Let me start by clarifying that I’m not claiming novelty for a concept (the importance of control on life quality) in circulation at least since Aristotle’s halcyon period between 300 and 400 BC. I think, though, emphasising the notion does no harm when it occasionally gets lost in the maelstrom of ‘activity’ inherent to clinical processes. So, in quasi- bullet point terms my argument is along the lines of: Whichever route individually chosen, we share the need for our lives to ‘have meaning’. One spoke of meaningfulness is the ability to influence one’s own trajectory, in other words, to exert a degree of control and, by extrapolation, autonomy in our/a child’s/a family’s particular circumstances. In broad terms this involves the means to alter the environment and the individualenvironmental relationship. So, what’s the environment? So broad as to be unanswerable, but arguably, encompasses all exposures from mitochondrial DNA to societal laws to ozone layer protection.
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