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This concise and interesting volume should be essential reading for all clinicians and advocates involved in the complex area of care orders, family dysfunction, and assessment of parenting. It is the result of a multidisciplinary conference, held in September 1985, which included judges, psychiatrists and other professions within the family justice system, involved in the protection and care of children. Papers were distributed in advance, to facilitate discussion, and the number of participants was kept small. This book reproduces the papers, responses and ensuing discussions, as well as having a brief commentary.
Mr Justice Thorpe (at the time a judge in the Family Court and currently a Lord Justice of Appeal) highlights the concern of many judges to understand more about theories of development of mind, and he himself finds psychoanalytic perspective of great value. However, he highlights the problems of mutual incomprehension between clinicians and lawyers, particularly in learning about a process which ‘seems individualistic if not competitive’ (p. 3) with language which is ‘highly technical and apparently exclusive of those who have not an understanding of the fundamental concepts’ (p. 4). The few exceptions he quotes are Anna Freud, Winnicott and Bowlby. Justice Thorpe's contribution reminds us all that reports which convey psychodynamic understanding should do so clearly. He implies that we clinicians should read more in other disciplines about how we can be experienced.
Mr Justice Wall (a judge of the Family Division of the High Court) contributes a complex paper investigating the use of expert witnesses. It clarifies the definition of an expert, but also the implications of such evidence. There is a masterly teasing out of the role of expert vis-à-vis the judge, concluding with his views that it is the ‘expert who advises and the judge who decides’ (p. 37). This is of course no easy matter in the Family Court, when the child in question very rarely gives di