Overview

This textbook provides an accessible and thought-provoking guide to the Meaning of the Child interview (MotC), a tool for understanding family relationships. The MotC uses a semi-structured interview in which parents talk about their child, their relationship with their child, and their parenting, which is then carefully analysed using a process described in this book. This book is a guide to understanding parental discourse, showing how the method works, and how it can be used to plan intervention, guide practice and conduct research. The book will be invaluable to child welfare and mental health practitioners looking apply these ideas and principles, as current manuals formally assessing attachment and caregiving largely remain as unpublished manuscripts accessible only through lengthy and costly training. The book includes chapters co-authored by researchers and practitioners describing how the MotC has been used in innovative contexts to support families. It seeks to make few demands of prior knowledge, using many examples and summaries to assist the reader. By attending closely to how parents story their experience, and their child’s, in the context of ongoing challenges, this book offers a pathway for practice based on understanding struggling parenting as a relationship situated in adversity, rather than an individual failing, worthy of blame.

Full Product Details

Author:   Ben Grey
Publisher:   Palgrave MacMillan
Imprint:   Palgrave MacMillan
ISBN:  

9783032001139

ISBN 10:   3032001137
Pages:   240
Publication Date:   07 October 2025
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming
Availability:   Not yet available  
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Table of Contents

1. Introduction.- 2. Attachment Theory and the Self-Protective Transformation of Meaning. The Caregiving System.- 3. Parental Mentalising – Storying the Inner Life of Self and Child.- 4.  Exploring the Dimensions of Caregiving – The Meaning of the Child Sub-Patterns.- 5. The Meaning of the Child Assessment Process.- 6. How to Code the Meaning of the Child Interview.- 7. The MoTC Assessment Process.- 8. The Case of Leah and Mason.- 9. Attachment-Based Interview Analysis – The MoTC and AAI as a Research Method.- 10. The Meaning of the Child in Qualitative Research – How to Do Attachment-Informed Qualitative Analysis.- 11. The Meaning of the Child in Families Living with a Child Diagnosed with Autism: Security, Exploration and Therapy.- 12. The Meaning of the Adopted Child – The “Knowing Me, Knowing You” Course (Victoria Barrow and Ben Grey).- 13. The Meaning of the Child in Sensory Attachment Intervention.- 14. The Meaning of the Child in an Irish Context – Bringing the Why into Parenting Capacity Assessments.- 15. The Meaning of the Child in Child Welfare: A Case Study of Assessment and Intervention in an Icelandic Context.- 16. The Meaning of the Child Interview – So What? Towards a Systemic and Ecological Assessment of Caregiving.

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Author Information

Dr Ben Grey is Principal Lecturer (for Research) on the Clinical Psychology doctorate, University of Hertfordshire, UK. He is also a social worker, psychologist and the former lead for the attachment programme at the University of Roehampton. He has conducted training, worked in and published widely on attachment, parenting assessment, family court, and child-welfare practice.

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