Facilitating the development of intimacy between nurses and infants in day nurseries

Abstract

Six months of intensive training and dialogues with infant specialists and psychoanalysts were offered to nurses from seven different infant care nurseries in London. The nurses were accustomed to a system of impersonal care. Training focused on communicating with the nurses and on the needs of infants for personalized secure care and attachments. The painful reasons why nurses avoid getting attached to infants were explored. The value of the nurses’ work was deeply respected by the trainers. During the course of the dialogues and training, nurses began to show more personalized signs of attachment to infants, became more aware of the often painful lives that many of the infants led. The difficulties and stresses inherent in a more personalized, intimate affectionate system of caring for infants from troubled, dis‐advantaged families is perceptively discussed in relation to the nurses’ responsiveness to the training sessions.