ABSTRACT
Children who are looked after on their way to some permanency of placement in adoptive, long-term foster, or residential homes will usually have been subjected to some level of early trauma. Often people's main access to any understanding of the emotions of such children may be through their own feelings - carer or therapist - while they are with them. As far as people can, they need to explore within themselves what a child is projecting into them. Then people need to seek to establish what in this feeling comes from within themselves and what seems to be a communication from the child. It was work with some adopted children that particularly highlighted for the author problems that many of these children have in developing secure maternal relationships. One response that people observe frequently with children who have had actual experiences of abandonment, abuse, and neglect can be a flight from thinking.
