Barrows, Paul <br/><br/>
The Role of the Father in Parent-Child Psychotherapy: The Parental Couple and the Child 

 -  2003.<br/>							 
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<br/><br/> Infant mental health clinicians and researchers have tended to focus particularly on the mother-infant dyad and, in Fraiberg’s terms, on the “ghosts” that the mother brings to the nursery. This paper begins by reiterating the case for paying as much attention to the “ghosts” that the father brings if we are to maximize our therapeutic impact.It is further argued, however, that over and above the father’s individual role, what is more critical for the developing infant’s future mental health is the nature of the parental couple that s/he encounters. That is, it is the relationship between the parents, and their interaction, that creates the emotional climate into which the infant is born and that determines the nature of the ‘internal’ parental couple that they will in turn acquire. It is argued that the couple’s relationship therefore needs to be the primary focus for our therapeutic interventions. Clinical material is brought to illustrate these points.