The experience of (tele) infant observation during the Covid-19 pandemic (March 2020–December 2020)

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this paper, the author shares her experience of the use of telecommunication during the Covid-19 pandemic in teaching infant observation in Greece. She offers an account of the changes, difficulties, reservations and concerns regarding the use of telecommunication in infant observation. During the ten months of the Covid-19 pandemic, the seminars on infant observation had to adapt twice to complete lockdowns. As a result, the observations in the natural setting of the baby’s home changed and became tele-observations. The difficulties of teaching infant observation during this period, as well as the anxieties they induced in both the seminar leader and the observers, are described. Feelings about concepts such as loss, absence, separation, distance and closeness were felt in a much stronger way in the countertransference during this period. It was seen as important that prior to online infant observation, observations in the home had preceded. On the other hand, it seemed that both types of observations could act together, in a supplementary mode with each other.