ABSTRACT
Most of the children who have been described were living in small children’s homes when they began attending for psychotherapy and most of them showed considerable improvements in behaviour which could be linked to the sometimes stormy course of the work with them. Increasingly at the present time there is a trend away from children’s homes and institutional care, and towards looking for fostering placements or, more hopefully, for adoption. Even with the best arrangements, however, the family and the child may need help in adapting to one another and in establishing bonds of feeling and understanding which can provide a basis for healthy growth on both sides. There are some cases in which even a brief period of time in psychotherapy may seem important if there is to be any hope of successfully placing a child in a family.
