Ways of Seeing: Overview of the Conference

The decision to hold the “Ways of Seeing” Conference was animated by the belief that, while members from the different child psychotherapy trainings sometimes find it difficult to engage in fruitful dialogue, differences in conceptualisation are inherently interesting and no single theory has a monopoly of the truth. The External Programme Planning Committee of the Association of Child Psychotherapists decided-to arrange a conference using a film of a Baby Observation and to invite a selection of speakers to see the film in advance and to prepare short papers for presentation at the conference. The audience would see this film before hearing the papers, and then again at the end of the day, in order to consider how theory influenced what was seen.

The Committee invited Anne Alvarez to introduce the Conference and Lynn Barnett to describe the setting of the film, and asked one speaker from each of the four main theoretical orientations to contribute papers. Anne-Marie Sandler agreed to chair the afternoon session and to stimulate general discussion from the floor with some opening remarks. All of these contributions can be found in this issue of the Journal.

Before meeting the speakers to finalise the programme, the External Programme Planning Committee met to decide which extracts of the film should be used. They decided to concentrate on the first five months of the baby's life's it was felt that there would be more scope for theoretical difference in looking at early infancy. They chose extracts which showed the father and baby together, a bath sequence, a breast-feed, the first use of solid food, and the use of a dummy. The film showed an incident of the baby concentrating on a grater that evoked strong feeling and it was felt that it too should be included. There was divergence as to how much of this scene should be shown. In the end three minutes were kept, about half the scene. The speakers opted not to discuss the extracts further with each other in case this a