When a Child Has Been Abused: Towards Psychoanalytic Understanding and Therapy

This important and wide-ranging book explores the world of a child or young person who has been abused or neglected. It seeks to understand their world, to ease the pain from which they suffer, and to heal the wounds that the abuse has left.

Examining how abuse always takes place in the context of relationships, and involves a misuse of power that causes a traumatic overwhelming of the child or adolescent, abuse also evokes strong countertransference. This affects interventions, particularly...