Severely Disturbed Youngsters and the Parental Alliance (Routledge Library Editions: Adolescence)

Originally published in 1992 this was a much-needed book that shows how important it is to establish a therapeutic alliance with the parents of severely disturbed young people in order to improve the success of counseling with them. It also explores methods of how to ease the difficulties encountered in establishing such a relationship with the parents or guardians. In this title, the insights of psychoanalysis are used to understand reactions to parents and to develop an empathic approach to them through a new theoretical framework. Although in the popular view, a psychoanalytic approach is considered to be opposed to parents, this volume is testimony to the unique contribution such an approach can make to the support of parents and, thereby, their children. A major and unique emphasis of Severely Disturbed Youngsters is placed on exploring the feelings, reactions, and sensitivities of the therapist that can interfere with this important aspect of treatment. The thrust of the book is to put the understanding of this interference in a theoretical context and to indicate ways of coping with the interference.