This brief paper deals with the problem of influencing the infant's or young child's disturbances by treatment of the mother. Joseph briefly discusses three cases. In one an eight-months-old baby suffered from a bus or tram phobia; in the second a boy of twenty-two months had difficulties in toilet training; in the third a nine-months-old boy had sleeping difficulties. In all three cases the clinician focused on the mother's own disturbances. Although therapy consisted only of superficial talks with the mothers, the disturbances of the children disappeared.