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Relational trauma in infancy: psychoanalytic, attachment and neuropsychological contributions to parent-infant psychotherapy, edited by Tessa Baradon, London and New York, Routledge, 2010, 228 pp., £18.99
As I read this book, my associations kept returning to the thoughts of a scientist whom I had read 30-plus years ago during a psychology class. The professor introduced the class to the work of Jacob Bronowski. The professor continued my introduction to Freud, to the stages of child development from the various schools or orientations, and highlighted each stage remarkable for its place in the mid-1970s period. He also focused our understanding of what the goals of psychotherapy were, as he was also a practising clinician.
It was this professor's insistence on our reading this short book of essays by Bronowski (Science and Human Values) that is most memorable. Bronowski's underlying theme throughout this work – and undoubtedly my professor's motivation – was ‘we must touch others’. Jacob Bronowski was a scientist and a humanist – but ‘touching others’ in the relational sense was a thread that ran through much of his work.
The parallel in this review is on the change possible within relationships. This excellent collection of work brought together by Tessa Baradon, aptly demonstrates, especially through the clinical illustrations, the need to touch others – to help those who have been so afflicted by trauma and traumatic circumstances that the relationship between a mother and an infant is deeply affected and in need of professional understanding and aid.
The researchers' contributions in this collection present their attempts to assess, to integrate and to document the diagnostic criteria that will be useful in furthering the clinical endeavour. The data also illustrates the efficacy of the clinician's work with these traumatised parents and infants. The focus is on the relationship – touching each other – and, as was underscored by Baradon and Bronfman, the capacity