An Under Fives’ Counselling Service and its Relation to Questions of Assessment

Summary

This chapter describes the Under Fives’ Counselling Service at the Tavistock Clinic and its approach to working with parents, infants, and young children. The service provides brief counselling, usually up to five sessions, with the aim of responding to difficulties in the parent-child relationship and helping families understand their concerns.

Miller focuses particularly on the relationship between assessment and brief therapeutic work. She suggests that assessment does not always need to lead to long-term psychotherapy. In some cases, a carefully conducted assessment and a limited number of therapeutic consultations can help parents understand their child’s difficulties and make meaningful changes in their relationship.

The chapter emphasizes the importance of observing the child, listening carefully to the parents, and understanding the emotional relationship between them. The therapist also needs to consider the family’s strengths, anxieties, and capacity to think about the child’s needs. Overall, Miller presents assessment as an active clinical process that can itself have a therapeutic value, particularly when working with very young children and their families