Fostering parental growth and enhancing the therapeutic alliance: key tasks for the child psychotherapist

ABSTRACT

This paper argues that parent work should occupy a more central place in the work of child psychotherapists, as it fosters an increase in parents' skill, insight and growth in the service of their offspring. Parent work is also crucial in strengthening the alliance with the therapist who sees the child or young person. The capacity to offer parents psycho-education, respectful challenge, empathy and support at a deeper level than is currently possible is likely to be cost effective, even though it may require more clinical hours devoted to the carer/s. Clinical time can be saved by the opportunity to engage in preventative work, briefer work and potentially more secure and enduring outcomes with the child.

KEYWORDS:

• Parent work
• parent psychotherapy
• therapeutic alliance
• psycho-education
• preventative work
• sole clinician

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. By parent or parents, I mean the person or people who are the primary carer/s of a child.

2. The term Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service reinforces this somewhat individualising focus on the child or adolescent.

3. The stage of ‘parenthood’ may not, of course, only be expressed through having one’s own children. There are many ways to engage fruitfully with others and to leave a legacy.

4. Because of course, the parent may be a lone parent.

5. Identifying details of this work have been substantially altered whilst hopefully preserving the integrity of the accounts in terms of the key themes.

6. Her symptoms could be classified as ‘Avoidant/Restrictive Eating Disorder (ARFID) (DiRe, 2019).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Deborah Marks

Deborah Marks PhD is Consultant Psychotherapist working with adults, parents, couples and children at The Orchard Therapy Centre and in private practice. She is tutor on the Masters in Psychoanalytic Observation at NSCAP. She has published several journal articles and book chapters on social exclusion, gender and disability, and is author of Disability: Controversial  Debates and Psychosocial Perspectives.