psychoanalytic infant observation
This paper describes two events illustrating transference phenomena occurring in a longitudinal research study using laboratory-based video recording and home-based observations to explore social relationships between same-aged babies. One event concerned the mothers’ attachment to the researcher and to the project, with consequent reactions to the project’s ending. The other concerned two mothers’ responses to a video recording of the... more
One challenge for Infant mental health research is to bring the clinician’s sensitivity together with the rigour that we have come to associate with Attachment Theory. To what extent, for example, can research instruments generate findings directly applicable to working with vulnerable parents and babies? One difficulty is that research and clinical work, such as attachment research and psychoanalytic parent-infant psychotherapy, use... more
The paper was read as a talk to students on the Tavistock Psychoanalytic Observation course, probably in 2009 or 2010.
Becoming a mother can create profound changes for a woman’s sense of who she is. This paper presents findings from a study on mothering identity involving 20 first-time mothers from a range of ethnic and cultural backgrounds interviewed about their experiences before the baby’s birth and during and at the end of the first year. 6 mothers and infants were also observed weekly at home for one year using the psychoanalytic infant observation... more
Significant losses and separations can be either an impediment or a spur to development, depending on internal and external circu mstances. This symposium explores varying outcomes from points of view of infants and parents, citing material from a) two research studies using psychoanalytic infant observation, b) clinical research using video to track processes of change in psychotherapy with parents and u nder fives, and c) parent-infant... more
Pages
