This book is a case study of a pregnant teenage girl in Madrid and the therapeutic educator who accompanied her. The broader context is of attachment disorder, borderline personality disorder, adoption, immigration, and abuse, as the girl succumbed to and fought against the lure of prostitution and exploitative men. Dedication, humor, roleplaying, metaphor, and presence characterized over two years of hard work. Simultaneously the book is a primer in relational and systems theory. Lyrical, emotional, personal, and gripping, the story is of successful therapeutic work with intensely painful feelings.
Daniel Gensler, PhD., William Alanson White Institute, New York, NY.
This book is an original and
outstanding contribution to the psychotherapy of troubled adolescents. Casado-Frankel and Herrero have written a richly detailed, deeply empathic, and unusually self-reflective account of intensive therapeutic work with a traumatized adolescent girl. It is both an engrossing story and an insightful meditation on the ambiguities, interpersonal nuances, and potential rewards of this difficult and uncertain work. Readers of this book will come away, as I did, with a deeper understanding of the complex, malignant effects of trauma in the lives of children and how, with time and patience, therapy can be a healing process.
Kenneth Barish, PhD., Clinical Professor of Psychology, Weill Cornell Medical College. Author,
How to Be a Better Child Therapist: An Integrative Model for Therapeutic Change.
This book is a noteworthy and creative contribution to the burgeoning clinical literature on treatment of early relational and intergenerationally transmitted trauma. The authors demonstrate and integrate a discussion of early relational trauma as relevant to work with international adoptees, cultural complications, and the psychoanalytic developmental theories upon which the Accompaniment Model is based. De-mystifying theory while bringing to life the complexity of this work, the struggles of a young therapist attempting to maintain a reflective stance during a stormy journey make this a worthwhile read for novice and sophisticated therapist alike.
Susan C. Warshaw, EdD, ABPP, Editor in Chief, Journal of
Infant, Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy.
