You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
In this book dedicated to parents, Flescher seeks to document his conclusions thoroughly, in anticipation of the unconscious and even open resistance of parents. He hopes the weight of his evidence will effect
changes in the attitudes of parents—and analysts—toward children, as he feels that a parallel exists between destructive parental influences and the countertransference responses which cause analysts to fail in their therapeutic efforts.
The concise summary of classical analytic thinking in the first chapter should be very useful to the therapist beginning work with children and parents. Flescher suggests that this and other theoretical chapters be skipped by unsophisticated parents.
In other works Flescher has described his use of dual therapy in which the patient is seen alternately by a male and a female therapist. This provides each therapist with an opportunity to observe from a distance the patient's interaction with the other. Both child and parents are treated with this method of dual therapy, which Flescher bases on the “triadic principle,” which “is rooted in the proposition that a child is not only the biological but also the psychological product of both parents.”
The author disclaims having originated dual therapy, and the book suffers from an insufficient description of the method. The work's usefulness lies in its summary of theory and its many examples of unresolved Oedipal conflicts displaced onto the following generation.