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  • 21 - Talking with children and their understanding of mental illness

  • from Part V - Child-sensitive therapeutic interventions
    • By Alan Cooklin, The Family Project, Camden & Islington Mental Health & Social Care Trust London, UK
  • Edited by Michael Göpfert, Webb House Democratic Therapeutic Community, Crewe, Jeni Webster, 5 Boroughs Partnership, Warrington, Mary V. Seeman, University of Toronto
  • Book:
    Parental Psychiatric Disorder
    Published online:
    09 August 2009
    Print publication:
    13 May 2004, pp 292-305

  • Summary

    The title of this chapter highlights an important starting point for what follows. All children with mentally ill parents construct some form of understanding about changes they observe in their parents' behaviour. If professionals are to talk helpfully to a child about his parent's illness, the talk needs to be a dialogue or dialectic between the different knowledge and understanding of the child on one hand and the professional on the other. In other words, it is no use just 'telling' the child, the professional needs to try to find out how the child understands what has happened to his mother, father, brother or sister, to talk about how he has worked it out, and then to fit the professional's knowledge into the discussion. It is the mental health worker who should have the clearest understanding of the parent's illness. The chapter presents a case example.