Work with Parents

'The decision to publish a volume on work with parents in this EFPP Monograph Series is much to be welcomed. It will go some way to remedy the relative neglect of systemic thinking about this important area of clinical practice and to mount an intellectual challenge to more systemically based family interventions. The range of authors is suggestive of one of the reasons for the absence of much published work in their area, for it draws our attention to the multidisciplinary nature of the work. Included are contributions from child and adult psychoanalytic psychotherapists, social workers, psychiatrists, and psychoanalysts. These different professional groups very often pursue their scholarly debates within professionally defined journals and distinct professional bodies. It is therefore with great pleasure to introduce a book in which a wide range of developments within psychoanalytically based work with children and families across Europe are represented.'Three things stand out for me in this volume as a whole. First, the rich range and depth of clinical experience available to be pondered by readers makes this book a treasured source for clinicians, and also an excellent resource for training. Second, the service development implications: resources for adequate work with parents are often inadequate, despite all the apparent political will to invest in children's mental health. Last, taken as a whole, the book is a hopeful record of work in progress at the end of the century in many centers. The writers share a powerful commitment to the relevance and value of psychoanalytically based work, and they provide heartening evidence of the resilience and intellectual vitality of strands within this tradition.'- Margaret Rustin, from her Foreword