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This issue of Psychoanalytic Inquiry is devoted to the particular child psychotherapy training and work of the Tavistock Clinic. It is a collection of papers that describe, in a concise and accessible way, different aspects of this work. Taken together, they present a coherent overview of current practice. A useful framework is provided in a paper by Margaret Rustin which describes the history, development and philosophy of the training. Dilys Daws, in her opening comments to the book, suggests that the aim was to give a live account of work in progress. The selection made by the editors does convey the sense of a contained, but lively, dynamic process which manages to draw together and interweave the different strands of the work.
As an example, the ‘Training in Infant Observation’ that has developed with the clinical training and now forms a crucial precursor to it is described briefly here by Lisa Miller. However, its value and purpose in developing a core understanding of the emotional development of infants and young children, as well as the capacity to adopt an observational stance, form an underlying current through many of the papers. For instance, in an illuminating paper on introjective processes, Gianna Williams uses material from infant observation as well as session material to draw out and illustrate the processes of the introjection of objects which can either facilitate or hinder an infant's development. The distinctions she establishes here centre around the underlying theme of the close interrelationship between maternal states of mind and an infant's emotional development and capacity for thought.
The theme of the impact of maternal states of mind on an infant is further elaborated in Judith Loose's paper, in which she describes generally the range of work child psychotherapists do with parents, but looks in particular at her brief work with two maternally deprived mothers. She looks in detail at the changes and meaning of each session as these moth