Folie a Deux: An Experience of One-To-One Therapy

Those working with families in the field of child abuse often find themselves becoming intimately involved with family law. A legal framework can aid those working in the mental health field, and a psychotherapeutic understanding of individuals, families, and groups can help lawyers steer families more effectively and humanely through the legal process.

Roger Kennedy describes and analyzes the work of the Cassel Hospital in England, an internationally renowned center for the treatment of families with severe emotional and psychological problems, whose children are at risk and have been abused. For such families and their mental health workers, the law can be an emergency escape route for the abused child. Through detailed case studies, the author illustrates the work of the hospital, including in-depth psychotherapeutic work and rehabilitation with the families, the purpose of which is to avoid the finality of legal proceedings and inevitable breakup of families.