Book review · Red Sistémica
Of abuse and other excesses. Family maltreatment, between therapy and control
A book by the Barcelona psychiatrist and family therapist Juan Luis Linares on a subject that has become an ideological battlefield. His proposal: to look at family maltreatment as a human phenomenon, without demonising it or exiling it from the therapeutic field, and to address it where it takes place, in the relational fabric of the family.
To approach family maltreatment “as a human phenomenon”, and to approach it therapeutically where it takes place.
Presentation of the book
A contentious terrain
Family maltreatment is, beyond doubt, a subject of painful topicality. That is no doubt why it is also a contentious terrain: a crossroads of theoretical models and intervention strategies, and the battlefield of a range of ideologies.
Professionals in mental health, in social services, in child protection and in the other fields connected with childhood can find in this book keys that help them to see family maltreatment as a human phenomenon — avoiding the prejudices that demonise it, animalise it or masculinise it — and to address it therapeutically where it takes place: in the relational fabric of the family.
Who it is for
For the clinicians and practitioners who encounter maltreatment in a setting where care and social control compete for the same ground: mental health, social services, child protection. The title itself states the tension that the book works on — between therapy and control.
The author returned to the reception of this book and to the controversies it aroused in a text published shortly after it came out, which we have also translated: Polemical reflections on abuse.
This book review is an English translation of “Del abuso y otros desmanes. El maltrato Familiar, entre la terapia y el control”, published by Red Sistémica (first published in Red Sistémica). Translated and republished with the journal’s permission.
Read the original articleHow to cite this article
Des Champs, C. (2022). Of abuse and other excesses. Family maltreatment, between therapy and control (Complexe Systémique, Trans.). Complexe Systémique. https://app.complexe-systemique.com/en_GB/articles/of-abuse-and-other-excesses-family-maltreatment-between-therapy-and-control (Original work published in 2022 in Red Sistémica; republished in 2022 by Red Sistémica, https://redsistemica.ar/2022/08/01/del-abuso-y-otros-desmanes-el-maltrato-familiar-entre-la-terapia-y-el-control/)
To go further
- Polemical reflections on abuse. Some feedback from a seminar “Narratives of love, stories of abuse”Juan Luis Linares comes back to this book and to the controversy it aroused, in an exchange of letters.
- The silent cries of child abuse. Interview with Marco VannottiAnother systemic look at the maltreatment of children and at what it makes unspeakable.
- Psychological abuse in the family and in other contextsThe non-physical forms of maltreatment, those that leave the fewest visible traces.
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