Being With and Saying Goodbye ― Cultivating Therapeutic Attitude in Professional Practice

At a time of increasing financial pressure on families as well as the services that support them, children are doubly disadvantaged. The economical mass-provision of proven approaches appears to be an unquestionable strategy. In this frank and revealing book, written by an experienced child and adolescent psychiatrist of eclectic and questioning persuasion, the argument is made that we are travelling in the wrong direction. A blinkered pursuit of empirical evidence and uniform delivery is leading us away from any sensitive and reciprocal relationship between caring professionals and the young individuals whose interests they are there to serve.

Drawing on attachment and psychodynamic approaches, as well as systemic, values-based and mindful practice,Being With and Saying Goodbye describes an attitude that should be the prerequisite and medium of all child and adolescent work that has therapeutic intention. Unacknowledged, even reviled, this ghost in the machine is threatened with extinction.

Respectful of individuality, as well as the instinctual strengths and emerging autonomy of young people,Being With and Saying Goodbye challenges the fact-based, risk-averse, and quantifying milieu now prevalent. It provides a Yin to the dominant Yang, and makes a plea for the reinstatement of balance and personal discovery.