.D. on October 22, 2014

A human child, even as young as two years of age, is head-and-shoulders above any ape intellectually.

Psychiatry

Review: Saving Normal

Helene Guldberg Ph.D. on July 16, 2014

Many human behaviours, quirks, eccentricities and woes which in the past would have been seen as parts of the rich tapestry of life are now branded mental disorders.

Child Development

Early Childhood Maketh Not the Man

Helene Guldberg Ph.D. on May 29, 2014

John Bruer talks to Helene Guldberg about the myth of the first three years being pivotal.

Psychiatry

Review: The Book of Woe

Helene Guldberg Ph.D. on December 9, 2013

A diagnosis may result in “a kind of reductionism that insults our sense of ourselves as unfathomably complex or even transcendental creatures” Greenberg writes. A doctor who tells a widower that his grief is an illness “is potentially not only labelling, stigmatising, and medicating him, but also shaping the patient’s understanding of loss, of himself, of the meaning."

Family Dynamics

Let's Not Obsess About 'Sibling Bullying'

Helene Guldberg Ph.D. on November 5, 2013

In the vast majority of cases, sibling rivalries do no more harm than irritate the hell out of parents.

Attachment

We Are Not Determined by Early Experiences

Helene Guldberg Ph.D. on July 25, 2013

Whether based on attachment theory or neurobabble, the claim that human beings are set in stone by the age of three is groundless.

Psychiatry

DSM-5: A Disaster for Children

Helene Guldberg Ph.D. on June 14, 2013

Christopher Lane talks to Helene Guldberg about the newly published fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders – ‘a legal document facilitating the medication of millions’.

Bullying

Bullying: the need to reframe the debate

Helene Guldberg Ph.D. on May 12, 2013

As adults we should be asking ourselves whether we are helping or hindering children and young people by the way we talk about and deal with bullying. Adults undoubtedly need to find ways of helping the young to negotiate difficult situations, but we also need to be careful not to undermine their abilities to sort out these difficulties themselves.