ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book looks at the incidence and causation of emotional disturbance in children. It highlights the importance of the pre-school years and the desirability of increased social and emotional support for parents together with their young infants. Naturally, interpretation also requires a skill and an ability to get in touch with the patient's feelings, an intuitive sense for the appropriate comment and the appropriate moment - which makes child psychotherapy an art as well as a science. The book illustrates the wide range of maladjustment which comes within the province of psychotherapist's. It describes the children who have difficulties both in talking and playing, where the importance of other details of non-verbal communication becomes very clear. The book shows how a characteristic of an infant's behaviour may appear and reappear in ever new editions as personality development proceeds.
