Notes on infant observation in psycho-analytic training [1964

Abstract

Infant observation was introduced into the curriculum of the Institute of Psycho-Analysis in London in 1960 as part of the course for first year students. Infant observation had, in fact, been part of the training course for child psychotherapists at the Tavistock Clinic since 1948 when the course began. The child psychotherapy students visit the family once a week up to about the end of the second year of the child's life, each observation normally lasting about an hour. Naturally depressive trends tend strongly to disturb the observer's detachment, both because of the mother's needs which pull the observer, and counter-transference anxieties which push him. It becomes apparent that between a particular mother and child certain preferred modes of communication become central in their relation to one another. It is difficult to tell whether this choice originates in the mother's or the baby's preference.