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Man as “individual” has emerged only in the last two or three hundred years of Western culture. The concept of man as a being to be studied and whose growth, uniqueness, and individuality are of primary importance, is only now receiving general implementation. One of the essential characteristics, therefore, which defines modern man and woman is involvement in human services. These days it seems that one is either the helped or the helper, or both. Persons involved in human services are not merely being fashionable; rather, each is personalizing his part in the evolution of our culture.
In principle, this is to be welcomed by all of us who are professionally and morally dedicated to the fostering of individual growth. However, there are at least two major drawbacks. In the cause of “helping,” many neuroticisms are justified in oneself and foisted on others. Indeed, whole sets of conflicts, claims, and idealizations may be subsumed under “being helpful.” Secondly, implications for parents have largely been ignored. It is universally accepted that workers in the mental health field need some degree of training, and although the family has come to be recognized as the primary influence on the growth of the individual, very little has been done in the area of education for parenthood. Parents are, therefore, often caught in a bind between their own perfectionistic demands on themselves to be “ideal” parents and their woefully inadequate experience and background in the basics. Thus, the cycle of self-justification and self-recrimination, the idealizing of neurotic trends and disparaging of healthy ones, is foreshadowed long before children are actually on the scene.
In Parent Power/Child Power, Dr. Helen DeRosis offers parents an anodyne for this painfully vicious cycle and, in addition, has outlined a potential syllabus for a preventive psychiatry-parent education program. Drawing upon her many years experience with parent discussion groups, her psychoanalytic training a