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When I learned about infant observation as a required component of analytic training, I thought about prominent object-relations frameworks that have developed since Freud's structural theories. An emphasis on the primacy of the early mother-infant relationship meant that we could obtain experiential knowledge about the development of the infant from soon
after birth, through the first year of its life. I thought about the relevance of Winnicott's formulations about primary maternal preoccupation and the importance of the holding environment. I would be witnessing the infant's primitive communications and anxieties in the form of normal projective identifications, following Kleinian theories, and, building on her model, Bion's container-contained analogy and his concept of reverie.
I had read and written about these theoretical paradigms, which, over the years, became some of the underpinnings upon which I developed my clinical practice. The importance of linkages between the self and the object and the primacy of the object in the development of the self came to mind as I thought about the prospect of becoming an observer. I was truly in a whirlwind of interest and desire. It was to be an exciting first year of training. As a group we all came from diverse backgrounds; combined, we carried a wealth of clinical experience and theoretical knowledge. Drs. Michel Grignon and Joyce Canfield were the facilitators and primary containers for the class as a whole. In addition to infant observation, we were exploring psychoanalytic theory and technique in the training seminar, and midway in the first year, we would begin our clinical work.
During the first few months, I observed the mother gracefully handling her infant daughter with love and desire, enveloping her in the warmth of her strong yet gentle hold. There it was, the ultimate state of reverie. They were moments of delicate intimacy between the infant and her mother. I was taken back into time as I remembered the en