This book, written as a question-and-answer dialogue between a child therapist and a supervisor, addresses all aspects of the situations encountered daily in work with children and their parents. From the most basic and practical to the broadest and most multifaceted, the questions search out the essence of what transpires in the treatment of a child.

The author encourages therapists to approach parents as individuals (not just as parents), and to maintain the same professional perspective in dealing with them that informs the rest of their work. Illustrative case material draws on a considerable range of presenting pictures, from parents who are themselves therapists to those who have no frame of reference for treatment, from parents who seek help when a healthy youngster hits a developmental impasse to those whose lives are shattered by severe pathology and psychic isolation in their children. Integrating theory and technique to provide the practitioner with the tools to elicit collaboration from parents instead of obstruction, Siskind makes it possible for child therapists to sustain the interest, curiosity, neutrality, and empathy that are preconditions to effective treatment.

This book examines the treatment of young children from the perspective of the therapist's clinical decisions. How does the therapist know what to do at any given moment in a session? What processes of synthesis and integration allow the therapist to choose interventions that transform the relationship between adult and child into a treatment relationship? How does the child therapist balance working with the child and working with the child's parents? This book is the narrative of a case as presented in supervision. Every week the therapist recounts her sessions with her young patient, a girl of six named Cleo, who is suffering from intense fear. The fear is invasive and unrelenting and the little girl is engaged in a desperate struggle to master it, but she fails over and over again. She cannot repress her terrifying fantasies. As Cleo plays during her sessions, we are witness to the derivatives of the fearsome fantasies and to her depleting and often futile struggle to find some measure of comfort. What is the therapist's role in this situation? How does the therapist enter this chaotic and emotionally draining zone and begin the work of treatment? The reader joins the supervisory sessions and follows the unfolding story of the treatment process. Each session is discussed in detail as therapist and supervisor work together to make the elusive and fragmented nature of the sessions technically usable. Much thought is given to trying to understand the possible origin and nature of the developmental forces that caused Cleo's emotional distress. The recurring themes of her sessions are extracted from the often confusing material and discussed with the goal of arriving at treatmentprinciples - principles that could help Cleo deflect the force of her frightening fantasies. The supervisory process guides the treatment process by providing an affective and organizing anchoring. Everything is examined. What toys and why? Food in sessions? Frequency of sessions? Can the child's drawings be taken home? Presents? Confidentiality with children? Work with parents? Vacations? All that is particular to Cleo and all that can be generalized has the common foundation of classical psychoanalytic theory, enriched and expanded by developmental and object relations theory. Throughout these chapters, the theoretical framework remains the fundamental gauge and guide - the compass of the treatment. The therapist's growing ability to harness the richness and organization it provides is shared with the reader.

Adoption is a transformational process bringing parenthood to those who long for but cannot bear children and giving stranded children home, family, and their place in the world. But every adoption is preceded and followed by its story and when these stories are told in the offices of psychotherapists we begin to understand the impact of adoption in all its complexity. We learn from parents how their quest to have and raise a child has played out in real life, and what shadows might have fallen between the dream and the reality. And we learn from the children the many ways that being adopted shaped their development, their sense of identity; what went wrong along the way and how we may help. Clinical work with parents and children as well as with adults who were adopted is the focus of Understanding Adoption. Because adoption has become widely practiced, accepted, and accessible, and because it has greatly changed the composition of families, it is a timely subject for study. The authors of this book undertake exploration of this important terrain of loss and connection, and of the fragility and resilience of human bonds.

Adoption is a transformational process bringing parenthood to those who long for but cannot bear children and giving stranded children home, family, and their place in the world. But every adoption is preceded and followed by its story and when these stories are told in the offices of psychotherapists we begin to understand the impact of adoption in all its complexity. We learn from parents how their quest to have and raise a child has played out in real life, and what shadows might have fallen between the dream and the reality. And we learn from the children the many ways that being adopted shaped their development, their sense of identity; what went wrong along the way and how we may help. Clinical work with parents and children as well as with adults who were adopted is the focus of Understanding Adoption. Because adoption has become widely practiced, accepted, and accessible, and because it has greatly changed the composition of families, it is a timely subject for study. The authors of this book undertake exploration of this important terrain of loss and connection, and of the fragility and resilience of human bonds.