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My main difficulty with Roger Kennedy's book is an uncertainty about the intended readership. The early chapters seem to be aimed at a wide range of professionals. They are written largely in non-technical language and communicate complex psychoanalytic themes clearly and simply as they are relevant to work with the very disturbed families who are
referred to the Family Unit at the Cassel Hospital. The facilities provided there for in-patient observation, assessment and treatment for whole families are exceptional, and Roger Kennedy does an excellent job of describing, perhaps to potential referrers, how the unit works and for which types of family it may work most successfully. He gives excellent case examples to illustrate his themes, and refers to relevant research succinctly. These early chapters have all appeared in other journals, but hold together well, in spite of some repetitions which could have been removed by tighter editing. The core chapter of the book, ‘A complete case history’, is a moving account of the careful and thoughtful way in which the multi-disciplinary staff of the unit work together through referral and in-patient treatment to rehabilitation at home of a mother and child. There is particular emphasis in this chapter on the role of the nurse therapists. Thereafter come some newly written chapters which have a more explicit psychoanalytic base. Here the language changes. In the chapter on ‘The abused child, the abused adult and recovered memories of abuse’ Roger Kennedy describes in some detail his work in his psychoanalytic practice with an adult patient who had been sexually abused as a child. This chapter was previously published in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy and it could provide a useful balance for therapists with adults by detailing the Cassel experience with abused adults and children. However, the earlier chapters are less likely to sustain the interest of psychotherapists, and the unevenness of the collage does finally disappoin