ABSTRACT
Cognitive-behavioural approaches to parenting difficulties are gradually being introduced to the in-patient setting. There is more experience of their use in the USA and a growing body of research literature (Webster-Stratton, 1991; Kazdin, 1997) concerning their application on an out-patient basis. Whilst they approach this important area of difficulties from a very practical approach to change, they should not be seen as in competition with a more psychodynamic understanding of parenting problems and their origins. Indeed, for some parents this approach opens up the possibility of addressing well-defended areas of their personality for sensitive individual psychodynamic work.
