The experience of infant observation in difficult situations: retaining the ability to observe

Abstract

Students, in the course of undertaking an infant observation and learning infant observation skills, sometimes find themselves in difficult or painful family situations. When their observations are discussed within a seminar group, the group dynamics are likely to be affected by the emotional charge to which members are exposed. This article tries to explore the dynamics of the infant observation seminar in relation to such situations. It also discusses the fundamental importance of the seminar leader in such circumstances. A particular and unusual experience is used to show how difficult material may easily evoke feelings, phantasies and infantile desires that are shared within the ‘group mind’. This may lead to the activation of defences against psychic pain in the group mind, just as it can in the mind of an individual. The paper goes on to develop the author's emphasis on the importance for the seminar leader of being able to maintain an ‘analytic function of the mind’ in order to better understand what is happening in the group. This state of mind affords the seminar leader the opportunity to contain the feelings in the group's mind, so that something is transformed and the group can return to its primary task, to be curious and to learn from (the observational) experience.