Fathers and Their Families

Although a great deal has been written about the development of children, the mother-child relationship, and the differing psychologies of women and men, the study of fathers, fathering, and fatherhood has, until very recently, been virtually ignored. Fathers and Their Families redresses this situation with original contributions covering fathering and fatherhood in their interacting psychological, familial, and social dimensions. In 28 chapters and extensive editorial commentary, the editors and their contributors explore the changing roles of fathers - changes prompted partly by societal shifts and partly by changes in the family and in "traditional" parental roles.

The broad questions that guide the editors and contributors could not be more timely. Among the topical studies contained in this collection are illuminating examinations of fathers as single parents, readiness for grandfatherhood, transition to fatherhood, father-daughter relationships, and father-son relationships. Chapters involving ruptured families, divorce and fathers, and the treatment challenges of working with fathers, will be of special interest to clinicians of various backgrounds and orientations.

Throughout this volume, the emphasis is less on intrapsychic and dyadic relationships than on the total family system and the intrafamilial, intergenerational, and societal forces that shape paternal behavior. In this ranging , systematic approach, Fathers and Their Families speaks to the concerns of clinical social workers and family therapists. But it will also be enormously helpful to psychoanalysts, psychiatrists, and clinical psychologists, for whom it can be depended upon to broaden the vision, and thereby enlarge the context, that informs individual psychotherapy. For developmental psychologists, students of the family, and clinicians alike, it promises to be a revelation, a lifting of the blinders that for centuries have sustained that most sacrosanct of icons, the father.

I: Development Revised 1. Fatherhood and Father-Child Relationships: Five Years of Research, Lamb, Oppenhein 2. The Paternal Imago, Lansky 3. Fatherhood from the Perspective of Object Relations Theory and Relational Systems Theory, Muir 4. Fathers as Single Parents: Object Relations Beyond Mother, Neubauer 5. Toiletry Revisited: An Integration of Developing Concepts and the Father's Role in Toilet Training, Shopper 6. Readiness for Grandfatherhood and the Shifting Tide, Cath II: Transition to Fatherhood 7. Tomorrow's Fathers: The Anticipation of Fatherhood, Gerson 8.Risk Factors in the Transition to Fatherhood, Osofsky, Culp 9. Flight from Fatherhood, Gurwitt III: Father-Daughter Relationships 10. Fathers and Daughters: Early Tones, Later Echoes, Tessman 11. Paternal Influence in Early Child Development, Pacella 12.The Paternal Possibility: The Father's Contribution to the Adolescent Daughter When the Mother is Disturbed and a Denigrated Figure, Balsam IV: Father-Son Relationships 13. The Riddle of Little Hans, Ross 14.Lincoln and the Fathers: Reflections on Idealization, Strozier, Cath 15. Calcium Light Night and Other Early Memories of Charles Ives, Feder 16. Overstimulation by a Father: An Alternative View of Charles Ives, Deutsch V: Cultural and Other Variations 17. Turkish Fathers and Their Families: A Study of Fathers and Their Families in a Transitional Society, Volkan, Cevik 18. Black Fathers, Comer 19. Papi, or the Child is Father to the Man, Palmeri 20. The Nurturing Male: A Longitudinal Study of Primary Nurturing Fathers, Pruett VI: Disrupted Families 21. So Near and Yet So Far: The Nonresident Father, Michaels 22. The Noncustodial Father: An Application of Solomonic Wisdom, Solnit 23. Divorce and Fathers: Some Intrapsychic Factors Affecting Outcome, Atkins VII: Treatment Challenges 24. Paternity and Transference: The Fatherhood of a Child Therapist, Wallace 25. Factors Affecting the Preoedipal and Oedipal Paternal Relationship in Girls: The Collusion to Exclude Father, Galenson 26.Issues in Fathering and How They are Reflected in the Psychoanalytic Treatment of Men, Gunsberg 27. Fathers of Psychotic Children: Clinical Observations and Approaches to Treatment, Schwartzman 28. Conflict and Resistance in the Treatment of Psychiatrically Hospitalized Fathers, Lansky, Simenstad

Stanley H. Cath, M.D., is Medical Director of the Family Advisory SErvice and Treatment Center, Belmont, Massachusetts. A faculty member of the Boston University School of Medicine and the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, he was formerly Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Tufts University School of Medicine.

Alan Gurwitt, M.D., is Lecturer, Cambridge Hospital, Harvard University and Associate Clinical Professor, Yale Child Study Center. He is a faculty member of the Western New England Institute for Psychoanalysis and the Hartford Child Psychiatry Training Consortium.

Linda Gunsberg, Ph.D., is a graduate of the New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. A member of the Editorial Board of the journal Psychoanalytic Inquiry, she is in private practice in New York City.