Mother-Baby Observation: Introductory Remarks to the Two Papers by the Authors

Versions of our papers that appear in this issue of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy were prepared for a session commemorating D W Winnicott's centenary at the British Psycho-Analytical Society's 1996 English Speaking Conference. In recent years the term ‘infant observation’ to describe what has become a conventional part of psychoanalytical and many psychotherapy trainings tends to have become renamed ‘mother-baby observation’ to acknowledge the impossibility of separating the observed infant from the mother. But the basic task has remained the same since its introduction as part of child-psychotherapy training in the 1940s: a student visits the home of a new baby and its family once-weekly for about an hour for the first year, or in some trainings two years, of the infant's life. The student tries to attain an attitude of benign but detached interest in the baby and its mother (and of course other family members) and has the task of writing up the observed hour for discussion at a weekly seminar led by an experienced member of the relevant training organisation.

In general, these observational exercises are a preliminary to commencing clinical work with patients, and it is almost becoming de rigueur for any training that aspires to have psychoanalytic credibility. But in what way does the mother-baby observation prepare the student for their later clinical work? What is the observation for? What is its function in a training? Is it to train the student in some capacities, or in order to assess a student's capacities? It is not our intention here to attempt to come to any conclusion about the various ways in which infant-observation is seen to contribute to a psychoanalytic training — there is a wide literature, all of which makes interesting and varying points, and none of which gives definitive agreements and conclusions. (See Some Further Reading p. 268-9 below.)

Nonetheless, there are several general principles with which it would be impossible to disagree. For examp