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When families are in conflict, high levels of emotional activity such as anger, fear, loss and grief in the adults involved can affect children and young people in the family, particularly as a result of conscious and unconscious adult emotional pressure and manipulation. An aspect of this is when one parent uses their power over a child to excommunicate the other parent. This is sometimes called parental alienation. This terminology arises from the work of Richard Gardner, who developed the notion of Parental Alienation Syndrome. What lies behind the label parental alienation, the journey and implications of that phenomenon are explored. A consideration of the limitations of the UK court system reveals the lonely predicament of the child. This paper considers how psychotherapists may help young people to make sense of their experience of being caught up in destructive family narratives by claiming their own understanding and narrative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution explores the perspective of a group of parents whose children are hosted in a residential community in Northern Italy. This community hosts children with diagnosis of psychosis, separated from their families by medical decision or by judgement. This compulsory separation leads to a relationship between the institutional network and parents characterised by a struggle for power. In Hegelian terms, there is a creation of an imaginary relation betweenmasterandslave. In this situation, three main questions emerged: (1) What can be done with the parental suffering, anguish and aggression caused by this separation? (2) Where placing these affections inside the institutional work with children? (3) What effect will produce this situation, on the institutional transference? A place named ‘Parents’ place’ was created. During these meetings, parents were invited to speak about their own children with the professionals of the community. Using a theory-driven conceptual framework, Imaginary and Symbolic registers of Lacan, the transcripts of this meeting group were analysed. Analysis highlights how this work with parents allows elaborating in a symbolic way this separation, producing a symbolic adjustment of the imaginary relationship between the network of institutions and parents with consequences on the clinical practice with children. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Hegemonic mental health service approaches stress the need for ‘accurate’ diagnosis in order to understand what the correct ‘treatment’ should be. I review the evidence on how far diagnosis in psychiatry has helped advance scientific knowledge and clinical practice and conclude that it hasn’t. I then examine how National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines in relation to children’s behaviour problems reflects the lack of progress that results from adopting a diagnostic approach. Taking mental health practice beyond reliance on narrow non-evidence-based diagnostic algorithms can be developed by adopting existing projects such as the Partners for Change Outcome Management Systems project. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]