Myths of Childhood

Joel Paris, MD Professor of Psychiatry McCill University Montreal, Quebec, Canada

"Favoring genetic factors and non-familial environmental factors over early experiences as influences on personality, this book discusses research indicating the importance of genetic predispositions in the causation of mental disorders and describes the need to place greater value on the quality of the relationship between patient and therapist than on the link between the past and the present as a curative factor." -- Resources in Education"Joel Paris has written--again--another lucid, synthetic, and provocative book that challenges fundamental assumptions that have dominated our field in the last century. I suspect the author's mission would be accomplised if he riles unswerving practitioners of dogma and stimulates students to quetion traditional concepts and shibboleths. This masterful book deserves to be read by both these groups and would serve as a marvelous catalyst for discussion and reflection." -- CanadianJournal of Psychiatry

• PART I CHILDHOOD AND ADULTHOOD: THE EVIDENCE Establishing Cause and Effect The Primacy of Early Experience Adversity and Outcome, Resilience: Surviving a Bad Childhood PART II CHILDHOOD AND ADULTHOOD: MYTHS Childhood, History, and Society, Childhood and Psychoanalysis, The Myth of Recovered Memory, Childhood, Attachment, and Behavior PART III, CHILDHOOD AND MENTAL DISORDERS Genes, Behavior, and Symptoms Personality and Psychopathology, PART 3 CHILDHOOD AND TREATMENT Childhood in Psychotherapy, Temperament and Psychotherapy PART V IMPLICATIONS Parenting, What We Do and Don't Know About Childhood