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Two cases are presented, which were subject to expert psychiatric evaluation during criminal proceedings, and in which deviant behaviour in young adults appears to be causally associated with severe mental disorder in their mothers and with severe pathological family functioning. In the first case, a young man killed first his father and then, after an interval of 10 years, his mother. In the second case, the mother and grandmother of a child aged 15 had prevented virtually all contact with the outside world (school, friends, outside activities of any kind) over a period of 10 years. These cases illustrate that expert evaluation should not be limited to an individual (evaluation of diagnosis and of criminal responsibility) but should be linked to an assessment of the functioning of the entire family group and to the psychopathology of other family members.

The authors begin by pointing out that Freud always considered parent-child relations in terms of the child's psychic development and took little account of the parents' experience of the relationship and its psychic effects on them. They recall Freud's distinction between the anaclitic and narcissistic modes of relationship and show how these are unconsciously embodied and enacted in varying proportions in the cases observed in their own clinical practice of therapeutic consultations with parents and young children. After a review of the relevant psychoanalytic literature, the authors present their concept of the narcissistic scenarios of parenthood, which include parental projection on to the child, parental counter-identification, a specific aim and a relational dynamic that is acted out. Depending on the individual situation, the effects may help to structure the developing psyche or, if the narcissistic element is excessive, they may be pathological. The authors consider the literature on the application of psychoanalysis to therapeutic interventions with parents and children, stressing the technical importance of establishing a therapeutic focus. These ideas are illustrated by a detailed case history showing the interaction between a mother and a 4-year-old girl and how it was modified by a short therapy. The differences between interpretation in this situation and in the classical psychoanalytic setting are explained, and the paper ends with some comments on the transmission of psychic elements from generation to generation.