© British Association of Social Workers
A Bedroom for Sheila Cooperton
Thomas J. Cottle is an attached staff member of the Adult Department of The Tavistock Clinic, London. He is also a visitor of the Hampstead Child Therapy Clinic, London. His recent books include Black Children, White Dreams; A Family Album; Busing; Barred from School; and Perceiving Time: A Psychological Study with Men and Women. His last contribution to this journal was in Spring 1977.
Summary
A series of interviews with a young West Indian girl living in London reveals the profound effect of housing conditions, and the architecture of poverty generally, on the psychological development of the adolescent. In the reported interviews, which have been reconstructed, one begins to appreciate how not having something as simple as one's own bedroom may influence a child's feelings about sexuality, sex role distinctions, family, intimacy and the emergence of her very identity. Most significantly, perhaps, is the fact that the child herself (her name has been changed) recognizes the relationship between environmental deprivation and the substance of conscious and unconscious materials.