Short description:

First published in 1985, The Child in Context is the first to bring together the practice of educational psychology and the ‘family-systems’ theories regularly practised by psychologists, psychiatrists, and social workers in their attempt to understand the relationship between individuals and social systems of which they are a part.

Long description:

First published in 1985, The Child in Context is the first to bring together the practice of educational psychology and the ‘family-systems’ theories regularly practised by psychologists, psychiatrists, and social workers in their attempt to understand the relationship between individuals and the social systems of which they are a part. The author, an educational psychologist herself, demonstrates how the educational psychologist can, in her efforts to help children who are failing in mainstream education, incorporate an understanding of family processes into her work with the child and his family. This integrative approach is also applied to the other system—the school—to which the child belongs, and to the interrelationship between different professionals involved in the management of the child.

This book was written in the wake of the 1981 Education Act, at a time when educational psychologists were increasing their contact with parents. The discussion is illustrated with examples from the writer’s own experience with children of various ages and nationalities and covers a wide variety of behavioural and developmental difficulties.

Review of the first publication:

‘It is a thoughtful book… The style is clear without being condescending and the author takes pains to carry the reader along by avoiding jargon and by digressing from time to time into neat elucidations of difficult, complicated or problematic issues.’

— Bill Becker, Educational Psychology in Practice, Volume 2, Issue 2

Table of Contents:

1. Introduction  2. The children  3. Consultation  4. Parents as partners  5. Family therapy  6. The child’s ‘symptoms’ and the family system  7. The family under stress  8. Involving parents: the early stages  9. Understanding and helping the child and his family  1. Troubled children, troubled family systems: two case-histories  11. Partnership and the family system  12. Learning difficulties  13. Counselling in a family-systems framework  14. Joint systems: psychologist, family and school  15. Joint systems and school refusal  16. Parents and children from different cultural backgrounds  17. The interrelationship between helping professionals  18. Family-systems theory and the practising educational psychologist