ABSTRACT
Maintaining a therapeutic alliance with parents and understanding their contribution to their child’s difficulties is crucial to child psychotherapy. The psychotherapist may choose to work with parents and child separately, or invite a colleague to offer therapy to the parents where possible. Helping parents recognise the unresolved emotional issues from their childhood that are intruding on their parenting is important, and how their parenting style may reflect their own parents’ difficulties in this role, unless this is consciously recognised. Attention is drawn to the parents’ defences evoked by aspects of their children’s development. An example given is a mother’s anxiety about her daughter’s sexuality and risk-taking behaviour due to conflicts she faced as a teenager. The impact of the parents’ relationship as a couple on their children is discussed, and how these difficulties can be addressed by the child psychotherapist, while maintaining the focus on their child’s needs. Issues of risk, where parents fail to acknowledge that their behaviour is damaging to their child, are challenging, and the child psychotherapist needs the support of the professional network in this work. To conclude, the value of joint parent–child sessions is considered when their relationship is under stress.
