Parenting

Contemporary Clinical Perspectives

Edited by Steven Tuber

Not available to order

Publication date:

24 June 2016

Length of book:

256 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

ISBN-13: 9781442254824

Parenting: Contemporary Clinical Perspectives offers fresh insights into treating parents and their children that highlight the evolving role of parents throughout the lifespan and amidst contemporary social pressure and change. By drawing from their own personal experiences as well as those from clinical practice, distinguished clinicians and analysts examine each phase of parenting through a variety of lenses to tackle our biggest parenting questions. While we must be highly present for our children to help them develop a sense of self-worth, we must simultaneously step back if we want them to develop a sense of autonomy and individuality. As our role as parent changes, how can we maintain a sense of grace, humor, and perspective? How can our work in practice inform and enrich our parenting, and vice versa? Thoughtful and engaging, this volume is a valuable resource for family therapists and clinicians, especially those who are parents themselves.

Part I: Theorizing on the Process of Parenting

Parenting Across the Lifespan: Some Personal and Conceptual Musings / Steven Tuber, PhD, ABPP
Not Your Mother's Identity: Good-Enough Parenting in the Age of Maximization / Lisa Samstag, PhD and Nick Samstag, PhD
On Being Essential: Parenting, Immigration, and Acculturation / Diana Punales Morejon, PhD
We Are Always Essential / Ken Barish, PhD

Part II: Parenting and Its Impact on Clinical Work

The Therapist’s Experience as Parent: The Complex Interaction Between Parent Process and Clinical Work / Leslie Gibson, PhD
Parental Humility / Kevin Meehan, PhD and Elizabeth Zick, PhD
Rage, Forgiveness, and Acceptance: Parenting Through Difficult Moments / Paul Donahue, PhD
“I Can’t Stand Her”: The Role Of Hatred in Development / Marsha Levy Warren, PhD

Part III: The Impact of Clinical Work on Parenting

Transformative Aspects of Our Own Analyses and Their Resonance in Our Parenting and Work with Patients / Lauren Levine, PhD
Why Did You Choose Me?: Some Thoughts on the Wish to Have a Child and the Child’s Wished-For Parent / Banu Seckin-Ertal, PhD
Self-Disclosure, Reverie, and Countertransference as Essential Aspects of Psychotherapy / Monique S. Bowen, PhD
Becoming a Grandparent: Memories, Identifications, and Reenactments / Jerry Meyer, MD
Gardening in the Softball League: How Teachers Parent / Benjamin Harris, PhD

Overall, I enjoyed most of the chapters in this book. I am not a psychoanalyst and lean more toward cognitive-behavioral approaches to therapy but I have not forgotten my psychodynamic roots and appreciate the reminder that while symptom relief is important, exploring relational issues and their effects on an unconscious level can contribute much to a client’s improvement. I liked learning about the effects parenting has had on other clinician parents. I especially liked being reintroduced to psychoanalysis as a more practical practice. Several years ago when my son with ADHD was an adolescent, I went to a psychoanalytic therapist for a year. It did not help me with the struggles I was having. I became very disillusioned about that form of therapy then and consciously chose to move in the direction of more immediate symptom relief in my own practice. In light of what I have just read, I would say it was a case of me as clinician being affected by my experience as parent, the implications of which I had not previously taken the time to consider. I feel encouraged to revisit this decision.