Scapegoat : The Impact of Death-Fear on an American Family

Roscoe A. was eight years old when psychologist Eric Bermann first met him and his family. In kindergarten, Roscoe was considered highly creative, but his teachers also evaluated him as a potentially dangerous and destructive child capable of uncontrolled aggression toward other children. His parents denied the report. To them, Roscoe was a quiet, well-behaved boy. In the second grade, over the objections and confusion of his parents, Roscoe was finally removed from public school and admitted to a day treatment facility where he could receive psychotherapy. Progress was minimal. After a year of effort, there was still no agreement on "Roscoe's problems." Mental health professionals despaired. They deemed his parents "unworkable" and labeled them "deniers" of their son's destructive behaviors. In turn, the parents blamed the professionals for therapeutic incompetencies and failure to help Roscoe, who, after all, "was never a problem at home." The only alternative to terminating the therapeutic effort was to obtain new data and fresh insights into the dilemma. It was at this point that Dr. Bermann, a clinical researcher embarked on the study of family interaction, was consulted. He immediately arranged to visit them at home, where he could observe their interactions in situ. He hoped that, with them, he might shed some light on the discrepancy between reports of Roscoe's behavior. Dr. Bermann visited the family and recorded his observations regularly and in detail throughout the next year. His analysis of these observations has resulted in this startling book--a research account that is both stunning in the originality of its method and searing in its documentation of an American family in crisis.