Lee Combrinck-Graham, MD, is a child and adolescent psychiatrist in the public sector. Her training at the Philadelphia Child Guidance Clinic under Salvador Minuchin's direction led her always to wonder, "How can you work with children without their families?" She is still wondering more than 30 years after finishing her training, but she has learned that many do not see it this way; that question became the basis for this book. Dr. Combrinck-Graham lives and works in Fairfield County, Connecticut, a county with some of the greatest wealth in the United States, yet her work as a psychiatric consultant to family service agencies takes her into inner-city homes and schools. This work, though often executed with a prescription pad, affirms daily the importance of social context in understanding and treating the most confounding of child and adolescent emotional and behavioral problems.