The Joyfully Sexual Infant in the Room: A Response to Frances Thomson-Salo and Campbell Paul

Abstract

Some thoughts and material from clinical work and infant observations and from supervisions of infant observations are offered in response to Thomson-Salo and Paul’s assertion that infant sexuality is a critical aspect of the infant in him- or herself and in the infant–parent relationship. The distinct benefit for therapists that this position allows—a broadening access to and understanding of transference and countertransference experiences and thus to be able to offer something more in our thinking with patients, young and old—is further highlighted.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Dimitra Bekos

Dimitra Bekos, B.A., B.S.W., M.C.P.P., is a Child and Adult Psychoanalyst with the Australian Psychoanalytical Society and is a member of the International Psychoanalytic Association. She is also a Child Psychotherapist with a Monash University Master in Child Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy. She is currently working in private practice in Melbourne. Dimitra has more than 20 years’ experience in working with children and in particular has extensive experience in working with severely traumatized, abused children and adolescents. She has also published papers such as “An Exploration of Mothers’ Experience of Infant Observation” in International Journal of Infant Observation and its Applications (Vol. 10, No. 2, 2007) and “Sara: Psychotherapy with a Mother–Infant Dyad With a Background of Violence” in The Baby as Subject: Clinical Studies in Infant–Parent Therapy (C. Paul & F. Thomson-Salo, Eds.; 2013, Karnac).

Teresa Russo

Teresa Russo, M.B., B.S., M-MHS, is a Child and Adult Psychoanalyst with the Australian Psychoanalytical Society and is a member of the International Psychoanalytical Association and the Balint Society of Australia and New Zealand. She is past-president of the Victorian Branch of the Australian Association of Infant Mental Health Inc. and Infant Observation seminar leader in the Master of Mental Health Sciences (Infancy stream) at the University of Melbourne. She has papers published in The Baby as Subject: Clinical Studies in Infant–Parent Therapy (C. Paul & F. Thomson-Salo, Eds.; 2013, Karnac) and has long-standing experience as a General Medical Practitioner and an Infant Mental Health Clinician working in Community Health and in private practice in Melbourne.