Sense and sensibility in infant observation: a response to Margot Waddell

Abstract

This response to Margot Waddell's paper welcomes its argument, and draws attention to a number of issues which it raises. One of these is the origin of the theory of container-contained relations, and the possible links between the work of Esther Bick and Wilfred Bion, in its development. A second issue is the relation between infant observation as a form of learning, and a method of research. It argues that infant observation has given rise to significant discoveries, and also that it makes a significant implicit contribution to clinical research in child psychotherapy. Finally the paper notes the distinctive sensibility nurtured by observational experience, and agrees with Waddell that the value of infant observation lies as much in this sphere as in more theoretical and empirical domains.

Keywords:

• container-contained relations and infant observation
• infant observation and research
• infant observation and clinical practice
• sense and sensibility in psychoanalysis

Notes

This is a revised version of a commentary on Margot Waddell's paper ‘The Aetiology of an Idea: Observing Development’, given at a Scientific Meeting of the British Psychoanalytical Society on November 3rd 2005, published in The Bulletin of the British Psychoanalytical Society, Vol 41, 8, October 2005. The revised paper by Margot Waddell, entitled ‘Infant observation in Britain the Tavistock approach’ was first published in the International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 2006, Vol 87, 1103–20 and is republished here with the kind permission of the publishers, Wiley-Blackwell.

1. The question of whether infant observation has or can make a contribution to psychoanalytical knowledge has been recently debated in this journal and previously, in contributions by Steven Groarke (2008, 2010) and myself (Rustin, 2010a, 2010b). In an earlier debate on this topic André Green (2000) advanced a very negative view about observing infant, contending that psychoanalysis depended for its understanding on the investigation of the infantile unconscious within the analytic situation.

2. I have argued for the priority of the consulting room in the development of psychoanalytic knowledge in Rustin (2001), and for similarities to this of the infant observation setting in Rustin (1989, 1997, 2002).

3. A forthcoming book on Young Child Observation, edited by Simonetta Adamo and Margaret Rustin, in the Tavistock Clinic/Karnac series, will throw light on the differences between infants under two, and young children between three and five, as ‘objects’ of study.

4. I have written in more detail about this in Rustin (2006).

5. ‘Habitus’ refers to the dispositions and generative principles implanted in individuals by their culture and education, through which they interpret their experience and take action. ‘Habitus’ is the outcome of deep processes of socialisation and acculturation, such as are the implicit or explicit aim of psychoanalytic education. There is an immense literature by and on Bourdieu. See for example Bourdieu and Passeron (1970) and Bourdieu (1977).

6. Kant's axiom is echoed in Roger Money-Kyrle's (1964) observation, following Bion, that to enable what is unconscious to be recognised and interpreted, there needs to be ‘knowledge of an adequate number of psycho-analytic theories and adequate observation.’ If the theories are not adequate ‘there will not be enough pigeon-holes, as it were, for all the observations. As to the second, if the observations are not accurate, they will be likely to be put in the wrong pigeon-holes in the network of theory, even if, in itself, this is adequately comprehensive.’