As parents, most if not all of us probably hope that our own children will absorb the very best of us, our positive personality tendencies, our industrious habits, and our moral standards and values, and disregard the rest. The last thing we want to believe is that our worst characteristics -- a bad temper, for example, or persistent bouts of depression, or a predilection for failed relationships, will somehow be passed on to our children, troubling their existence now and into the future. But in my clinical work, it is not unusual to hear a parent describe with great concern how she is beginning to see some aspect of herself in her young child that has caused her to struggle throughout her life.