Transmission of complex trauma: family orientated intervention before child psychotherapy

War and torture related trauma shatter the conditions for ordinary family life and parental care. Later on, the reverberations of past assaults and loss intrude upon current relationships, undermining the parental couple and ordinary, benign adult authority. Sadly, some children are secondarily traumatised because of disturbed relationships and sometimes domestic violence exerted by their traumatised parents or siblings. This article presents case material, the aim of which is twofold: firstly to exemplify a possible, quite concrete entanglement between the ongoing traumatic processes and images in the mind of the traumatised parents and the symptoms of the children. Secondly, to show that during the period of assessment for child psychotherapy a prolonged, flexible approach combining the individual assessment of the child with family intervention and/or sibling work may be necessary. During such preparatory work the state of the family needs special consideration, since an invisible collapse of parental role responsibilities and care structures may render the child psychologically homeless.