ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how professionals can facilitate or burden parents’ lives. It begins with the history of the “schizophrenogenic” mother to illustrate one detrimental effect of professional hegemony. The chapter discusses this hegemony in terms of the pitfalls that can lead experts to overlook the best interest of the child and parents. It also examines parent effectiveness training as a constructive as well as a potentially problematic method of intervention. The chapter explores the role, positive and negative, that researchers such as psychologists and sociologists play in the lives of those who participate in their research. Professional and agency intrusion means that parents’ personal and family lives are closely scrutinized and “their family’s boundaries will need to become highly permeable”. Researchers can also become a part of the professional context of the parent-child relationship. However, aside from participating in the collection of census data, few families actually become subjects of research.
