Character Disorders in Parents of Delinquents, Beatrice Simcox Reiner and Irving Kaufman, New York, Family Service Association of America, 1959, pp 179, ISBN 0 87304 089 9

Abstract

My first job in social work was as a child care officer in a Children's Department in the late 1960s. I worked with children and families in need. Some parents were neglectful, others abusive. The lives of many families appeared chaotic. It was often difficult to make sense of what was going on. Some families kept me at a distance. Others beat a daily path to the office presenting one crisis after another. Unpredictability seemed to be the order of most days. Work was never dull but it could be hard to fathom. Children ran away, failed to thrive, skipped school, burgled houses, spread faeces over bedroom walls, or ran rings around their helpless parents. Coming from a natural science background I was keen to make sense of all this confusion and behaviour. I wanted to understand why drama and catastrophe always erupted whenever a mother felt under stress, or why a father broke down in tears and drank heavily knowing that his behaviour was likely to result in the removal of his children, something he said he would do anything to avoid. But it all seemed a sad, funny, despairing, wonderful, upsetting, tragic puzzle and all I could do was support, be there, react, comfort and advise.