Parenting Courses

Parenting is not a set of techniques that can be applied in the same way to every child. Each child has their own temperament, their own needs, and their own way of relating, while each parent enters the relationship with their own personal history, their own experiences, and their own emotional expectations.

The Parenting Courses of the Centre for Psychoanalytic Studies (CPS) aim to help parents develop a deeper understanding of the child's inner world and the relationship that forms between the child and those who care for them. The emphasis is not on providing ready-made recipes for how one "should" raise a child, but on developing the parent's capacity to observe, understand, and respond with greater awareness to what is happening within the relationship.

What We Try to Understand

A child's behaviour is not always what it appears to be. Behind anger, aggression, refusal, jealousy, clinging, fears, or difficulties with separation, there may be feelings and needs that the child does not yet have the capacity to recognise and express in words.

Understanding a child's behaviour therefore requires something more than trying to stop an unwanted behaviour. We need to ask what the child may be communicating through it, what feelings they are trying to manage, and how the relationship with the parent can gradually help them develop a greater capacity for emotional regulation.

We will also examine the position of the parent themselves. A relationship with a child can activate intense feelings, fears, expectations, and aspects of the adult's personal history. Often the way we react to a child is not solely about what is happening in that moment, but is also connected to what that particular situation evokes within us.

Course Themes

Throughout the courses, topics will include:

• the emotional development of the infant and child,
• the formation of early bonds with parents,
• attachment, security, and separation,
• the importance of the parent's emotional availability,
• the development of autonomy,
• boundaries and their function in psychological development,
• anger, aggression, and the child's outbursts,
• fears and anxiety in childhood,
• jealousy and sibling relationships,
• self-esteem and the development of a sense of Self,
• the impact of parental expectations on the child,
• difficulties in communication between parents and children,
• adolescence, individuation, and changes in the relationship with parents,
• the ways in which our own childhood experiences can influence how we become parents.

The themes are approached through contemporary psychoanalytic and developmental thinking, with particular emphasis on the significance of early relationships, attachment, emotional regulation, and the formation of the Self.

Boundaries Without Loss of the Relationship

One of the central issues in parenting is the capacity to set boundaries without these becoming either a source of constant conflict or a withdrawal of the parent from their parental role. The child needs boundaries, but also needs to feel that the relationship with the parent can withstand anger, disagreement, disappointment, and the child's wish to differentiate.

The aim is not a parent who never makes mistakes. Such parenting does not exist. What interests us more is the parent's capacity to recognise what is happening in the relationship, to return to it when it is disrupted, and to be able to think about both the child's behaviour and their own reaction to it.

Who the Courses Are For

The courses are addressed to parents of children and adolescents, as well as to people who are about to become parents and wish to develop a deeper understanding of the child's emotional development and the parent–child relationship.

No prior knowledge of psychology or psychoanalytic theory is required. Concepts are presented in an accessible way and connected to real situations from everyday family life.

Educational Character

The Parenting Courses are educational and informational in nature. They do not constitute psychotherapy, family therapy, or individualised clinical assessment of children or parents.

Their purpose is to create a space for knowledge and reflection around parenting and the child's psychological development, so that the parent can look beyond immediate behaviour and better understand the emotional reality that takes shape within the family.