You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
The material presented for comment is a piece of parent-infant work, which gives a chance to consider a new and expanding area of clinical specialism which is claimed to enable new populations to benefit from psychoanalytic thinking (Stern 1995). The richness of the material brought to such work seems to derive from two aspects of the impact of parenting upon the individual. One is a strong wish to provide the best possible care for the child, which enables approaches to be made to areas of the self which would usually remain out of reach of psychic intervention. This has been clearly seen for many years by workers in child and family psychiatric clinics. The other related fact is that immediately the parent brings the juxtaposition of their own experiences as a child in the past and in memory, interacting with their own parents, the child they are parenting themselves in outside reality, and their wishes, fears and phantasies for the future for themselves and their infant. The enormously valuable role of infant observation emerges clearly in this piece, enabling us to experience the intense feelings generated by close contact with infants (Rustin 1989).
Recently the Association for Infant Mental Health-UK has been formed to provide a forum for discussion and contact between the different professions working together in the field. The Hon. Sec. is Asha Phillips AIMH-UK, The Tavistock Centre, 120 Belsize Lane, London NW3 5BA.
Katherine Arnold