Mother-baby observation: The position of the observer

SUMMARY

In this paper, I will suggest that the particular potency of motherbaby observation as part of psychoanalytic training lies not so much in what is learned about babies, as in the work that has to go on in the analytic candidate to find internally ‘the position of the observer’. This is an essential part of what is involved in eventually acquiring a psychoanalytic identity. In presenting some material from the observation that I made while I was training, I want to draw attention to the matter of ‘finding a position from which to make observations’. It is here, I think, that continuity between infant-observation and psychoanalytic work is found. In both, finding a position is one thing, but sustaining it in dynamic and pressurising circumstances is quite another.

A version of this paper was presented at the English Speaking Conference of the British Psycho-Analytical Society in October 1996.

A version of this paper was presented at the English Speaking Conference of the British Psycho-Analytical Society in October 1996.

Notes

A version of this paper was presented at the English Speaking Conference of the British Psycho-Analytical Society in October 1996.