Today more pediatric therapists are centering their work on the parent-child relationship and are turning to parents as a primary modality in solving children's problems. Parent-Focused Child Therapy: Attachment, Identification, and Reflective Functions is an edited collection, drawing from leading psychotherapists with specialties in family therapy. Carrol Wachs and Linda Jacobs tap into the current literature on the efficacy of working with parents in therapy situations. The collected essays in this book, from renowned psychotherapists, focus on identifying and evaluating a variety of approaches and their effects on standard questions of attachment, identity, and reflection in dealing with children in therapy. Parent-Focused Child Therapy is especially attractive given its currency, integrating relational theory, attachment theory and infant research.

Drawing on research from a variety of domains - clinical studies of trauma, developmental psychopathology, interpersonal psychobiology, epidemiology, and social policy - September 11: Trauma and Human Bonds addresses especially the fundamental relationship of human bonds to trauma and underscores the manner in which developments in all these fields are coming together in complementary ways that sustain a key finding: that trauma must be understood in its relational and attachment contexts. The quality of early emotional attachments, differences in attachment styles to family milieus, and the psychological qualities that enable traumatized parents to avoid traumatizing their children are among the topics through which these contexts are explored. From their various disciplinary vantage points, the contributions converge to show how human relationships can either provide an anodyne to trauma or serve as the vehicle of its transmission. As Susan Coates observes, a major legacy of 9/11 is the realization that "there are no simple truths in the world of trauma studies, no easy-to-remember anodynes or pharmacologic magic bullets or depth-psychological schematizations that will hold true for a majority or even a sizable minority of cases." Yet, in delineating the multiple connections between human relations and trauma, and in elaborating these connections from multiple disciplinary perspectives, the contributors to September 11 have taken a decisive first step to consolidate new knowledge about trauma and to demonstrate how it can assist clinicians who encounter diverse responses to trauma in their day-to-day work. A sobering reminder of shared human vulnerability in the face of devastating events, September 11 is also a heartening reminder of resiliency in the face of overwhelming loss and of the healing potential of human connection.

First, Infant Development is discussed. Then there are two articles on assessment in early childhood psychiatry: Psychiatric assessment, and Assessment of the caregiver-child relationship in early childhood psychiatry. Early Childhood Mental Health Problems are discussed next, such as Internalizing, Trauma and PTSD, Preschool Disruptive Behavior and ADHD (as viewed through a developmental lens), Pervasive Developmental Disorders, and Parental Psychopathology. In the next section, Early Childhood Specific Treatment Modalities are reviewed: Interventions for Behavioral Problems, Interventions for trauma--exposed dyads: Infant - Parent Psychotherapy and Child - Parent Psychotherapy, Video feedback in parent-infant treatment, Psychosocial interventions with biological effects: Bucharest Early Intervention Project, and Psychopharmacological interventions in preschoolers. Finally, Models of Care are proposed.

Drawing on research from a variety of domains - clinical studies of trauma, developmental psychopathology, interpersonal psychobiology, epidemiology, and social policy - September 11: Trauma and Human Bonds addresses especially the fundamental relatiobship of human bonds to trauma and underscores the manner in which developments in all these fields are coming together in complementary ways that sustain a key finding: that trauma must be understood in its relational and attachment contexts. The quality of early emotional attachments, differences in attachment styles to family milieus, and the psychological qualities that enable traumatized parents to avoid traumatizing their children are among the topics through which these contexts are explored. From their various disciplinary vantage points, the contributions converge to show how human relationships can either provide an anodyne to trauma or serve as the vehicle of its transmission.
As Susan Coates observes, a major legacy of 9/11 is the realization that there are no simple truths in the world of trauma studies, no easy-to-remember anodynes or pharmacologic magic bullets or depth-psychological schematizations that will hold true for a majority or even a sizable minority of cases. Yet, in delineating the multiple connections between human relations and trauma, and in elaborating these connections from multiple disciplinary perspectives, the contributors to September 11 have taken a decisive first step to consolidate new knowledge about trauma and to demonstrate how it can assist clinicians who encounter diverse responses to trauma in their day-to-day work. A sobering reminder of shared human vulnerability in the face of devastatingevents, September 11 is also a heartening reminder of resiliency in the face of overwhelming loss and of the healing potential of human connection.

In Growing Pains: Revising Child Development Theories and their Application to Patients of All Ages, editors Henri Parens and Salman Akhtar present a collection that draws on over 50 years professional experience in child development. Contributors to this collection touch on psychoanalytic conceptualizations of child development, separation-individuation theory, personal clinical experiences, the effects of trauma and neurodevelopmental disorders in the mother-child relationship, and the intergenerational transmission of trauma. This edited collection is recommended for scholars and practitioners interested in psychoanalysis, child development, and clinical psychology.