The first joint mother-child admission to the Massachusetts Mental Health Center is described, with emphasis on the meticulous preparation of the entire staff and the parents for the experiment and the sustained treatment teamwork. The patient was a twenty-two-year-old woman with a psychotic depressive reaction, including severe ambivalent feelings toward her infant son who was hospitalized with her. The successful outcome of therapy led to similar treatment

of nineteen other women in two years. Having the children on the ward was found to be therapeutically valuable not only for the mothers but also for other patients. This study, as well as earlier ones in England, seriously challenges the routine practice in hospitals of separating psychotic mothers from their children. It therefore deserves the careful study of every psychoanalyst.