The Approach to the Parent-a Study in Social Treatment. By Esther Heath. New York:  The Commonwealth Fund, 1933. Pp.  163.

Here is a challenging little book. It is a record of four case analyses from the files of the Child Guidance Clinic in Los Angeles and Pasadena, where Miss Heath is a psychiatric social worker. The cases have been selected, says the introduction, with a view to showing “how methods of social treatment have evolved in accordance with changing viewpoints.” The time-honored method of the long and involved social history to which we have become accustomed in social case work, here gives place to the development of a dynamic relationship between the worker and the parent, whereby the parent is stimulated intellectually and emotionally to work through her own problems so as to evolve satisfying and constructive parent-child relationships. The social worker is left free to choose any approach that seems best to her in the individual case. History and treatment go hand in hand. Indeed, in some cases there is a minimum of history and the parent is encouraged to begin immediately the analysis of her own problems. Clinic workers have realized, almost from the beginning of child guidance work, that the problem child is the result of parental problems, and that intensive work with him is of little avail if the home