Parenting and Substance Abuse: Developmental Approaches to Intervention

Historically, there has been little integration of theoretical or applied research on addiction treatment and parenting intervention development. Rather, the fields of addiction and developmental research have progressed on largely separate trajectories, even though their focus powerfully and often tragically intersects each time a parent is diagnosed with a substance use disorder. Parenting and Substance Abuse is the first book to report on pioneering efforts to move the treatment of substance-abusing parents forward by embracing their roles and experiences as mothers and fathers directly and continually across the course of treatment. The chapters in this volume represent important new strides among researchers and clinicians to address and close the increasingly recognizable gap between addiction and developmental science. Chapters focus on current, state-of-the-art treatment models for parents, primarily pregnant and parenting women, including descriptions of innovative treatments currently being developed and evaluated that focus on parental addiction and the parent-child relationship within a developmental framework. Part I covers the theoretical understandings of how addiction impacts the developmental processes of parenting. Part II discusses risk assessment, evaluation, and a variety of interventions and therapies. This unique volume will be of importance to clinicians, researchers, students, and trainees in the health professions who develop, implement, and evaluate interventions for parental addiction, including in well-baby clinics, primary care settings, pediatric clinics, and residential and outpatient drug treatment programs.

About the Author :
Nancy E. Suchman, PhD, is Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and in the Child Study Center and Associate Director of Substance Abuse and Family Research at Yale University School of Medicine. Marjukka Pajulo, MD, PhD, is a Docent in early childhood psychiatry, infant psychiatrist, and senior researcher at Turku University Hospital and the University of Turku, Finland. Linda C. Mayes, MD, is the Arnold Gesell Professor of Child Psychiatry, Pediatrics, and Psychology in the Yale Child Study Center. She is also a Special Advisor to the Dean at Yale University School of Medicine and chairman of the directorial team of the Anna Freud Centre, London.

Review :
This thorough, comprehensive book reviews our current understanding of addictive disorders, including core biology, clinical presentation, and treatment. It also is designed to examine drug abuse and its relationship to, and effect on, a variety of psychiatric and medical illnesses. It is intended for researchers, addiction specialists, psychiatrists, psychologists, pharmacologists, social workers, drug counselors, and trainees as well as healthcare workers who deal with patients with addictions in their clinical practices." Michael Easton, Doody's Review Service We know so little, and we need to know so much! This book is long overdue, and it offers a pioneering start on a topic that is vital to so many. This volume presents a template for starting to understand how profoundly substance use and parenting have mutual influence. Some of the chapters provide education and advice to professionals who work with parents who are addicted and with the children of those parents. Some chapters present more of a 'big think,' helping the reader to understand how social forces, genetics, and the variety of pharmaceuticals can have such a profound influence on our lives. Substance abuse complicates parenting; parenting complicates the substance user's life. This book addresses many questions and provides suggestions on how readers can grapple with and possibly overcome these problems. Substance abuse during motherhood is, unfortunately, an increasing problem in our modern world. The desperate self-medication is dangerous for the baby and also for the mother. This extremely important book offers new understanding of the vulnerabilities of these mothers and babies and opens up therapeutic windows to help and treat not only present mothers and babies but also future generations, too. We all need to carefully read this book!