ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book provides the initial conference briefs and makes some observations. It attempts to replicate one of the intentions of the 2014 conference by asking a service user. The book also provides an example of rigorous phenomenological research on participants' experience as a starting point for conceptualising the process of therapy as well as rethinking issues of training and practice. The book is concerned with parents' perspectives on, and relationships to, the institutions involved in moving their child to a therapeutic community. It describes an interesting way of working with parents in order to make their relationship with such residential services less problematic and provides an original theoretical conceptualisation of the dynamics characterising this relationship from a Lacanian perspective. The book shows how psychotherapy clients construct themselves discursively in terms of agency.
