Infant Observation and Research

Infant Observation and Research
Psychoanalytic infant observation is frequently used in training psychoanalytic

psychotherapists and allied professionals, but increasingly its value as a research
method is being recognised, particularly in understanding developmental proc-
esses in vulnerable individuals and groups. This book explores the scope of this
approach and discusses its strengths and limitations from a methodological and
philosophical point of view.
Infant Observation and Research uses detailed case studies to demonstrate the
research potential of the infant observation method. Divided into three parts this
book covers:
• Infant observation as part of the learning process

• How infant observation can inform understanding and influence practice
• Psychoanalytic infant observation and other methodologies
Throughout the book, Cathy Urwin, Janine Sternberg and their contributors intro-
duce the reader to the nature and value of psychoanalytic infant observation and
its range of applications. This book will therefore interest a range of mental health
practitioners concerned with early development and infants’ emotional relation-
ships, as well as academics and researchers in the social sciences and humanities.
Cathy Urwin is a consultant child and adolescent psychotherapist and a research

fellow at the Tavistock Clinic, London.
Janine Sternberg is a consultant child and adolescent psychotherapist at the

Portman Clinic, London.
Infant Observation and
Research
Emotional processes in
everyday lives
Edited by Cathy Urwin and

Janine Sternberg
First published 2012
by Routledge
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Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business
© 2012 Selection and editorial matter, Cathy Urwin and Janine
Sternberg; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of the editors to be identified as the authors of the editorial
material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been
asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Infant observation and research : emotional processes in everyday
lives / edited by Cathy Urwin and Janine Sternberg.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-415-61659-1 (hardback) — ISBN 978-0-415-61660-7
(paperback) — ISBN 978-0-203-13394-1 (e-book) 1. Infant
psychology. 2. Psychoanalysis. I. Urwin, Cathy. II. Sternberg, Janine.
BF719.I545 2012
155.42'2820723–dc23 2011034975
ISBN: 978-0-415-61659-1 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-415-61660-7 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-13394-1 (ebk)
Paperback cover design by Lisa Dynan

Typeset in Times by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk
Contents
List of contributors viii

Foreword xiv
WENDY HOLLWAY
Acknowledgements xvi
1 Introduction 1
CATHY URWIN AND JANINE STERNBERG
PART I
Introduction to Part I 11
2 Infant observation as a method of research 13

MICHAEL RUSTIN
3 How do we know the ways in which infants experience

the world? Lessons from research 23
GRAHAM MUSIC
4 Evaluation of the application of infant observation in the

training of frontline professionals working with children
and families 33
JUDITH TROWELL AND GILLIAN MILES
5 Why the experience of infant observation lies at the

heart of psychoanalytic psychotherapy training 44
JANINE STERNBERG
vi Contents
6 In the field: Psychoanalytic observation and

epistemological realism 55
HEATHER PRICE AND ANDREW COOPER
PART II
Introduction to Part II 67
7 What can be learned from a single case of psychoanalytic

infant observation? 69
WENDY SHALLCROSS
8 A study of therapeutic observation of an infant in foster care 81

JENIFER WAKELYN
9 Using surprise in observing cultural experience 93

CATHY URWIN
10 Infant observation as an early intervention:

Lessons from a pilot research project 104
MARIA RHODE
11 A way of helping a traumatised and emotionally frozen mother

observe and be with her baby differently, allowing him to come
to life 115
AMANDA JONES
12 The experience of babies born following the loss of a baby 123

MARGUERITE REID
PART III
Introduction to Part III 135
13 Group life in babies: Opening up perceptions and possibilities 137

BEN S. BRADLEY, JANE SELBY AND CATHY URWIN
14 Linking infant observation research and other paradigms 149

STEPHEN BRIGGS AND JOHANNA BEHRINGER
Contents vii
15 Observing in nursing homes: The use of single case

studies and organisational observation as a research tool 160
WILFRIED DATLER, ROSS A. LAZAR AND KATHRIN TRUNKENPOLZ
16 Infant observation, ethnography and social anthropology 171

JUDY SHUTTLEWORTH
Afterword 181
LISA MILLER
Index 184
Contributors
Johanna Behringer, Dipl. Psych., is a researcher and lecturer in the Institute of

Psychology, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. She is also a psychoanalytic
psychotherapist. Her current research focuses on a longitudinal study of infant
attachment and the effects of the couple relationship on attachment.
Benjamin S. Bradley is Professor of Psychology at Charles Sturt University,
Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia. He has extensive experience in devel-
opmental psychology research into early interactions between mothers and
babies and, more recently, into the beginnings of group behaviour in infants.
He is author of Visions of Infancy: A Critical Introduction to Child Psychology
(Cambridge: Polity Press, 1989) and Psychology and Experience (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2005).
Stephen Briggs is Associate Dean, Specialist and Adult Mental Health Services
(SAMHS), in the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, and Professor
of Social Work, University of East London. He has researched and written
widely on infant and adolescent mental health and psychoanalysis and suicide.
His book Growth and Risk in Infancy (Jessica Kingsley, 1997) is based on his
infant observations of a group of vulnerable infants.
Andrew Cooper is Professor of Social Work at the University of East London
and the Tavistock Clinic. He is an adult psychoanalytic psychotherapist and
also works in the Adolescent Department of the Tavistock Clinic. He origi-
nally trained as a philosopher and has long been interested in the epistemology
of psychotherapeutic and observational process and experience. His recent
publications include (with Julian Lousada) Borderline Welfare: Feeling and
Fear of Feeling in Modern Welfare, which is published by Karnac Books.
Wilfried Datler is Professor at the Department for Education of the University of
Vienna, where he chairs the research unit ‘Psychoanalysis in Education’. In
particular, he heads two research projects characterised by the application of
the Tavistock observational method as a research tool. One project investigates
toddlers’ adjustments to day care with the help of the young child observation
methodology. The other project explores the quality of life experienced by
Contributors ix
people who suffer from dementia and who live in nursing homes. Here, single
case observation and organisational observation methods come to the fore.
Both projects work with an interdisciplinary design and investigate the particu-
larity of the Tavistock observation approach in relation to other research
methods. He is also a training analyst in the Austrian Association of Individual
Psychology (ÖVIP) and a member of the Infant Observation Study Group
Vienna (IOSGV).
Wendy Hollway is Professor of Psychology at the Open University. She has
developed psychosocial research methodology during the course of various
projects, drawing on psychoanalysis to furnish epistemological and methodo-
logical principles and to theorise subjectivity. Recent books are Doing
Qualitative Research Differently: Free Association, Narrative and the
Interview Method, with Tony Jefferson (Sage, 2000), and The Capacity to
Care (Routledge, 2006). She is currently writing a book provisionally entitled
‘Mothers’ Knowing/Knowing Mothers’, supported by an ESRC Fellowship.
Amanda Jones is a family therapist and head of North East London NHS
Foundation Trust’s Tier 3 Perinatal/Parent–Infant Mental Health Service. Her
doctoral research at the Tavistock Clinic investigated how the maternal use of
‘projective identification’ can derail a baby’s development. In collaboration
with the Anna Freud Centre, Amanda was involved in the Channel Four docu-
mentaries ‘Help me love my baby’, winner of the 2007 Royal Society of
Television’s best factual programmes award. She speaks at national and inter-
national conferences on psychodynamic parent–infant treatment and teaches
on the clinical psychology programmes at University College London and
University of East London. She has written numerous articles on parent–infant
psychotherapy and the use of video.
Ross A. Lazar, BA, MA, is a Tavistock-trained Psychoanalytic Child and
Adolescent Psychotherapist in private practice who also works extensively as
a psychoanalytic psychotherapist with adults, couples and families. In addi-
tion, he is active as a consultant, supervisor and coach to many organisations
and institutions, both profit and non-profit, predominantly in Germany and
Austria. He teaches extensively both clinical work and organisational topics
and has often served as guest professor both at the Institute for Research and
Further Education in Vienna and Klagenfurt (Alpen-Adria University,
Klagenfurt) and at the University of Vienna, Department of Education. He is a
member of the ISPSO (International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of
Organisations), the ACP (Association of Child Psychotherapists, UK), OPUS
(Organisation for the Promotion of Understanding in Society), the German
child psychotherapy society VAKJP (Verein der Analytischen Kinder- und
Jugendlichenpsychotherapeuten), the IOSGV (Infant Observation Study
Group Vienna) and a guest member of the DPV (Deutsche Psychoanalytische
Vereinigung).
x Contributors
Gillian Miles, MA (Oxon), was formerly Senior Clinical Lecturer in Social Work
in the Child and Family Department at the Tavistock Clinic. She is a psycho-
analytic psychotherapist and is a member of the British Association of
Psychotherapists, where she currently chairs the Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy
Training Committee. She is co-editor (with Bridge) of On the Outside Looking
In: Collected Essays on Young Child Observation in Social Work Training
(CCETSW Publications, 1996).
Lisa Miller is an Honorary Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist in
the Tavistock Child and Family Department, having been chair of the Child
and Family Department for several years. She was co-editor of Closely
Observed Infants (along with M. Rustin, M. Rustin and J. Shuttleworth, 1989)
and has published many articles and books on infant observation and work
with the ‘under fives’. She was Founding Editor and is the current editor of the
International Journal of Infant Observation.
Graham Music is a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist and
Associate Clinical Director of the Tavistock Child and Family Department,
where he organises pre-clinical training in child development research. He
teaches and supervises on child psychotherapy and other courses in Britain as
well as Italy, Turkey and France. His clinical interests are mainly in the field of
fostering and adoption, the ‘under fives’ and the application of therapeutic
practice to community settings. He is on the editorial board of Journal of Child
Psychotherapy and has published in various areas, particularly on the interface
between developmental research understandings and psychoanalytic and clin-
ical practice. Such publications include Affect and Emotion (Icon, 2001) and
Nurturing Natures (Psychology Press, 2011).
Heather Price is Senior Lecturer in Psychosocial Studies at the University of
East London, UK. She also teaches at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust,
UK. Her current research interests are in Childhood Studies and include the
emotional contexts of learning in the education system, the emotional labour of
teaching practitioners and research and teaching informed by psychoanalysis.
With S. Day-Sclater, D. Jones and C. Yates she is co-editor of Emotion: New
Psychosocial Perspectives (London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2009). Of particular
relevance is her contribution to a special issue of the International Journal of
Infant Observation and its Applications on the application of infant observa-
tion to work in educational settings.
Marguerite Reid is a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist who has
worked in the field of Perinatal Mental Health for almost 20 years. She
co-founded the innovative Perinatal Service based at Chelsea and Westminster
Hospital, London. She has carried out doctoral research in the area of perinatal
loss. Her particular interest has been the mother’s state of mind when she has
lost a baby and given birth to the next infant, as well as in how this impacts on
the mother–infant relationship. She lectures in the field of Perinatal Mental
Contributors xi
Health and has written numerous articles on the subject. She has taught on the
pre-clinical training at the Tavistock Clinic, London and on the Tavistock
model course in both Rome and Venice. She co-founded an infant observation
course in Izmir, Turkey and has taught infant observation in Istanbul, Turkey.
Maria Rhode is Emeritus Professor of Child Psychotherapy at the University of
East London/Tavistock Clinic, and Honorary Consultant Child Psychotherapist
at the Tavistock Clinic, where she formerly co-convened the autism workshop.
She has lectured and published widely on autism and on infant observation,
and has co-edited three books, including The Many Faces of Asperger’s
Syndrome (London: Tavistock/Karnac, 2004).
Michael Rustin is Professor of Sociology at the University of East London and
Visiting Professor at the Tavistock Clinic. He is an associate of the British
Psychoanalytic Society and chair of its Applied Section. His books include The
Good Society and the Inner World (1991), Reason and Unreason:
Psychoanalysis, Science, Politics (2001), Narratives of Love and Loss: Studies
in Modern Children’s Fiction (with Margaret Rustin, 1987, 2001) and Mirror
to Nature: Drama, Psychoanalysis, Society (with Margaret Rustin, 2002). He
is a co-editor of Closely Observed Infants (1989) and has since published
several further articles on infant observation and its research potential.
Jane Selby is a clinical psychologist based in Australia. She is working in private
practice and as a researcher in developmental, health and social psychology.
She has undertaken research into the experiences of women graduate students
that focused on understanding how subjective or individual experiences link to
cultural or social contexts. This preoccupation runs through her work. In
Australia she has undertaken research into the health needs of indigenous
Australians and young people ‘at risk’ as well as a number of projects involving
infant development, and has published in each of these fields.
Wendy Shallcross works as a Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist within the
NHS. She has played a key role in the maintenance and development of Child
Psychotherapy Services in the South West of England. She has taught on the
Infant Mental Health Master’s course at Bristol and currently teaches on the
Psychoanalytic Infant Observation courses at the Tavistock Clinic, London
and Exeter.
Judy Shuttleworth holds a joint clinical and teaching post as a Consultant Child
and Adolescent Psychotherapist at the Whittington Hospital and the Tavistock
and Portman NHS Trust. She was previously Head of Child Psychotherapy in
Enfield CAMHS. She has a longstanding interest in the social context of clinical
work. She has an MSc in Medical Anthropology from University College
London and is currently undertaking a PhD in Social Anthropology at the London
School of Economics. She edited and contributed to the first edited collection of
articles on psychoanalytic infant observation, Closely Observed Infants (along
xii Contributors
with L. Miller, M.E. Rustin and M.J. Rustin in 1989), and has written numerous
articles on aspects of child psychotherapy and infant observation.
Janine Sternberg is a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist at the
Portman Clinic, Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust, having worked for many
years at the Tavistock Mulberry Bush Day Unit, a small unit for children with
complex difficulties. She trained originally as a child psychotherapist at the
Tavistock Clinic and subsequently as an adult psychotherapist at the British
Association of Psychotherapists. She has written a book that addresses what
capacities and skills are needed for psychotherapeutic work and how these may
be enhanced by infant observation (Infant Observation at the Heart of Training,
2005), as well as contributed chapters to A Question of Technique (edited by
Horne and Lanyardo, Routledge, 2006) and ‘What Can the Matter Be?’ (edited
by Emanuel and Brafley, 2008). She was until recently editor of Journal of
Child Psychotherapy and editorial coordinator of the British Journal of
Psychotherapy.
Judith Trowell, MBBS, DCH, DPM, FRCPsych, FIPsychoanal, is a psychoana-
lyst working with children, adolescents and adults, as well as having worked
for many years as a Consultant Psychiatrist in the Child and Family Department
at the Tavistock Clinic. She founded the Monroe Young Family Centre and has
been involved with family courts both as an Expert Witness and in the training
of other professionals for their assessments. She is a past chair of Young
Minds, and chair of the Policy and Strategy Group. In recent years she has been
involved in promoting training and research in the West Midlands, consulting
to services all over the country, and has been the lead for research projects with
abused and traumatised children and adolescents and for a project looking at
depressed young people. She has published extensively.
Kathrin Trunkenpolz, who holds an Austrian Mag.Phil. degree, is a research
fellow in the Department for Education at the University of Vienna and in this
function she is also a member of the research unit ‘Psychoanalysis in
Education’. Using the methods of single case observation and organisational
observation, she is investigating the quality of life experienced by people who
suffer from dementia and who live in nursing homes. She is also exploring the
impact of doing research by employing the Tavistock observational method in
relation to the approach of doing observation for training purposes.
Cathy Urwin is a psychotherapist with children adolescents and adults. She
works at the Tavistock Clinic, London where she holds the post of Consultant
Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist and Research Fellow. She also works in
private practice. She has a background in teaching and research in develop-
mental psychology and has taught infant and young child observation over a
number of years. She supervised the infant observation component of an
ESRC-funded research study on mothering and identity, findings from which
were published in 2007 as a special issue of the International Journal of Infant
Contributors xiii
Observation and its Applications. With N. Midgley, J. Anderson, E. Grainger

and T. Nesic-Vuckovic, she is joint editor of Child Psychotherapy and
Research: New Approaches, Emergent Findings (London: Routledge, 2009).
Jenifer Wakelyn is a Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist in the Tavistock/
Haringey Looked After Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service. She
previously worked at the Monroe Young Family Centre. She teaches on a
number of courses at the Tavistock Clinic, previously offering child develop-
ment seminars for adult psychotherapy training at Arbours. She has recently
completed her doctoral research on therapeutic observation of an infant in
foster care, and previously acted as a clinician in research by Professor Maria
Rhode and Margaret Rustin on clinical observation in families with infants
having communication difficulties. She was the winner of the Hamish Canham
Memorial Essay Prize in 2006 and has published papers on Looked
After Children and assessments for the family courts, as well as on infant
observation.
Foreword
Wendy Hollway
As a researcher with no direct involvement in the traditions of psychotherapy or

child welfare work, I have become an ardent supporter and user of the infant
observation method because I found it could draw me imaginatively into natural-
istic and culturally diverse family situations, helping me to make sense of the fine
detail of emotional processes I encountered: the method and what it revealed went
beyond what I previously knew.
Here was a method that put the relationality of the infant and infant′s carer(s) at
the centre of the paradigm and could preserve the social setting at the heart of the
research encounter. Here was a method that cultivated the full emotional attention
of the observer and developed in observers an expertise in writing detailed retro-
spective notes that still leaves me awestruck! Here was a method that taught a way
for observers to cultivate objectivity, not in the positivist sense of that word but in
the sense of paying attention to their emotional responses and noticing when,
where and how these informed their understanding of what they were observing.
Here was a method that used a group to help the observers process their experi-
ences and thus think more creatively about the data.
This book demonstrates these virtues and more. Its success in illustrating the
current range of uses of infant observation research is particularly impressive
given the dynamism of this rather new area. We are not just offered a range of
topics and new settings (foster care, a mosque, complex births, identity transition,
residential care homes, babies in groups) but also a range of disciplinary perspec-
tives paired with the infant observation method (anthropology, developmental
psychology, sociology, psychoanalysis and attachment theory).
Accompanying research methods include a laboratory study, grounded theory
data analysis and single case analysis. Moreover, the methodological and episte-
mological challenges in these innovations are carefully considered: how is it
possible to generalise from a single case; can psychoanalytic concepts be opera-
tionalised; how can affective and subjective responses in the observer be used as
research data; what policy implications can be extrapolated from infant observa-
tion findings? These questions are not only discussed, they are drawn out in the
context of detailed, rigorous treatment of data, so that readers can learn lessons for
Foreword xv
our own research practice as we enter the powerfully depicted worlds that are
offered for our imaginative use.
This book shares some valuable characteristics of infant observation with the
publications now available through books and the International Journal of Infant
Observation. Writers in this tradition seem to share a jargon-free writing style,
deceptively simple but insightful, that communicates the vitality of the scene to
the reader, who can thus share the experience and be changed by it rather than just
‘learning about’ the topic. Authors also tend to explore their topics in a manner
that avoids the imposition of preconceived ideas, which opens our minds, as
readers, to provisional and open-ended insights that we can cultivate while
avoiding the seduction of certainty. There is a genre in the making here, one that
researchers, students and teachers in the human and social sciences can benefit
from, a genre that makes this collection a pleasure to read.
This book demonstrates the spread and diversification of infant observation
from a method of training practitioners to a research method, and I now see how
it could potentially be applied in any setting where the psychoanalytically
informed observation of emotional processes can deepen and refine research
insights into everyday life, through focus on individuals, dyads, groups and
organisations. We see how, using the infant observation paradigm, researchers
can notice and understand consequential aspects of everyday life that have been
beyond the reach of other research paradigms. May it grow from strength to
strength!
Acknowledgements
This book owes its genesis to the many developments in the field of infant
observation, now made more widely available through several publications, espe-
cially the International Journal of Infant Observation and its Applications. More
recently there has been a growing interest in taking infant observation’s unique
contribution further by initiating a research culture. Over several years we have
been involved in discussions with psychotherapists, researchers and others inter-
ested in bringing together these apparently different traditions: infant observation
and research. This led to the idea of gathering in book form some key works in
this field, culminating in this book. We are especially grateful to Anne Alvarez,
Andrew Cooper, Anne Hollander, Wendy Hollway, Effie Lignos, Nick Midgley,
Lisa Miller, Simona Nissim, Sue Reid, Margaret Rustin, Michael Rustin, Gianna
Williams and Isca Wittenberg for their many ideas and continuing interest.
Finally we would like to thank Estie Mingione and Joseph Anderson for their
administrative support and many others who, in varied ways, have helped us to
produce this book.
Chapter 1
Introduction
Cathy Urwin and Janine Sternberg
How babies feel, experience the world, get to know other people and have minds
of their own is fascinating. Although babies cannot yet talk and so cannot answer
our questions, a great deal can be learned about babies’ worlds by sitting quietly
and watching the same baby for an hour each week, not intervening but opening
oneself up to the impact of all that goes on.
This book is about a way of learning about babies’ development that is based on
such apparently simple principles and gives access to areas of experience relevant
to us all. The approach was first used in training psychoanalytic psychotherapists
and allied professionals. Increasingly, it has been used in a range of different
contexts and its value as a research method is being recognised, particularly in
understanding developmental and emotional processes in vulnerable individuals
or groups (Briggs, 1997; Rustin, 2006). Its value is also being identified within the
Social Sciences more broadly, where there is a need to develop research methods
that incorporate in a systematic way the researcher’s affective and subjective expe-
rience of the so-called ‘object’ of study ( Clarke & Hoggett, 2009; Hollway, 2007).
To date there has been no comprehensive attempt to demonstrate the range and
potential of infant observation as a research methodology. This book illustrates
the potential of this new field through presenting some landmark observational
research studies while also including critical and diverse perspectives on different
ways of knowing about babies’ development and emotional processes more
broadly. In this introduction, we first outline the history and nature of this obser-
vation method. We describe its contribution to training psychoanalytic practi-
tioners and go on to discuss its actual and potential contribution to generating
knowledge. This raises epistemological and philosophical questions, which we
address through focusing on two seminal areas of debate. Firstly, given claims
that it is relevant to psychoanalytic enquiry, what does the psychoanalytic commu-
nity itself think about the status of assumptions about infant development and the
potential of observation in relation to its theories and clinical practice? Secondly,
how can the observation method be used in research and what standards should be
applied in evaluating its adequacy from a scientific point of view? After all, by
definition, naturalistic observation is not subject to the same criteria as those
applied in the natural sciences.
2 Cathy Urwin and Janine Sternberg
A short history of infant observation

The term ‘infant observation’ used here refers to a method of following a baby’s
development over time that can be contrasted with observations carried out on
occasional or one-off bases and with ethological observation that uses preselected
categories. It was developed initially by Esther Bick as part of the formal curric-
ulum of the Tavistock Child Psychotherapy course in 1948. The Institute of
Psychoanalysis course added infant observation as an option in the 1960s. The
Anna Freud Centre also began what they call ‘mother–baby’ observation in 1962,
although students working with Anna Freud had been observing small children
during the war years and infants in well-baby clinics from the late 1940s.
Broadly, principles remain similar across the different trainings today. In the
typical situation, an observation student on a course offered by a psychoanalytic
or psychoanalytic psychotherapy training institution finds parents about to have a
new baby who are willing to allow an observer to visit them at home regularly,
normally weekly. In child psychotherapy trainings, observations usually take
place over two years; one-year observations are usual in adult psychotherapy or
psychoanalytic trainings.
After a preliminary visit to the family, the student begins observations as soon
after the infant’s birth as possible. When visiting the family the student tries to
take up an unobtrusive, non-interfering position, concentrating on the infant and
taking in as much as possible of what is happening – the classic ‘observational
stance’. Some training institutions expect the observer to concentrate primarily on
the infant, while others pay more attention to the mother–infant dyad. No notes
are taken at the time, but students aim to remember in as much detail as possible
what they have experienced and to write this down soon afterwards. They may be
encouraged to note, whilst acknowledging that it is separate, what they felt when
observing what they now describe. Students are encouraged to make their actual
observations as free from theoretical preconception as possible, and the descrip-
tions of what they have seen often have a spontaneity, even a rawness, that may
reflect the impact of the observation experience.
These narrative accounts are discussed subsequently in a small seminar group
(not usually exceeding six members) that meets on a weekly basis for the duration
of the observational assignment. In the group the students also get to know about
the infants and families observed by their colleagues. Over time, patterns in each
infant’s ways of behaving and responding may become apparent. Theoretical
ideas may be introduced gradually by the seminar leaders if and when they
become relevant. Each student normally writes a paper at the end of the course
based on tracing, over time, aspects of his or her observed baby’s development or
characteristic relationship patterns, backing the account with observation extracts
as evidence. This method is now practiced in a broadly similar way in many parts
of the world, although in France a procedure has evolved, from one practiced by
Bick towards the end of her life, in which one baby only is followed by the group,
so every observation made is subject to the group’s scrutiny (Magagna, 1987).
Introduction 3
Bick’s original initiative occurred in the context of the so-called Controversial

Discussions that took place in the British Psychoanalytic Society in the early
1940s, when there were opposing claims among analysts from different theoret-
ical allegiances about the nature of mental processes in preverbal infants. Detailed
observation material was used to support theoretical views. Of course, others
besides psychoanalytic psychotherapists had been observing babies and young
children for much longer. Freud’s own writings are steeped in references to the
contemporary Movement for Child Study, which was boosted by Charles Darwin’s
observations of his own son, used to support his investigations about the origins
of emotional and mental life in the species, and which provided a model for other
parents’ diary accounts.
In introducing her observation method, Bick’s original emphasis was on gaining
understanding of infants and young children, particularly their non-verbal commu-
nications, and on how relationships evolve within a family. But over the years
other learning experiences have been recognised, especially dealing with the
‘intense emotional impact’ of being close to a new mother and baby (Bick, 1964;
Briggs, 2002).Wittenberg (1997) states that the ‘enormous richness’ of infant
observation only gradually dawned on its practitioners. Over the last 20 years
attention has been given to how exposure to the maelstrom of feelings experi-
enced by observers can facilitate the development of capacities essential for
psychotherapeutic work. This has paralleled in some psychoanalytic traditions
greater emphasis on noting and using countertransference (or feelings evoked in
the psychoanalyst/psychotherapist) in the therapeutic process. These feelings are
regarded as, possibly and in part, communications of emotional experiences from
the patient. This is thought to reflect ways in which babies may communicate
anxiety or intense emotional experience to their mothers, requiring them to
modify, process and digest it, providing containment, according to Bion (1962),
or, in Winnicott’s (1984b) terms, a ‘holding’ function until they are able to manage
or think about the experience themselves.
Its potential for understanding more about the roots of mental-emotional life
within the intimacy of first relationships suggests that infant observation might
itself contribute to psychoanalytic practice, but it has wider applications. As
captured in the volumes edited by Miller, Rustin, Rustin and Shuttleworth (1989)
and Reid (1997), infant observations have opened up a host of new areas of
enquiry, sometimes generating unanticipated information, for example, about
families’ ways of managing in difficult circumstances or dealing with loss or
unexpected trauma. Less surprising has been the finding that observation itself
can have a containing or supportive function for many families, and that seminar
groups can learn a great deal about cultural differences (see Chapter 4 of this
volume). While fascinating follow-up studies are beginning to explore the relative
stability of infant characteristics established in the first two years (Diem-Wille,
1997), in recent times the settings in which infant observations take place have
been extended to include planned observations of babies in hospitals (Cohen,
2003; Mendelsohn & Phillips, 2005) and of infants in foster care and at risk of
developmental difficulties of various kinds, where other methods may be too

intrusive (see Chapters 8 and 10 of this volume; Briggs, 1997). With few adapta-
tions it has now been used to observe, for example, the elderly (McKenzie-Smith,
2009; see Chapter 15 of this volume), citizens attending a London mosque (see
Chapter 16 of this volume) and institutional processes themselves (Hinshelwood
& Skogstadt, 2000).
Each of these areas invites research looking into how infant observation affects
all those involved in it – psychotherapists in training, the observed families, indi-
viduals and institutions – and suggests further fields to which the approach may
be informative. This raises questions about what methods or models of analysis
are appropriate for getting to know about babies’ subjective experiences and
about affective processes in wider contexts.
Philosophical and methodological debates about

what observing infants can tell us
First let us consider the mental life of the baby. What young babies can be assumed
to know and experience has long been debated by philosophers and psychologists.
More relevant here are questions about how we can find out. As Music (Chapter 3
of this volume) describes, the empirical tradition in developmental psychology has
been particularly inventive in recent years in designing experiments to differen-
tiate definitively between theoretical possibilities. The assumption is that there is a
reality to babies’ knowledge and experience, aspects of which can be concretised
and captured. At the other extreme is the view that claims about babies are always
relative and to some extent socially produced through interpretive processes or
discourses that are themselves governed by historical and political factors (Burman,
1994). These affect, for example, prescriptive notions of good parenting.
Interesting but different kinds of views are held by psychoanalysis. As we have
noted, from its inception psychoanalytic thinking has been influenced by current
views about infant and child development (Steiner, 2000). Yet, in the psychoanal-
ytic community, there is no consensus on how far the baby of ‘actual’ infancy, as
known by parents, observed at home or observed in the laboratory, appears in the
patient in the consulting room. For some psychoanalysts, research concerning
infants’ development provides reference points – pegs against wild claims. For
others, the research and clinical domains bear no relation to each other and
dialogue is seen as irrelevant or even harmful to psychoanalysis. Some psycho-
analysts appear contradictory. Winnicott, for example, with a background in
paediatrics, is well known for taking his medical experience into his theories of
the mother–baby relationship and his understanding of the psychoanalytic role.
Yet Winnicott (1984a) apparently stated that he learned more about infant states
of mind from disturbed adults than from actually looking at babies!
A contemporary debate on this topic between the French psychoanalyst André
Green and the psychoanalyst and developmental researcher Daniel Stern captures
this tension (Sandler, Sandler & Davies, 2000). Stern (2000) believes that it is
Introduction 5
important to use evidence from developmental research to underpin or challenge

clinicians’ claims. He cites the example of how evidence on the relative sophisti-
cation of sensory and perceptual coordinations in young infants has undercut the
claim for a ‘normal autistic phase’ in very young infants assumed until recently in
several psychoanalytic traditions.
Stern’s view is that developmental research should have a constitutive role in
psychoanalytic thinking, a view shared by some psychoanalysts. For example,
Fonagy and Target (1997) have been proactive in including attachment and devel-
opmental psychology research findings in their theory of mental processing or
‘mentalisation’, a process that they propose originates in infancy. But these views
are an anathema to many psychoanalytic practitioners. Green (2000) is particu-
larly articulate in this respect. He differentiates empirical research, which may
indeed be relevant to the practical care of infants, from the infant life of the patient
emerging in the psychoanalytic process. Here the focus is on the exploration of
dream material in the context of the transference situation rather than recovering
‘facts’ about infancy.
Green developed his argument in relation to empirical developmental
psychology but some of the same points apply to infant observation research, as
Groarke (2008) has argued in his critique of this field. Accepting that infant obser-
vation is valuable in training, like Green, Groarke argues for the lack of commen-
surability between the ‘observed infant’ and the patient. Further, he asserts that
infant observation lacks the means for validating the claims to truth available to
psychoanalysis. In particular, ‘interpretation’ of the patient’s material in the
analytic setting, and working with how he or she responds, is not applicable in
infant observation, reducing its potential for contributing to this discipline.
Thus Groarke claims that psychoanalytic infant observation cannot contribute
to psychoanalytic knowledge. In the strict sense, this is surely correct in so far as
such knowledge belongs to the processes of co-construction and evaluation that
take place within the analytic relationship. Furthermore, following this argument,
infant observation will develop a field of knowledge in its own right. However, in
our view the jury is still out in terms of the possible contribution of infant observa-
tion to psychoanalysis. Arguably, the observation of infants has already contrib-
uted to psychoanalytic practice through the increased emphasis on working with
countertransference experience. This trend is likely to continue through the role of
infant observation in psychotherapeutic trainings, sensitising psychotherapists and
psychoanalysts to infant states of mind in adult patients that they may not other-
wise have noticed (Sternberg, 2005). Secondly, serendipitous interactions in the
minds of those observers (or observation supervisors) who are also clinicians may
contribute to psychoanalytic knowledge, as they perceive a relationship between
clinical material in the consulting room and material emerging in infant observa-
tions. This process was illustrated by Bick (1968) herself and is exemplified by
Chapters 10 and 12 of this volume.
But contributing to psychoanalytically informed clinical practice does not
exhaust the value of infant observation research. This method of getting to know
about early development uniquely involves engaging subjective and affective

processes in the observer, who may be changed by the experience. The potential
for opening up research into emotional aspects of daily experience via a rigorous
engagement of the researcher’s subjectivity promises to be of increasing rele-
vance to social science research. Recent research (Thomson, Moi, Thorne &
Nielson, 2012) suggests that it is possible for researchers to examine their affec-
tive responses to observational material systematically, producing a strong level
of agreement about what the material conveys. This implies a link between the
original situation, partly processed and recorded by the observer, and the experi-
ence of an affective resonance by different individuals later in time. The corre-
spondence raises important questions about what the researchers describe as
‘travelling affect’, what we consider to be psychic truth and what accounts for
continuity of experience over time.
Some methodological implications for infant

observation research
Methodological procedures associated with the natural sciences are clearly not
immediately applicable to the kind of data gathering process that involves, in
general, observation in naturalistic contexts, minimal intervention and often relies
on subjective experience. Most chapters that follow draw on assumptions charac-
terising qualitative research in the social sciences and can point to shared guiding
principles, including an emphasis on being systematic in how data are gathered
and rigour is maintained. Some systematicity is inherent in the relative stability
that is provided by the regularity of observers’ visits, allowing them to see babies
and families in similar situations on subsequent occasions. This facilitates making
comparisons between narrative accounts and following the development of
behavioural patterns or characteristics in the baby’s relationships. Infant observa-
tion research does not have the opportunities available to some developmental
researchers for repeated reviewing of video recordings. Nevertheless, the work of
the seminar group or supervision is to examine different possibilities inherent in
the described behaviour, using several sources of information, before ascribing
meaning. These include assessing whether or not particular ideas or working
hypotheses are borne out in later observations. They also include recognising
how a group process will generate contrasting reactions to emotionally powerful
material, for example sympathy with or antagonism towards a mother. Gathering
these diverse perspectives enables the group to accord each a value and/or dis-
cover an integrated view.
The attempt to ensure that multiple viewpoints are considered before a line
of argument or ascribed meaning is accepted is consistent with the principle
of ‘triangulation’ identified as essential for ensuring rigour in the investigative
process. In the present volume, although some studies draw on sociological
assumptions, several refer to the ethnographic tradition in anthropology to pose
questions about how knowledge may be gained through observation and conveyed
Introduction 7
to others, and the nature of observation itself. Shuttleworth (Chapter 16, Part III)
discusses interesting similarities and differences in these observation methods.
Until recently the method has proceeded chiefly on the basis of single case
studies. This raises questions about how far such findings are generalisable to
other cases or contexts. In some instances single case studies can achieve a kind
of generalisability through producing new information and insights and raising
questions of more widespread significance. For example, Urwin (Chapter 9, of
this volume) gives an account of an African baby and her family that raises ques-
tions of general relevance to understanding first-generation immigrant experience
and the importance of maintaining links to the country of origin. Another route to
generalisability is through combining findings from a cohort of cases to produce
conceptual innovation, or by contributing to theoretical debate by virtue of
a shared frame of reference. These possibilities are illustrated, in particular, in
Part III.
Data produced by infant observation research chiefly consist of narrative
accounts of observations. With respect to analysing observation material, in this
volume not all possible qualitative frameworks are represented. Some observer
researchers have emphasised the value of using thematic analyses that build on
the systematic potential already available in the construction of solid infant obser-
vation reports produced at the end of observation assignments. As noted previ-
ously, these reports require observers to review the history of the observation and
to select sufficient illustrative examples of material to evidence the development,
or the theoretical or clinical argument that is the focus of the account. Particular
skill is required to produce works that are both plausible and emotionally
convincing to the reader. The extracts of material used are not picked randomly
but are chosen to illustrate and to have an impact that supports the connections
and understanding that have evolved over time through processing the observa-
tion experience. In the research context, some reflexive analysis of this process of
making sense of the material and what one has learned oneself contributes to
discovering more about the research area under scrutiny (see Chapter 6 of this
volume; Urwin, 2007).
In this collection the favoured method of data analysis is grounded theory.
Grounded theory was established by Strauss and Corbin (1990) to counter trends
in social science that restricted research to establishing test cases for refuting
theoretically based hypotheses. Rather than beginning with theoretically based
questions, grounded theory investigations proceed through systematic analysis of
small chunks of qualitative data, leading to the development of codes, subse-
quently grouped into categories and higher order concepts. It is now acknowl-
edged that investigations can never be theory free but following these procedures
systematically ensures that theoretical conceptualisation emerges from the data
rather than being imposed on them. Two major sources of compatibility between
grounded theory and infant observation research may account for its being a
preferred methodology. The observational stance, like the clinician’s, is one
where theory and preconception must be placed at the back of the mind, rather
than fore-fronted. The student is positively discouraged from premature theo-

rising. In this sense, the meaning is emergent through an exploratory analytic
process. Although emergent concepts may be more or less imbued with psycho-
analytic thinking, they are neither identical with nor determined by it. Secondly,
grounded theory assumes that there is a rule-governed quality to the social world
and that, as for the physical world, there are regularities ‘out there’ to be discov-
ered rather than constructed. Comparable truths may out, as it were, whichever
way one goes into data analysis provided that the method is rigorous and system-
atic. This is not to say that further meanings will not emerge on subsequent anal-
ysis. This assumption is in line with the implicit view of the majority of working
clinicians that clinical practice and discovery is underpinned by a respectful
conviction that there are underlying psychic and material realities.
This respect for realities contributes to the fact that in practice the majority of
infant observers are prepared to engage with other methodologies: for example, to
consider the relevance of the phenomena described by developmental psycholo-
gists, even if the question of how they influence each other is complex, as Music
(Chapter 3 of this volume) describes. It also means that, while traditional scien-
tific methods are not immediately appropriate for gaining knowledge from
psychoanalytic infant observation, they may well be useful in assessing the useful-
ness of a model, conceptual framework or theoretical proposition derived
from infant observation. For example, in this volume, Briggs and Behringer
(Chapter 14) describe the development of a standardised scale used to establish if
characteristic patterns of containment style, originally observed in a small sample,
can be reliably recognised in a larger group; and Rhode (Chapter 10) uses stand-
ardised measures alongside infant observation to investigate the effectiveness of
infant observation as an intervention with at-risk infants.
It is interesting to note which research methods are absent. As yet, as far as we
have identified, infant observation researchers have not undertaken discourse
analyses, although such studies might provide useful critiques or antidotes to
formulaic thinking or preconception. Similarly, we note the absence of narrative
methods favoured by many social scientists working with interviews or biograph-
ical material. This is perhaps surprising given that the data to be analysed are in
the form of narrative accounts. Yet the data that infant observers work with are
not the meaning given in the text, but both the content that lies behind it and the
self-reflective processes involved in its discovery. Following the anthropologist
Ardener (2007), the aim becomes one of providing accounts in forms that enable
readers to go beyond what is written down, to generate, via affective resonance,
associations that are nevertheless relevant to the domain under investigation,
engaging the readers’ active imagination.
It is this kind of interactive process that makes the infant observation approach
to analysing data of wider relevance in social science research, opening the door
to new contexts. We hope that it will contribute to meeting the need for method-
ologies that can investigate the emotional processes that lie ‘behind the surface’
of everyday life (Clarke & Hoggett, 2009; Hollway, 2007; Redman, 2009).
Introduction 9
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Infant Observation and Research

Psychoanalytic infant observation is frequently used in training psychoanalytic

• Infant observation as part of the learning process

Cathy Urwin is a consultant child and adolescent psychotherapist and a research

Janine Sternberg is a consultant child and adolescent psychotherapist at the

Edited by Cathy Urwin and

ISBN: 978-0-415-61659-1 (hbk)

Paperback cover design by Lisa Dynan

List of contributors viii

2 Infant observation as a method of research 13

3 How do we know the ways in which infants experience

4 Evaluation of the application of infant observation in the

5 Why the experience of infant observation lies at the

6 In the field: Psychoanalytic observation and

7 What can be learned from a single case of psychoanalytic

8 A study of therapeutic observation of an infant in foster care 81

9 Using surprise in observing cultural experience 93

10 Infant observation as an early intervention:

11 A way of helping a traumatised and emotionally frozen mother

12 The experience of babies born following the loss of a baby 123

13 Group life in babies: Opening up perceptions and possibilities 137

14 Linking infant observation research and other paradigms 149

15 Observing in nursing homes: The use of single case

16 Infant observation, ethnography and social anthropology 171

Johanna Behringer, Dipl. Psych., is a researcher and lecturer in the Institute of

Observation and its Applications. With N. Midgley, J. Anderson, E. Grainger

As a researcher with no direct involvement in the traditions of psychotherapy or

A short history of infant observation

Bick’s original initiative occurred in the context of the so-called Controversial

developmental difficulties of various kinds, where other methods may be too

Philosophical and methodological debates about

important to use evidence from developmental research to underpin or challenge

about early development uniquely involves engaging subjective and affective

Some methodological implications for infant

than fore-fronted. The student is positively discouraged from premature theo-

Ardener , E. ( 2007 ) Some outstanding problems in the

Bick , E. ( 1964 ) Notes on infant observation in

Journal of Psychoanalysis , 45 , 558 – 566 .

Bick , E. ( 1968 ) The experience of the skin in early

of Psychoanalysis , 49 , 484 – 485 .

Bion , W. ( 1962 ) Learning from Experience . London :

Briggs , A. ( 2002 ) Surviving Space: Papers on Infant

of Esther Bick . London : Karnac .

Briggs , S. ( 1997 ) Growth and Risk in Infancy . London

Burman , E. ( 1994 ) Deconstructing Developmental

Clarke , S. & Hoggett , P. (Eds.) ( 2009 ) Researching

Cohen , M. ( 2003 ) Sent Before my Time . London :

Diem-Wille , G. ( 1997 ) Observed families revisited –

Reid , S. (Ed.), Developments in Infant Observation. The

Routledge , pp. 182 – 206 .

Fonagy , P. & Target , M. ( 1997 ) Attachment and refl

organisation . Development and Psychology , 9 , 679 –

Green , A. ( 2000 ) Science and science fi ction in

A-M. & Davies , R. (Eds.), Clinical and Observational

of a Controversy . London : Karnac , pp. 41 – 72 .

Groarke , S. ( 2008 ) Psychoanalytical infant

Journal of Psychotherapy and Counselling , 10 , 299 – 321

Hinshelwood , R.D. & Skogstadt , W. ( 2000 ) Observing

and Culture in Health Care . London : Barnes & Noble .

Hollway , W. ( 2007 ) Afterword: Infant observation in a

Journal of Infant Observation and its Applications , 10 ,

Magagna , J. ( 1987 ) Three years of infant observation

McKenzie-Smith , S. ( 2009 ) Observational study of the