Growing Up Observed: Tales From Analysts' Children. Herbert S. Strean (Ed.). New York:  Haworth Press, 1987.  90 pp.

In this candid and unique book, Herbert Strean explores the thoughts and feelings of therapists' children and grandchildren “growing up observed.” He observes that being the child of an analyst entails special difficulties as well as rewards. He also devotes a portion of his book to the treatment of the children of analysts. The twenty-one contributors, who range in age from seven years old to over eighty, express both positive and negative

feelings toward their analyst parents and grandparents, ranging from resentment to appreciation.

Common complaints are that the children felt intruded upon by unwelcome interpretations; the parents worked too many hours and were not often available for their children; the parents tortured their children with psychoanalytic talk. The children generally grew to appreciate their parents for giving them emotional enrichment and the ability to make healthy choices for themselves.

The daughter of Franz Alexander expresses feelings ranging from resentment to admiration and finally to compassion for her father. As a child, she perceived that her father had a love affair with his work that occupied him even on weekends and vacations. She always felt that her father's occupation was “slightly deviant.” She describes her difficulties as an adolescent in being recognized as a person in her own right. As a teenager, she felt that her desire to undergo psychotherapy produced great conflict in the family: her father thought that something must have gone wrong in her formative years to make this necessary. The gift that her father gave her was the family atmosphere that allowed all hostile and other feelings to be expressed verbally in an open manner. She noticed that this freedom was lacking in her friends' families.

The son of Paul Federn shared a similar freedom in the acceptance of sexual feelings in the family. He notes that having had an analyst for a father did not prevent his parents from making errors; being an analyst does not guarantee