Focusing the lens: The use of digital video in the practice and evaluation of parent–infant psychotherapy

Abstract

This paper gives an overview of the Anna Freud Centre's use of video as a clinical and a research tool with parents and young infants. The new digital technologies have implications for extending therapeutic technique in clinical work, and for evaluation of innovative work in applied settings. Video provides the technical means to observe, support and intervene in interactional processes that occur between mother and infant in earliest infancy and also allows research to focus on the mother–infant relationship. Parent–infant psychotherapy is an analytic treatment modality that aims to promote the parent–infant relationship in order to facilitate infant development. The clinical case example provided explores the use of digital video in work with parents and their twins in the Parent–Infant Project therapy room. Video as a research tool is illustrated by the evaluation of a couple of parent–infant psychotherapy outreach projects in a prison setting, and in a hostel for homeless families.

Keywords:

• Hostel
• mentalization
• prison
• relational process
• twins

Notes

¹The members of the Parent–Infant Project team are Tessa Baradon, Carol Broughton, Iris Gibbs, Jessica James, Angela Joyce and Judith Woodhead.

²I am grateful to Margaret Wilkinson for this insight.

³It must be noted that for both projects participation in all aspects of the evaluation was entirely voluntary and did not affect their access to the service. Thus far, some mothers have declined to take part from the start but of those who have consented to participate in the evaluation, none have declined to carry out the follow-up visit.