Looking in the right way: the use of infant observation as a clinical tool in parent−infant psychotherapy with parents with severe mental health difficulties

Abstract

This article discusses the use and value of infant observation¹ as a clinical tool in parent−infant psychotherapy in the home setting with parents with mental illness or severe and enduring mental health difficulties. A single case study is given of work undertaken in a Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service for parents who are mostly too unwell to attend or access clinic-based services. Parent−infant psychotherapy, like much of the work of this service, is therefore offered in the family home. The home setting makes it a natural context in which to use a psychoanalytic infant observation frame and stance as a clinical tool in psychoanalytic parent−infant psychotherapy. Clinical techniques and methods of psychoanalytic parent−infant psychotherapy are used within an infant observation frame and stance. The article considers some reasons why psychoanalytic infant observation as a clinical tool seems particularly suited and effective with this patient group.

Keywords:

• infant observation
• clinical tool
• parent−infant psychotherapy
• parental mental illness
• observational frame and stance
• seeing with feeling
• experience near
• container-contained
• CAMHS outreach service

Notes on contributor

Graham Shulman is a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist and Head of Child Psychotherapy in CAMHS, NHS Lanarkshire, where he offers parent-infant psychotherapy as part of his clinical work. He is an Assistant Editor of the Journal of Infant Observation and is a past Editor of the Journal of Child Psychotherapy. He is also Joint Editor of and contributor to The Emotional Experience of Adoption: A Psychoanalytic Perspective published by Routledge in 2008, and The Non-Linear Mind: Psychoanalysis of Complexity in Psychic Life published by Karnac in 2016. He teaches Infant Observation and is a Tutor on a multi-disciplinary Infant Mental Course and is an External Tutor on the Scottish Child Psychotherapy Clinical Training.

Notes

1 In this article I am using the term infant observation to refer both to a conventional infant observation frame/setting (in the home) and to a specific method of looking and seeing.