Indispensable interaction : parents' perspectives on parent-child interaction and beneficial meetings

Sammanfattning: Parent-child interaction interventions, guided by the aim of promoting child development, have developed in Sweden during the last three decades. The aim of this thesis was to describe families taking part in such interventions and examine short term and long term changes in their problem loads. Praticular interest was directed towards the parents' experiences, both with respect to the treatment they had taken part in at either of four centres for parent-child interaction interventions presented in this thesis and to other persons and/or contexts the parents considered had played an important and beneficial role for the child or the family. The results show that the centres have reached both mothers, fathers and children beset by considerable difficulties in relation to interaction, offering them a treatment which an overwhelming majority of the families have chosen to follow through and which has made a difference to the families. This thesis highlights the significance of beneficial relationships, not only within the intervention but also in other professional contexts, for the enhancing of children's development.