Taming the troublesome child : American families, child guidance, and the limits of psychiatric authority / Kathleen W. Jones.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Jones, Kathleen W.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Child mental health services--United States--History--20th century.

Child mental health services.

Child guidance clinics--United States--History--20th century.

Child guidance clinics.

Problem children--United States--History--20th century.

Problem children.

At-risk youth--United States--History--20th century.

At-risk youth.

History.

United States.

Problem youth--United States--History--20th century.

Local Subjects:

Problem youth--United States--History--20th century.

Problem children--United States--History--20th century.

Child mental health services--United States--History--20th century.

Physical Description:

310 pages ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass : Harvard University Press, 1999.

Summary:

When our children act up--whether they're just moody and rebellious or taking drugs and committing crimes--our solution, so often now, is to send them to a psychiatrist or developmental psychologist for help. What makes us think this will work? How did we come to rely on psychological explanations--and corrections--for juvenile misconduct?

In Taming the Troublesome Child, these questions lead to the complex history of "child guidance," a specialized psychological service developed early in the twentieth century. Kathleen Jones puts this professional history into the context of the larger culture of age, class, and gender conflict. Using the records of Boston's Judge Baker Guidance Center from 1920 to 1945, she looks at the relationships among the social activists, doctors, psychologists, social workers, parents, and young people who met in the child guidance clinic, then follows the clinicians as they adapt delinquency work to the problems of nondelinquent children--an adaptation that often entailed a harsh critique of American mothers. Her book reveals the uses to which professionals and patients have put this interpretation of juvenile misbehavior, and the conditions that mother-blaming has imposed on social policy and private child rearing to this day.

Contents:

1 Constructing the Troublesome Child 10

2 William Healy and the Progressive Child Savers 38

3 Building the Child Guidance Team 62

4 Popularizing Child Guidance 91

5 The Problem Behavior of the Everyday Child 120

6 Children and Child Guidance 148

7 The Critique of Mother hood 174

8 The Limits of Psychiatric Authority 205.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0674868110

OCLC:

40631659