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The methods developed and used for a clinical study of the psychological processes in fifteen primigravidae are described and discussed. The subjects were studied from the time of their first prenatal clinic visit, when they were pregnant for twelve weeks or less, to at least one year postpartum. Data were collected from the women and their husbands, and later on the infants, by means of interviews, tests, and observations, by psychiatrists, psychologists, a social worker, a medical gynecologist, and a pediatrician. The recorded data were distributed, read, and assessed in conference by the latter personnel and an additional three psychiatrists who had no direct contact with the subjects. The theoretical framework was psychoanalytic, and all members of the research group had an understanding of psychoanalytic concepts and varying degrees of personal experience with psychoanalysis.
The tools used for the collection of data are described, including some specially devised for this study. The purposeful overlapping of areas of observation by the various interviewers during a given period of time is discussed with reference to a concept of triangulation.