Infant ObservationPub Date : 2020-09-01DOI: 10.1080/13698036.2020.1867619
Bernice Pike
{"title":"Working with a troubled 7-year old in a primary school – lessons learnt by a learning support assistant from Work Discussion seminars","authors":"Bernice Pike","doi":"10.1080/13698036.2020.1867619","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13698036.2020.1867619","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The author describes her work as a learning support assistant, and the changes and developments in her thinking and her approach to work in class with an overactive, excitable boy who could not tolerate making mistakes and often refused to try the tasks he was set in class. The Work Discussion seminar the author attended as part of her Psychoanalytic Observational Studies course provided her with a different way of understanding and thinking about the boy and of working with him, which led to small, positive changes. The paper focuses on the work of one academic year.","PeriodicalId":38553,"journal":{"name":"Infant Observation","volume":"23 1","pages":"149 - 160"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/13698036.2020.1867619","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41582522","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Infant ObservationPub Date : 2020-09-01DOI: 10.1080/13698036.2021.1876944
J. Magagna, M. Cardenal
{"title":"A video-linked professional development event in Argentina, discussing infant observation in the style of Esther Bick: a discussion of two online observations of a baby in her family, during the COVID-19 lockdown, 13th August 2020","authors":"J. Magagna, M. Cardenal","doi":"10.1080/13698036.2021.1876944","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13698036.2021.1876944","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In May 2020, an online video event for about 200 participants, took place during the global Covid 19 lockdown, organised by Monica Cardenal, supported by the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA) Child and Adolescent Psychoanalysis Committee and the Buenos Aires, Argentina, Italian Hospital Paediatric Mental Health Service and its University Institute. The aim was to discuss two detailed online infant observations and the effects of the pandemic–induced social isolation on the baby and family. The observer was part of an observation seminar led by Cardenal. Jeanne Magagna was invited to lead the discussion with Monica Cardenal and the large group. Magagna had been able to present observations of a baby, each week over three years, to with Esther Bick. Other participants attended but were not observers themselves at the time. Bick encouraged the group to pause during the reading of an observation in order to discuss that part in detail and Magagna wanted, as far as possible, to follow Bick's method.","PeriodicalId":38553,"journal":{"name":"Infant Observation","volume":"23 1","pages":"116 - 132"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/13698036.2021.1876944","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47856406","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Infant ObservationPub Date : 2020-09-01DOI: 10.1080/13698036.2020.1857914
Chiaming Chen
{"title":"Fathers and perinatal mental health - A guide for recognition, treatment and management","authors":"Chiaming Chen","doi":"10.1080/13698036.2020.1857914","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13698036.2020.1857914","url":null,"abstract":"This concise guide stands out in the increasing number of publications on postnatal depression and mental health difficulties because it does not focus principally as many do, on mothers, but, on t...","PeriodicalId":38553,"journal":{"name":"Infant Observation","volume":"23 1","pages":"193 - 196"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/13698036.2020.1857914","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48999199","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Infant ObservationPub Date : 2020-09-01DOI: 10.1080/13698036.2020.1870153
Caterina Canepa Croce
{"title":"Reflections on brief, play-based work, similar to ‘Special Time’, undertaken by a student volunteer in a children’s residential institution","authors":"Caterina Canepa Croce","doi":"10.1080/13698036.2020.1870153","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13698036.2020.1870153","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The author, then a psychology student, describes a piece of work she undertook as a volunteer in a former Communist European country, in an institution designated as a residential hospital. The writer had initially intended to use psychoanalytic observation to observe deprived and institutionalised children as research for her thesis. The children who were admitted were all diagnosed as organically learning disabled or as autistic. Some of them were clearly traumatised, deprived and neglected before and after admission, and the writer believes many would have benefitted from a long-term, play-based intervention such as ‘Special Time’ (Cavalli & Williams, 2019). She was drawn to an eight-year-old girl, who seemed flat and withdrawn, but nonetheless seemed to draw in the volunteer and to come to life a little, during the single week when the two were together. There were signs of awakening and a response to the lively company offered as well as to the pain of daily separation and of permanent parting at the end of it. The paper is the culmination of many years of supervision, reflective writing and on the pain of such an intense encounter for both worker and child.","PeriodicalId":38553,"journal":{"name":"Infant Observation","volume":"23 1","pages":"161 - 172"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/13698036.2020.1870153","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47950202","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Infant ObservationPub Date : 2020-09-01DOI: 10.1080/13698036.2021.1875869
D. Brace
{"title":"‘Settling In’: Exploring the complexities of observing and responding to young children’s communications of distress as they start day care","authors":"D. Brace","doi":"10.1080/13698036.2021.1875869","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13698036.2021.1875869","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This paper uses material from two psychoanalytic observations of children in day care to illustrate ways in which young children communicate their feelings on separating from their parents. It discusses how early years practitioners respond to children's distress as they form a Key Person relationship. Points are raised about how difficult it can be for practitioners to respond to children in the early days of them getting used to the new environment, especially in the absence of a robust, reflective work culture. The child's Key Person may avoid understanding children's distress and even misinterpret the child's communication. The paper presents detailed observations of a young girl, who in the absence of an available and receptive adult, finds ways to distance herself from or to cut off from missing her mother and longing to go home. Her defensive, or self protective response, arguably leads to more difficulty for her Key Person, to notice, understand and respond sensitively to her expressions of distress. The paper argues for better, supportive, reflective systems for early years practitioners working in day care, in order to improve the emotional experience for them and for the children.","PeriodicalId":38553,"journal":{"name":"Infant Observation","volume":"23 1","pages":"133 - 148"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/13698036.2021.1875869","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46440742","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Infant ObservationPub Date : 2020-05-03DOI: 10.1080/13698036.2020.1762702
G. Abrahamsen
{"title":"‘When the eye begins to see and the ear begins to hear’: Teaching infant observation at university level","authors":"G. Abrahamsen","doi":"10.1080/13698036.2020.1762702","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13698036.2020.1762702","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This paper presents the author’s work in introducing a modified version of infant observation as a requirement of a university course in Early Childhood Education, a qualification course for Nursery Teachers in a Norwegian University. The author explores her psychoanalytic ideas about how learning takes place after tracing the paradigm shift in Early Years Education in a north European country in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The author herself learnt a great deal about the Tavistock model of observation and in later work at the Tavistock Clinic. She emphasises the emotional component in learning, the nature of learning from a psychoanalytic perspective and on the countertransference (what is felt) along with what is seen and heard in observing young children. The expansion of nursery places in the author’s country for three to six-year-old children led to an expansion in nursery teaching courses at universities and the opportunity to include ‘learning form experience’, along with other forms of learning, was taken. The paper also includes responses from questionnaires given to former students who had undertaken observations and their thoughts on its impact on their approach to their teaching work.","PeriodicalId":38553,"journal":{"name":"Infant Observation","volume":"23 1","pages":"35 - 52"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-05-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/13698036.2020.1762702","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47875444","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Infant ObservationPub Date : 2020-05-03DOI: 10.1080/13698036.2020.1776629
Vassilopoulou Vassiliki, Tselika Maria
{"title":"‘Crying out for help’: containing primitive anxieties. From infant observation to under-5’s brief therapeutic intervention","authors":"Vassilopoulou Vassiliki, Tselika Maria","doi":"10.1080/13698036.2020.1776629","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13698036.2020.1776629","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This paper describes a brief under 5’s intervention with a family who referred themselves to a hospital early intervention service. Material from the full piece of clinical work with the family is presented and discussed. The second session is presented in detail to give a sense of the distinctive features of the brief intervention for under-5’s. The whole family was invited to attend, and the work was shared by two psychotherapists trained in the under 5s model of brief work. The significance of psychoanalytic infant observation in this type of intervention is highlighted. Infant observation enables the therapists to gather detailed impressions and thoughts to make meaning and to connect verbal and non-verbal communication between children, parents and therapists. The end-result is the creation of a transitional space, in which differentiation, creative thinking and change can take place.","PeriodicalId":38553,"journal":{"name":"Infant Observation","volume":"23 1","pages":"53 - 69"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-05-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/13698036.2020.1776629","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47482308","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Infant ObservationPub Date : 2020-05-03DOI: 10.1080/13698036.2020.1808507
Jess Martin
{"title":"Thinking in the face of disturbance","authors":"Jess Martin","doi":"10.1080/13698036.2020.1808507","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13698036.2020.1808507","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This paper offers an alternative perspective on Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND), paying attention to the emotional life of children with SEND. Despite ground-breaking work by seminal psychotherapists from the 1980s to the current day, disparities remain in the Early Years Workforce regarding professionals’ acceptance of the emotional capacity of children with SEND compared to children with typical development. This paper explores the impact of mental pain and disturbance on the developing infant’s capacity to learn and considers the effect of the child’s difficulty and disturbance on the collective mind of the professional group. The paper presents psychoanalytic observational vignettes that document the author’s work with a boy and his parents before, during and after he was taken into Local Authority foster care. The paper recognises his arrested development as an expression of his inner world which had developed in response to internalisation of his problematic external circumstances. It suggests that his complex internal world could be and was affected by a sensitive, observational approach to work with him, valuing the Portage worker’s curiosity. This proved helpful in fostering a sense of emotional connection and allowing some of his defences against pain and fear to lessen, enabling development.","PeriodicalId":38553,"journal":{"name":"Infant Observation","volume":"23 1","pages":"70 - 83"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-05-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/13698036.2020.1808507","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42163655","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}