The first issue of Volume 24 (2021) of infant Observation, is all about infant observation itself, rather than its applications. One pair of articles is written about the same thing, observing during the Covid pandemic, from two different perspectives. A seminar group of north Italian observers, eager to find ways to continue observation while also needing to comply with the demands of their university-validated programme, during the first wave of the Covid pandemic (2020–2021). All had begun their observations in person and all were well established. Then came the crisis. They needed to plan, discuss and negotiate online observation for several months when they could not visit the families during their babies’ second year of life. Their seminar leader, Patrizia Gatti, has written about the same situation from her own perspective. Enormous efforts were required from all concerned. Links were required between the course team in Milan and the Tavistock course leaders in London. The Milan team needed to be clear before meeting the students through an online platform, and the students needed to think ahead, if there was agreement, about how to set up a different context to continue observing their babies, and how to discuss their proposal with the parents. They also needed to research the practicalities of observing through the screen given variations in the availability of the necessary technology and the families’ familiarity or otherwise with the online platforms. There had been a long gap because of the severity of the outbreak in Italy and so some students were worried that families might not respond to such an innovative request. The abstract of the students’ paper describes how the new situation required great efforts from everyone concerned. The students refer to their own efforts as, ‘ … finding an internal and external “relocation”’. They refer here to their observer position, and they do not hesitate to add that this task involved working through great frustration for all concerned. There was more than frustration. Everyone was anxious, afraid of the virus, fearful that they could not continue with observation and with seminars, and, no doubt, very angry as well.
The students’ term, ‘relocation’, is probably better understood in English as painful, unexpected and unwanted ‘adjustment’ to the new reality. The accounts of the adjustment given by observers and their teacher are detailed, thoughtful and sensitive, and all five of the observations were re-established and continued for the planned two years. The students were not the only ones needing to adjust and find a new position. The babies, their parents and other family members were faced with the same lockdown, and the sudden, enormous interruption to normal life. Everyone involved clearly worked very hard to keep in touch and to use the resources of the digital world. Patrizia Gatti is extremely clear that, in terms of infant observation, the basic tenets had to be renegotiated. The absence of physical presence and in-person contact in her view changed the ‘proper’ emotional distance, as did the management of silence and the observer’s abstention from initiating action. She is clear that there is much more to be thought about in terms of what is lost, gained or changed by a move to online observation, with the implication that, in an emergency, it was certainly better to keep in touch via phone or computer, but that it is very different from Bick’s idea of weekly visits in person. The observer, the baby and other family members will not be the same on the screen. An emergency is an emergency, and it seems clear that Gatti for one, is acutely aware of the many complications involved in finding ways to continue at all during a pandemic.
Adjustments to new realities are implicit and explicit in other articles published in this issue. Sue Schraer describes becoming a mother–infant observation seminar leader, using the metaphor of gestation and birth. In Schraer’s experience there was no formal preparation for the adjustment to taking on the role, which she compares with becoming a new parent. She suggests that no amount of reading and formal learning can truly prepare one for learning from the experience frequently unpredictable, uniquely individual and requiring the seminar leader to learn anew from the new and different experience each year brings.
While it is possible to create containing frameworks to enable new teachers to try to look ahead, ask their questions, talk about their anxiety, and discuss particular situations, they still have to face the anxious, excited student group, and begin to talk about the practice and practicalities of infant observation and finding a baby to observe. The power of what is silently communicated to the seminar leader, along with what is openly discussed can be very difficult to digest. It gets easier when some observers succeed in finding a baby and get started, but there are students who take a very long time, and some who slow down in their search as their hopes are dashed.
In a fascinating paper giving the perspective of both a prospective observer and seminar leader, Mia Mostoufi and Rachel Acheson describe and comment on Mostoufi’s search for a baby in a family and Acheson’s response as the search stretched out over weeks and months. The dual perspective is beautifully described, and one is able to read the thoughts and feelings of both parties. The experience which Rachel Acheson writes about in taking in what was communicated by Mia Mostoufi, reveals how much work goes into metabolising very strong, reactions to having to take on an infant observation as part of an academic programme. Mostoufi was not undertaking the task as a pre-clinical training requirement, and her academic master’s course was focused on developmental psychology rather than on psychoanalysis. No doubt because of Acheson’s thoughtful approach to the dilemma presented, and partly because all the other members of the observation seminar found babies and got on with weekly observation, (and with the help of her personal tutor, called-in to assist by Rachel Acheson) the situation shifted. Such a thoughtful and honest account as both authors present in this article is rare and revealing. It is a pleasure to be able to publish it here.
We are also fortunate to be publishing a research article on the experiences of observers and families several years after the infant observation had been completed. This project in which seven observers and three parents were recruited, from two to sixteen years after the observation ended, shows how vividly both observers and families remembered it and were interested to take part in the research. It is fascinating to note that both observers (as one might expect) but also families, reported the development of their observation skills and their capacity to reflect. One important point for all of us interested in observation to think about is the keen sense of loss the participants felt at its ending. While the authors, Vassiliki Papoutsi and Cynthia Fu comment on how the experience lived on in everyone’s mind, the use of the term ‘loss’ suggests that we might all need to think much more about the ending of an observation, whether after one year, or two. Vivid memories and strong emotional links are made between observer and observed. The quality of attention of the observer has considerable impact. The observer, who is generally quiet and receptive, and does not initiate conversation, ask questions or talk about him or herself, leaves a strong impression. The observer’s depth of quiet, focused interest in the baby, the regularity and predictability of visits and not talking much about her or himself are unusual, significant and memorable. The relationship is important, and those observers who go on to train as psychotherapists understand this with their once weekly patients as well as those who are seen more intensively. At the same time, it needs to be remembered that the observation is not a clinical encounter and the families are not patients. The loss they and the observers experience is significant and worthy of careful thought, and we need to take care to remember the difference. As always, there is much more to be written about setting up as well as ending observations in terms of unspoken and often unconscious, primitive, infantile states of mind in which so much is magnified and felt with such strength.