Report on the One-Day Symposium Between European Developmental Scientists and Anna Freud Centre Staff

Following last year's visit from some key members of the Early Childhood Transitions Network of the MacArthur Foundation headed by Professor Robert Emde, we have begun a pilot research project on the development of theories of emotion in young children. The principal investigator of this project is Jill Hodges who, together with several Centre staff, is devising ways to study children in our Nursery School and their responses to situations arousing conflict. Alongside this work, numerous Centre staff have been reviewing some of the more recent findings of developmental psychology not only from our colleagues in North America but also from our colleagues here in Europe. In an effort to establish a forum in which it was hoped that child analysts might engage in a dialogue with leaders in research into the emotional development of children, a one-day symposium was arranged, which took place in June 1990. Our guests included: Dr Simon Baron-Cohen, Senior Lecturer, Institute of Psychiatry, The Maudsley Hospital, London; Dr Paul Harris, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford; Prof. John Morton, Director, Medical Research Council's Cognitive Development Unit, University College London; Dr Josef Perner, Laboratory of Experimental Psychology and Centre for Research on Perception and Cognition, University of Sussex; Prof. Daniel Stern, Head of Psychology and Sciences of Education Dept., University of Geneva; and Prof. Colwyn Trevarthen, Professor of Psychology, University of Edinburgh. Participants from the Anna Freud Centre included: Ms Rose Edgcumbe, Dr Peter Fonagy, Ms Jill Hodges, Mrs Hansi Kennedy, Dr George S. Moran and Dr Miriam Steele.

To give a structure to the meeting Jill Hodges and Rose Edgcumbe volunteered to write a paper on the development of mixed feelings in childhood. This topic was chosen as it seemed to provide an excellent platform on which to construct a respectful challenge to the findings of Paul Harris, as reported in his book Chil