Parenting

Contemporary Clinical Perspectives

Edited by Steven Tuber City College of New York; author of Attachment, Play, and Authenticity: Win

Publication date:

24 June 2016

Length of book:

256 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Dimensions:

235x159mm
6x9"

ISBN-13: 9781442254817

Parenting:Contemporary Clinical Perspectives offers fresh insights into treating parents and their children that highlight the evolving role of parents throughout the lifespan and amidst contemporary social pressure and change. By drawing from their own personal experiences as well as those from clinical practice, distinguished clinicians and analysts examine each phase of parenting through a variety of lenses to tackle our biggest parenting questions. While we must be highly present for our children to help them develop a sense of self-worth, we must simultaneously step back if we want them to develop a sense of autonomy and individuality. As our role as parent changes, how can we maintain a sense of grace, humor, and perspective? How can our work in practice inform and enrich our parenting, and vice versa? Thoughtful and engaging, this volume is a valuable resource for family therapists and clinicians, especially those who are parents themselves.

Part I: Theorizing on the Process of Parenting

Parenting Across the Lifespan: Some Personal and Conceptual Musings / Steven Tuber, PhD, ABPP
Not Your Mother's Identity: Good-Enough Parenting in the Age of Maximization / Lisa Samstag, PhD and Nick Samstag, PhD
On Being Essential: Parenting, Immigration, and Acculturation / Diana Punales Morejon, PhD
We Are Always Essential / Ken Barish, PhD

Part II: Parenting and Its Impact on Clinical Work

The Therapist’s Experience as Parent: The Complex Interaction Between Parent Process and Clinical Work / Leslie Gibson, PhD
Parental Humility / Kevin Meehan, PhD and Elizabeth Zick, PhD
Rage, Forgiveness, and Acceptance: Parenting Through Difficult Moments / Paul Donahue, PhD
“I Can’t Stand Her”: The Role Of Hatred in Development / Marsha Levy Warren, PhD

Part III: The Impact of Clinical Work on Parenting

Transformative Aspects of Our Own Analyses and Their Resonance in Our Parenting and Work with Patients / Lauren Levine, PhD
Why Did You Choose Me?: Some Thoughts on the Wish to Have a Child and the Child’s Wished-For Parent / Banu Seckin-Ertal, PhD
Self-Disclosure, Reverie, and Countertransference as Essential Aspects of Psychotherapy / Monique S. Bowen, PhD
Becoming a Grandparent: Memories, Identifications, and Reenactments / Jerry Meyer, MD
Gardening in the Softball League: How Teachers Parent / Benjamin Harris, PhD

In this book, the contributors expertly argue that successful parents realize the objectives of parenting depend on a host of factors, including the normative developmental needs of children and the contexts surrounding families. As children mature or familial contexts change, successful parents modify their objectives to match new conditions. The following statement appears within the work’s introduction: ‘This book has, at its core paradigm, an intrinsic paradox: while we must become essential to our children as early as possible in their lives in order to help them create an internalized experience of being valued, we must simultaneously give up this exclusive essentialness over time if we want them to develop a sense of autonomy and individuality.’ Thirteen chapters by clinicians and parents thoroughly explore topics such as various stages of parent roles, the essence of maternal/paternal identities, the stages of pride parents experience, the impacts felt by clinicians with clients dealing with parental issues, and the ability to recognize grandparenting as an opportunity to reenact and rework the original essentialness paradox. These topics are methodically explored with the central theme of how parents can maintain a continuity of purpose as they face normative developmental changes in their roles as parents.

Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers.