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This chapter discusses the various factors that put children at risk for victimization including geography, family factors, emotional problems, risk-taking, and prior victimization. It provides a critique of the lifestyle or routine activities theory of victimization, and presents a new conceptual framework and comprehensive dynamic model involving instigation processes, selection processes, and protection processes.

This chapter discusses the ways in which parenting stress affects children's behavior and development. It provides an overview of child illness, disabilities, and disorders that are linked to parenting stress. Developmental disabilities and disorders include cognitive deficits and delays, autism, and pervasive developmental disorder. The chapter also examines some of the behavioral and emotional problems in children.

This chapter focuses on the psychodynamic approach to treating the emotional problems of older adults. Although clinical social work remains deeply influenced by Freud's early dismissal of older adults as inappropriate for a traditional psychodynamic approach, a passionate case is made for the importance of the richness of this time in the life-cycle for gaining deep insight and working through emotional issues. The significance of an older adult's struggle with conflicts over death, the therapeutic nature of transference based on age-related issues, and the unique challenges to the therapist in this process, are discussed.

This chapter probes into the apprehensions, anxieties, and emotional problems faced by terminally ill patients, the emotions and psychosocial issues faced by the families and relatives, and how the feelings experienced by the patient and the family affect one another. Among the uncertainties felt by patients with cancer are the pain associated with the disease, the inevitable death, their increasing dependency, the future of their beloved, the need for further tests and investigations, the uncertainty of their condition, and the possibility of abandonment. For the part of the relatives and families, anxieties arise from the sense of inadequacy in terms of giving proper care and the sense of uncertainty of the future once the ordeal has passed. The chapter also includes a discussion on the family differences, tensions, anger, and frustration that may arise while coping with a family member with a terminal disease. It concludes with a discussion on how to overcome the anxieties felt by patients and their families.

This chapter discusses the various tools that palliative care practitioners can use to determine the best way to assess and handle a patient's capacity to tolerate the required surgical procedure to treat their symptoms. It provides information on what palliative care practitioners can expect in the postoperative period, as the patient continues to face their life-limiting illness, and presents a discussion on preoperative and postoperative psychological issues and how these can contribute to the difficulties in caring for patients. Emotional problems and the effect of body-image issues on terminally ill patients can also be affected by these psychological issues. The different defence mechanisms adopted by the patients in order to cope with the stress are also examined.