Through the lens of infant observation: some reflections on teaching infant observation and its applications to professionals working with infants

ABSTRACT

This paper discusses the teaching of infant observation to social workers. A brief literature review of publications about the relevance and application of infant observations to social work tasks is given. The relevance and application of infant observation to two specific social work tasks is considered: supervision of contact between Looked After infants and their birth parents; and assessment of parenting capacity where infants have been removed at birth and a decision has to be made about whether to return the infant to the birth parents or seek permanence (usually in the form of adoption). The innovation of running two short life infant observation groups for social workers undertaking each of these two professional tasks respectively is described. Anonymised infant observation extracts from a local authority social work Parenting Capacity Assessment Team are used to illustrate the learning process of the team in the course of undertaking infant observation training. The use and relevance of infant observation is explored with respect to four inter-related core professional tasks: observation; recording; analysis and comment; reporting. Finally, the specificity and uniqueness of psychoanalytic infant observation is discussed in relation to the added value it brings to professional practice.

KEYWORDS:

• Psychoanalytic infant observation
• social work tasks
• supervision of contact
• parenting capacity assessments
• core professional tasks

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Graham Shulman is a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist and Head of Child Psychotherapy in CAMHS, NHS Lanarkshire. He is a member of the CAMHS Looked After Team (CAYP) and CAMHS Reach Out Team for infants, children and young people of parents with mental illness. He is a past Joint Editor of the Journal of Child Psychotherapy, is an Assistant Editor of the Infant Observation Journal, and is Joint Editor of and contributor to The Emotional Experience of Adoption: A Psychoanalytic Perspective (Routledge, 2008) and The Non-Linear Mind: Psychoanalysis of Complexity in Psychic Life (Karnac, 2017). He was previously Senior Tutor on the Scottish Clinical Training in Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy and Organising Tutor for the Scottish Psychoanalytic Observational Studies Course, and for over 10 years has taught on a multi-disciplinary and multi-agency professional development course on Infant Mental Health. He delivers infant observation training to social work supervisors of contact between Looked After infants and their parents, and to a social work Parenting Capacity Assessment Team.