Searching for the Best Interests of the Child—Intervention with an Abusive Mother and her Toddler

THIS PAPER DESCRIBES THE THERAPEUTIC INTERVENTIONS IN the case of an abusive mother and her young daughter. Extending the methods developed by Fraiberg (1980), we adopted a flexible integration of developmental guidance, infant-parent psychotherapy, emotional support, and practical assistance. Our efforts to use the nursery school as an aid in improving the emotional climate of the child's daily life were rooted in Anna Freud's seminal work in this area (1969). Several of the techniques used to alleviate the child's pain upon separation from the mother were suggested by the work of Provence et al. (1977). Perhaps the single most striking feature of this case was the need for continuous reassessment of what constituted the best interests of the child in the midst of changing and often chaotic circumstances. These reassessments required consultation and