Psychodynamic Perspectives on Abuse

Reviews / Votes

Some of the most innovative contemporary psychodynamic authors have combined to produce this terrific book... This is a key text for those working clinically with patients who have been abused, but its value is much wider. Those concerned with child care or health policy, with ethinic minority issues and with refugees, and those who have responsibility for the management of organisations, will all find something useful here. -- British Journal of Occupational Therapy This book deals with the complex hurt to development and relationships inflicted by abuse. The contributions relate to the intimately personal but also to the psychosocial, the organisational and the cultural. They bear both on personal therapeutic practice and also on the more public and administrative response required of social workers and others. The book considers policy and forensic issues in the context of psychodynamic understanding, and pays explicit attention to the diversity of the forms of abuse when they occur. Contributions capture respectfully but with security the experience of people who have been severely hurt by others and the understanding of those who stand by them and assist them... As I read this book I was repeatedly aware of its exceptional openness, humility, sensitivity and thoughtfulness. This book provides both clear frameworks and subtle explorations. It makes and exceptionally valuable contribution to the literature about the abuse of children and adults. -- Journal of Social Work Practice For a book of some 300 pages, this volume contains striking breadth and depth of material. Given the scope of the book, and the fact that it brings together writers from different disciplines, it could easily have resulted in a book that skimmed the surface. This pitfall is avoided, on the whole, by having a mix of theoretical-type chapters and more specific chapters devoted to detailed presentation of clinical case-material. -- Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy This book is an important addition to the burgeoning lexicon of texts concerning abuse however this might be defined. There are many meeting places for the cognitive and analytically based approaches. Whilst this book presents one particular perspective it is one which presents its theory and method in an accessible way that should be read by all practitioners whatever their theoretical orientation. -- Journal of Interprofessional Care This text is described by its editors as taking a " broad sweep " approach. In this broad sweep it is not however a surface brush that is being wielded. Rather this text, dealing with abuse as a widespread phenomenon with a variety of manifestations, does not sacrifice depth of analysis in pursuing wide scope. What is presented is a multi-layered approach from an interdisciplinary team of contributors from the fields of analytic psychotherapy, social work and social policy... This is a "meaty" collection of multi-dimensional character. Object relations and attachment issues recur throughout the text, which contains many case studies likely to be of value in general, professional and clinical teaching and supervision. The entries cannot but stimulate discussion and the text is recommended. -- Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties This is an excellent edited collection of papers which, taken as a whole, demonstrates that political and social analysis must inform and shape any adequate understanding of the nature and psychological impact of abuse in its many forms. A brief review cannot do justice to the many strengths of this book, nor can it summarize all the ideas and lessons that it contains, not at least through its inclusion of case examples. Each chapter is self-contained and readers might want to dip into it in ways guided by their own professional and academic interests. But the book will prove most valuable to those who are willing to expand their horizons, reviewing their customary thinking about psychology, social policy and service provision in this field. -- Child and Family Social Work This is a book that should be read as part of our continuing professional development as it is making a major statement about the way things are developing at an academic and clinical level. -- Child Psychotherapy Trust Review It is rare to find authors from backgrounds as different as psychotherapy, sociology and women's history within one book, and rather than reducing the impact of the material, this breadth of knowledge and experience enhances the interest of the reader, as the multiple contexts for abuse are explored.. One of the aims of this book is enhance policymakers' understanding of the psychodynamics of abuse and by doing so to influence the strategies which they develop to deal with it. In my view, they succeed admirably in this aim. -- Richard J Marshall