The stream of life: from frozen babies to the birth of psychic life

Abstract

This article describes the work with a flexible model having Esther Bick’s infant observation model in mind. Having to solve the problem of the many babies in orphanages who had been abandoned and were often sick, I worked out with the psychologist a model of intervention using the knowledge the psychologist had of the approach of infant observation, but adapting it to the context of the orphanage. I helped the psychologist observer to use her countertransference to contain the babies’ distress and interact with them in order to give them the possibility of feeling loved and understood, in order to make space in their minds for introjecting a good object. On behalf of the observations that the psychologist, whom I will call Ling, had with babies Bea and Sally, we can say that the dramatic distress of their being abandoned by their families has been worked through because the psychologist was able to give a loving space with significant interaction. The sessions reported in this article give a portrait of the inside world of despairing babies, and document the evolution towards being able to keep in mind a good enough object that can help them survive.