Introduction
I. Child Abuse in Context
1. Why Are Child-at-Risk Cases So Difficult?
2. Routes to Therapy
3. Becoming a Client of the Welfare
4. Working-Class Life and the Family Ideal
5. The Genealogy of Relationships
II. The Therapist as Power Broker
6. Initial Meetings: Earning the Parents' Trust
7. Working with the Welfare in Child-at-Risk Cases
8. Raising the Stakes in Child-at-Risk Cases: Eliciting and
Maintaining Parents' Motivation
9. Rewriting the Story of Abuse
10. Creating a Relationship Discourse
11. Conclusion
Appendix: The Research Project
Laurie K. MacKinnon, PhD, is a family therapist in private practice as the Director of Insite Therapy and Consulting in Sydney, Australia. Since 1985, she has lectured in family therapy and provided supervision and training to a number of Australian organizations. Originally from Calgary, Canada, where she received her masters in social work and began her training and practice in family therapy, she received her doctorate from the University of Sydney, Australia. She is an Approved Supervisor of the American Association of Marital and Family Therapy and has published a number of articles relating to theory and clinical practice.
MacKinnon's book draws clear lines between the high table of her
ideas and the kitchen table of her practice. The examples and
anecdotes that illustrate her procedural building blocks are
logical and set forth in lucid, intelligent prose. As a result, the
book is both fascinating and enjoyable to read. This is a book of
originality, skill, and daring, possessing exceptional synthetic
power. After ceaseless wrangles among family therapists, feminists,
child protection authorities, and trauma experts, and in spite of
the enduring conflict between the aims of therapy and social
control, MacKinnon has come up with a framework that deals
respectfully and elegantly with all these agendas. My prediction is
that her book will become a bible in the field. It will also form a
table around which warring therapeutic clans, as well as families
caught in the middle, can gather to make their peace. --Lynn
Hoffman, ACSW, Adjunct Lecturer, Smith School of Social Work
MacKinnon provides a compelling analysis of what makes
child-at-risk cases so difficult for therapists, child protection
workers, and families. Drawing on her own research, she elucidates
the experiences of parents who become caught in a system they feel
to be oppressive and punitive. But it need not be so: MacKinnon's
extensive clinical experience, and her appreciation of issues of
class, gender, and power, are the bases for a detailed account of
an alternative approach founded on trust--which counters oppression
without itself being oppressive. This important book charts a new
path for therapists working in this difficult field. --John
Carpenter, CPsychol, Director, Centre for Applied Social Studies,
University of Durham, UK, Co-editor, Journal of Family Therapy
Laurie MacKinnon's deeply thoughtful and helpful book on the family
treatment of children at risk is in the best tradition of family
therapy.... Everyone who does this work needs brave and detailed
books like this--books that in their thick description walk the
walk, providing expert guidance, reassurance, and innovative
technical suggestions that mobilize agency and create space for
dialogue between all the parties. --From the Foreword by Virginia
Goldner, PhD, Co-Director, Gender and Violence Project, Ackerman
Institute for the Family
- This work is exceptionally readable and very appropriate for an
undergraduate library. It should be required reading not only for
undergraduates interested in the issue of child abuse but also for
graduate students in a variety of majors and professionals who must
deal with child abuse. Strongly recommended. --Choice, 7/18/1999
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