ABSTRACT
Maria Emilia Pozzi describes a telephone service that has become a sort of informal Parents' Line, similar to Child Line, the telephone service for children in trouble. The aim of this telephone counselling is to begin to explore the problem as the parents perceive it and as it affects the whole family. It is a useful way to begin to assess a number of aspects. The telephone consultation provides a first form of containment of parental anxieties at a moment when parents are in the heat of a difficult situation and at the end of their tether. The therapist, in exploring the problem with the parents, offers a sympathetic ear and a way of looking and understanding the current difficulties in a new light, which is based on the knowledge of parents' and children's deep anxieties, conflicts, and unconscious phantasies.
