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This is an enriching, eclectic collection of papers edited by an educational psychologist with a strong interest in psychoanalytic approaches to the understanding of children. The contributing authors include child psychotherapists, psychiatrists, bereavement counsellors and psychologists, all of whom offer highly individual perspectives on children with particular constellations of vulnerability.
The theme of a “secret life” to be recognised and understood in working with vulnerable children is a useful one and serves to unify the varied professional perspectives. The idea that there are underlying processes, confusions, conflicts, something hidden to be engaged with in the children we meet in our professional work is not likely to be accepted as axiomatic amongst the average multi-disciplinary team. However, such thinking is bread and butter to child psychotherapists. There is more than a passing similarity between the notion of “secret life” and Melanie Klein's concept of an “internal world”. Indeed the child psychotherapists among the authors interpret secret life in this way. However, there is also scope for more systems oriented approaches in terms of family secrets, scripts, interpersonal dynamics and socio-cultural factors to enrich our view of what is obscure to us in our patients.
Children may be vulnerable by constitution, as a result of trauma, neglect, or disability, or they may be passing through particular stages of development which render them more vulnerable than usual. In reality, these aspects