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A book linking child abuse, therapy and the law is long overdue. Kennedy promises in his introduction that what is to follow ‘is based on the assumption that the legal framework can help those working in the mental health field and a psychotherapeutic understanding of groups, families and individuals can aid lawyers in steering families more effectively through the legal process’. Would that this was possible! He is right to point out that the legal process used effectively can be of assistance to mental health professionals and, more importantly, to the children they serve. He also usefully highlights that a psychotherapeutic understanding can be beneficial to lawyers and their clients.
The book is a fascinating account of the Cassel Hospital's work with families, but it fails to deliver in terms of making the legal connections. There remains a book to be written in this area and Roger Kennedy gives enough indicators in this book that he is the person to write it. What is required is the detail of how the links can be made on a case by case basis and some analysis of how the legal process impacts on the abused child and his/her family.
Where Child Abuse, Psychotherapy and the Law does have enormous strength is in the detailed case studies of families treated at the Cassel. The work is described with families with severe emotional and psychological problems that have resulted in the child(ren) being abused. Fascinating links are made between psychoanalytic concepts, family systems theory and ideas regarding the therapeutic community and how these are brought to bear on the assessment and treatment of the families in residence.
The work is essentially child centred, reflecting the 1989 Children Act in which the child's rights are paramount. parents' capacities, as parents, are assessed from a psychoanalytic perspective. Any deficits in parental authority and responsibility are analysed in relation to the ‘child within’ the parent. It is evident that problems in the pare