To the Editor

The December 2005 issues of your Journal published a review by Sue Meade of my book Can You Help Me?, on page 398. This was a very gratifying review and I have written to her, thanking her for the kind comments she made on the book.

However, Ms Meade wrote: ‘As a child psychotherapist, I was alarmed at Dr Brafman's mention of a child psychotherapist he'd supervised “who had no experience of actually playing with or coming close to a child”. This seemed a less than accurate or helpful portrayal of our training’.

This relates to a passage on page 13 of the book, where I refer to a psychoanalyst attending a seminar on child analysis. There is no reference to child psychotherapists, let alone any comment on their training. As it happens, the experience mentioned in the book was one of many others that led to what I expressed in my paper ‘Infant observation: who do you see?’ published in The Elusive Child, edited by Lesley Caldwell (2002):

Whatever the reason, all trainees (in Infant Observation) can put forward endless theories of early development, but only a few actually welcome the opportunity of coming close to a baby. In practice, those who feel comfortable with children and actually want to work closely with them move towards trainings specialising in work with children, while those who come to analytic or psychotherapeutic trainings are mostly interested in seeing adult patients. They clearly feel more comfortable with ‘the conceptual infant’ (Stern, 1985) than with real babies. Infant Observation, sadly, becomes no more than one of the disciplines leading to their desired qualification. (p. 69)

I would be grateful if you could publish this letter. I do not wish your readers to form a wrong impression of my views on their training and on what draws them to their chosen field of work.

With all good wishes,

Yours,

A.H. Brafman

20 Hollycroft Avenue

London NW3 7QL

UK