Raising Parents

Book excerpt: This book provides a systematic account of parental behaviour and the means of identifying and addressing inadequate parenting. It is intended for professionals who work with children or adults who were harmed as children, and its central concern is with parents who endanger their children or whose children may endanger themselves or others. Understanding and helping troubled parents to become secure and balanced people is of crucial importance for the parents themselves, for their children and for society at large. This book is a guide to understanding parents as people who have children as opposed to seeing them as existing solely in terms of their ability to fulfill their children's needs. The book shares equally a respect for theory, empirical science, and social values and applications. It aims to provide a springboard for new lines of research (e.g. around the role of danger in eliciting inadequate parental behavior and the interdependency of parent and child behaviour) as well as a guide for clinicians and professionals who must protect both disturbed individuals and the public to understand their clients/patients better (both parents and children). Raising Parents will be essential reading for professionals and practitioners in the field, including psychologists, psychotherapists, psychiatrists ands ocial workers as well as those taking courses in attachment and psychopathology, developmental psychology, clinical psychology and behavioural courses in psychiatry.