Editorial

We have made a decision to publish a double issue of the Journal which will complete the 2017 schedule and enable us to move on in the hope of publishing at least two of the print issues for 2018 within the calendar year. This has been made possible by the submission of some excellent articles, covering, as readers will see from the content list for the issue, a range of subjects about what is seen, papers about specific themes in two observations, a baby and a young child, and clinical applications of psychoanalytic work with parents and young children.

I am again reminded of the great breadth of subjects which are now considered to be part of ‘Infant Observation and its Applications’. One of our authors, Judith Edwards, has contributed much to the Journal and in books over time. In this issue, she reflects on the links between the infant observation method or Esther Bick and Ways of Seeing, John Berger's influential and memorable television series and the book which followed. Edwards makes a plea for greater interdisciplinary thinking (and writing perhaps) on observing, in the sense of both looking and listening (as Berger himself did) which also leads her to consider the gap between what we actually see take in and any spoken or written description. She urges us, to look long and hard, as Berger, and of course others did for something to gather in the mind, to be recognised and, to be shared with others.

This is at the heart of the work of the observation seminar, where discussions of what the observer has seen, heard (and felt) are taken in, shared and discussed, in the hope that some insight will emerge about the developing mind of the baby (or young child) and about what is unconscious but astonishingly powerful and significant. A shared picture emerges, of a mysterious world as it grows and develops itself, and as the work done together expands and develops the perspective of the observers and their teacher too.

The powerful effect of observing, later getting a version into the written report and thinking further about it with a group or in supervision, finally to come to a written account, then, sometimes, to be transformed into an article, is there to see in all the writing in this issue. Judith Edwards’ reflections on the art and science of observation stems from the mind of an experienced clinician, whose retirement from clinical work has diverted her creativity into teaching, including thinking about ‘looking’ and to writing. She describes the necessity for ‘being there’ whether it be applied to the making of painting or sculpture, for example, or, with the observed infant at the centre, looking and listening with the heart and the mind, and striving, again and again, to ‘see’ more. She is right; this kind of activity can never be done with disinterest or at a distance, and, when it is done with strong commitment to searching for the truth of what one sees, it has a profound way of changing the perspective of those involved. It deepens understanding, encourages a willingness to make hypotheses which might later be modified, abandoned or confirmed. It encourages a greater capacity to live with uncertainty, encourages self-reflection and an eagerness to look more closely or carefully. It changes both the observer and the subject; something profound goes on between them and inside each one's mind.

Being an observer oneself, is of course one of the best ways of understanding why the activity is so fascinating to so many. One can also write about it, with carefully chosen vignettes from observations undertaken and discussed over time, in a way which draws in the reader in order to share the observation and the thinking which arises from it. Authors’ passionate enthusiasm shines through so much of what we publish in the Journal, and never more so than in direct accounts or in accounts of clinical interventions which include detailed observational illustrations. Satoshi Handa's engaging account of his first baby observation is filled with comments about how his expectations were changed by the reality of setting up an observation in a family who were not British by birth, where he, also someone from a distant and different culture, found himself filled up with strong emotional responses. Some were his own countertransference to this new and difficult task, but, there was something further which he was picking up from the baby, who was looked after for long hours by maternal grandmother, when mother had to return to work. The atmosphere of overexcited activity in grandmother, mother and the baby were in stark contrast to the observer's growing distress as he felt filled up with what he describes as unwanted projections from the baby and the two women. This new observer has clearly worked on and worked through what happened in his painful observation, both in discussions in his observation seminar, and in writing a paper in which he writes that he might have been of some use to the baby as a ‘container’ who continued to visit and to survive the distress. Handa's discussion of his direct and deeply personal discoveries as a result of working on and publishing his account is wide-ranging, about the impact on him and the members of the family, and on understanding so much more about what happens beyond words in the clinical encounter as a result of having done an observation. Not that such ‘learning’ is always welcome. It is painful, not expected or sought-out and not always bearable either.

Perhaps those who choose to write and to seek to publish accounts of their observations, are, as Caron, Sobreira-Lopes, Steibel, and Schneider Donelli (2012) ‘ … reliving the experience with every opportunity’, repeatedly allowing themselves to be ‘ … affected by the experience … ’ which is at the core of research in psychoanalysis, even though the writer could go too far, risking ‘ … revealing (..) intense experience (..) in too much detail (..) making it incomprehensible to the larger audience.’ They are hinting, I think, at ensuring that what becomes a published article is truly digested and comprehensible for the reader to take it in. What is more personal needs to go for personal reflection elsewhere, perhaps. Caron and Lopes suggest that writing, from observation reports to accounts at the end of an observation, to published papers, are indeed all ways of metabolising and further digesting regular encounters with strong, and sometimes mysterious feelings they are seeking to get a grip on.

Accounts of making use of the capacity to observe in clinical interventions with parent or parents and small child illustrate the close relationship between the two and the relevance of ‘ordinary’ observation to its clinical application. We publish one such account by Margaret Rustin which includes her own clinical work and supervision of others, and one from Chile by Javiera Navarro and Monica Gertner, and both vividly illustrate how much is noted and taken in which is not the verbal communication, and, as with Handa's description, how much is to be contained for later reflection. Some of this work can be very brief yet highly effective when the baby’ s vivid non-verbal communication revives early feelings in his parents which is conveyed to sensitive clinicians. This kind of brief or relatively short intervention, which relies heavily on the looking, listening and absorbing of the parent–infant psychotherapist, can really transform things before they become fixed and much more difficult to reach at a later point. Yet, these kinds of interventions, which are neither based heavily on advice-giving or making suggestions for changing parents’ or their child's behaviour, are increasingly difficult for parents to access quickly, at least in the UK. In the UK, evidence-based interventions and ‘targeted’ pathways are seen to be a better way of spending limited resources. What feels like common sense – that intervening early with young families using a sensitive observation approach might pull back potentially pathological developmental pathways and save more money and distress later, is not accepted. Observation of the baby or young child, considering and putting into words some of what the baby might be seeing of feeling, is probably too vague or too much of the imagination.¹ Perhaps the idea that what one is exposed to in observing a baby, as Judith Edwards concludes, quoting Wroe (2016) on light, ‘ … carries with it all manner of memories, disturbances and ghosts’. The capacity to put the imagination and the associations it brings into thought, along with the knowledge that the baby's capacity to take in so much, so early, is easily dismissed. Yet, observers of babies and young children (including an example in this issue written by Samantha Davies, cannot but see the intricacies of relationships, the effect of babies on parents and vice versa, in shaping their world view, external and internal. Yet, keeping the baby in mind is not easily held on to or always welcome.

Notes

1. In this issue we again include a paper in our series, Childhood and Works of the Imagination, this time about Arnold Lobel's ‘Frog and Toad’ stories – a wonderfully imaginative article by Ann Sexsmith, originally submitted for the Hamish Canham Prize at the Tavistock Clinic in 2017, and highly commended by the judges. We also include a review of the children's film ‘Paddington 2’ another glorious example of a child's (or bear's) perspective on the world.