Reflections on using infant observation in a multi-method research project looking at infants’ defences against disturbed and disturbing mothering

ABSTRACT The author reflects on her experience of combining quantitative and qualitative research methods to explore the power of psychoanalytic infant observation as a clinical and research tool. One difficulty was holding the tension between the different approaches and their theoretical assumptions. The author’s primary aim was to capture the process by which psychoanalytic psychotherapists using the observational technique, the countertransference and their understanding of psychoanalytic theories about the internal world phenomena in mother and infant, to make clinical deductions, which, in turn, inform treatment approaches.