This book is one that is focused on a subject of considerable recent and current interest to which psychoanalytic contributions have been very limited. The author, a child analyst, spent a number of years as principal investigator in child abuse for the NIMH at the Downstate Medical Center. This book attempts to extract from that experience and to present a dynamic understanding of the many facets of child maltreatment as well as attempting to learn appropriate strategies for its prevention and treatment. It is, as the title indicates, a handbook for mental health and child care professionals, and it is not specifically addressed to psychoanalysts. While it uses dynamic understanding and some aspects of psychoanalytic theory, there is no clinical information from psychoanalytic treatment, or even from long-term psychoanalytically