ABSTRACT
This chapter describes a time-limited psychotherapy with a young mother who, by her early twenties, had lost three children into care. Intergenerational dynamics in a family of women are a central vein running through this case, as they are in so many, and this is illustrated along with aspects of this young mother’s presentation that were different in important ways.
I consider some of the tensions when seeing parents for psychotherapy and needing to keep the children, and the network, in mind as well.
Finally, I discuss the difficulties of short or time-limited work with vulnerable mothers where neglect and premature abandonment are in the history that one repeats.
