This is a book that above all is subversive in its intent, but subversive in the most healthy and creative meaning of the term. It contains clinically sound convictions, but also an impassioned social and political awareness about how psychoanalytic thinking can function as a refuge in mental health services and as a resource to combat the dominant and depersonalising culture which so undermines attention to complexity... undoubtedly this book is an important resource for professionals who are inundated with information and guidelines, which run counter to their natural inclinations, to listen to the often inter-generational story their clients bring to the consulting room. - Joan Herrmann, Journal of Child Psychotherapy, Vol. 37, Iss. 1, 2011
Using her experience as a psychologist and psychotherapist1 Schmidt Neven has written a book that provides guidance for those working with children on how to place children's behaviour within a social and relational context in order to 'hear' what that behaviour may be communicating. By seeking to do this Schmidt Neven argues that ' professionals are acting as powerful advocates for the rights of children... Schmidt Neven's book... provokes us to think what lies behind behaviours, to wonder and be curious and thereby develop practices that promote children's mental health and wellbeing. - Anne Farrelly, International Journal of Equity and Innovation in Early Childhood, Vol 9, No 1, 2011
This is a book that above all is subversive in its intent, but subversive in the most healthy and creative meaning of the term. It contains clinically sound convictions, but also an impassioned social and political awareness about how psychoanalytic thinking can function as a refuge in mental health services and as a resource to combat the dominant and depersonalising culture which so undermines attention to complexity... undoubtedly this book is an important resource for professionals who are inundated with information and guidelines, which run counter to their natural inclinations, to listen to the often inter-generational story their clients bring to the consulting room. - Joan Herrmann, Journal of Child Psychotherapy, Vol. 37, Iss. 1, 2011
Using her experience as a psychologist and psychotherapist1 Schmidt Neven has written a book that provides guidance for those working with children on how to place children's behaviour within a social and relational context in order to 'hear' what that behaviour may be communicating. By seeking to do this Schmidt Neven argues that ' professionals are acting as powerful advocates for the rights of children... Schmidt Neven's book... provokes us to think what lies behind behaviours, to wonder and be curious and thereby develop practices that promote children's mental health and wellbeing. - Anne Farrelly, International Journal of Equity and Innovation in Early Childhood, Vol 9, No 1, 2011
This is an excellent and sometimes complex book, which is impressive in its range and depth but remains accessible to a reader without detailed priorknowledge of psychoanalytic or attachment theory... It is refreshing to read something which so passionately and knowledgeably advocates the need for professionals to think alongside their clients, trying to understand the presenting difficulties in the context of individual child development, intergencrational fam ily relationships and environmental factors. - Nerys Hughes, Seen and Heard, Volume 22, 2012
