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Recent experience with interventions designed to promote the well-being of children and to prevent mental health problems has identified particular challenges in families with disordered parents. These families are often very difficult to engage in mental health promotion and prevention programs, and they may be especially resistant to intervention. The Effects of Parental Dysfunction on Children explores the current level of knowledge regarding the processes by which a number of parental disorders influence the developmental outcomes of children.
Renowned scientist-practitioners from the United States, Canada, and Australia contributed ten chapters to this volume addressing the topic of the effects of parental behavioral and emotional disorders on children. The major topics covered by this book focus on children growing up in families in which the parents suffer from major psychosocial difficulties, including schizophrenia, depression, alcoholism, drug addiction, anxiety disorders, intellectual disabilities, and antisocial personality disorder.

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List of Contributors. Preface. Conceptual Overview. 1. The role of endogenous and exogenous risk factors in the genesis of schizophrenia; E.F. Walker. 2. Familial factors and substance use disorders; K.R. Merikangas. Parental disorders. 3. A longitudinal study of aggressive and withdrawn children into adulthood: Patterns of parenting and risk to offspring; L.A. Serbin, et al. 4. Preventing depression in children through resiliency promotion: The Preventive Intervention Project; W.R. Beardslee, et al. 5. Learning and intimacy in the families of anxious children; M.R. Dadds. 6. Understanding the association between parent and child antisocial behavior; P.J. Frick, B.R. Loney. 7. Growing up in an alcoholic family: Structuring pathways for risk aggregation and theory-driven intervention; H.E. Fitzgerald, et al. 8. Helping children with fetal alcohol syndrome and related conditions: A clinician´s overview; H. Carmichael Olson. 9. Children of substance abusing parents: Current findings from the Focus on Families Project; R.F. Catalano, et al. 10. Children of parents with intellectual disabilities; M.A. Feldman. Index.

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From the reviews:

"Highly recommended for upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals."
Choice, 40:5 (2003)
"Overall, the book is a sound addition to the field of psychology and sheds light on the most current thought and research involving parental dysfunctions and the developmental effects on children."
(Nicholas Greco IV, MS)

"It is a collection of nine chapters taken from a symposium in Banff. The chapters range fairly widely, from the general review of the causation of schizophrenia to longitudinal studies. ... there are interesting and unusual nuggets to be found. These include a very thoughtful chapter on the association between parent and child anti-social behaviour ... that shows that fathers with anti-social personality disorder have children with higher rates of conduct disorder whether or not they are in contact with them." (Stephen Scott, Child and Adolescent Mental Health, Vol. 9 (4), 2004)

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