Emotional harm was the sole ground in only 15 of the 120 new child protection applications examined for the study. The majority of cases were brought on the grounds of both physical harm and emotional abuse. Facts presented to support a finding of emotional abuse were exposure to domestic violence; leaving the child in another's care for a long period with no contact by the mother; a parenting style harmful to the child, including scapegoating (pattern of blaming the child for parental problems) and rejection of the child; parental substance abuse; and parental mental illness detrimental to the child. Only two cases were proven solely on the ground of emotional abuse. One case involved a mother with significant mental health problems, who had left her two young children in another's care for 4 months without any contact. The second case involved a mother with a heroin addiction. These findings show the difficulty of establishing emotional abuse and neglect of a child in a legal forum. This is due to the difficulty of measuring emotional harm to a child that can be directly attributed to parental behaviors. The study addressed cases brought to the court in February-July 2002. Data were obtained from 208 child protection cases referred by magistrates to a prehearing conference for the purpose of resolving a dispute about the need for child protection intervention. Data pertained to the reasons for the child protection application, the nature of the child protection concerns, the participants in the conference, and the conference outcome. 3 tables and 32 references