child psychologist

Created by Amy Chartrand, Philip McKee and Rose Plotek.

Presented at SummerWorks Performance Festival, August 2014.

“Child Psychologist is a performance experiment that asks whether children have access to wisdom and insight that could serve as a viable form of therapy.  In a ‘talk-show’ format, children of varying ages are asked to provide counsel on a problem experienced by the patient. The patient treats all feedback as equal and valuable counsel, applying it to the issue at hand.

‘Child Psychologists’ are not children pretending to be adults, but children solving adult problems. Child prodigy painters and child jazz legends claim an expertise and ability well beyond their years. Their status as prodigy is arguable as is the possibility of their attaining such talent at an age of relative inexperience, but the fact that the question is so contentious makes it an important one to ask: “Can a child solve my adult problems?