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“Goog, Goo” 'e says and curls 'is cunnin' toes
Yeh'd be surprised the heaps o' things 'e knows
I'll swear he tumbles I'm 'is father too;
The way he squints at me an' sez, “Goog, Goo.”
The baby has a lot to say and it is incumbent upon us as therapists to try to learn the baby's language and to listen. Parents, and poets, when all goes well have a natural capacity to see their baby and what she has to say. The above extract from the longer poem, The Songs of the Sentimental Bloke, illustrates how the baby in the newborn period is able to communicate with his awestruck parents through voice, gaze, his cry, and the use of his hands, limbs, and body. The “good-enough parent” (Winnicott, 1953) attributes meaning to each of the baby's activities and, through a complex set of interactional behaviours and attributions, builds a picture of their baby as a thoughtful person with capacity for intention and playfulness (Trevarthen, 1998). The newborn has a powerful capacity for imitation and for recognising the intentions of others (Nagy & Molnar, 2004; Reddy & Trevarthen, 2004). Playful imitation each of the other from the moment of birth by both infant and parent is a critical part of the development of a solid and secure set of relationships. From the base of emerging inter-subjectivity (Trevarthen, 1998) the baby and her parents get to know each other. Some family and systemic therapists have looked at the intricacies of the infant-parent relationship, particularly from the perspective of co-parenting and triadic relationships (McHale et al., 2008).
A four-week-old baby had been in neonatal intensive care since just after birth for the treatment of severe congenital problems with the structure of his jaw and upper airway. He required a number of interventions including respiratory support and several episodes of painful surgery to change the shape of his jaw. Tensions between Jeremy's parents were profoundly increased when they found that their previously tenuous rel