Group learning in a young child observation seminar

Abstract

The paper focuses on a rather neglected area of the theory of Observation Seminars based on the Tavistock model. According to this model, each participant presents and discusses the observation that he/she is doing within a Seminar that is leaded by an experienced psychotherapist. Whereas the processes that are activated within the Seminar have been widely investigated, no much attention has been paid insofar to the way in which the possibility of sharing a number of observations within the Seminar contributes to the students' learning experience. In the present paper this issue is explored through the analysis of the observations and the final papers written by a group of nine participants to a Young Child Observation Seminar. This Seminar was part of an Observation Course held in Italy that lasted two years. The discussion of the material, the similarities and contrasts among the different situations helped the whole group to become more aware and concerned about the many and complex elements that contribute to shape the family's experience, the child's personality and the dynamics within the relationship with the observer.

Keywords:

• observational methodology
• group's learning experience
• young child observation seminar

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Margaret Rustin and Serenella Adamo Serpieri, who led some of the Young Child Observation seminars to which I refer in this paper, but, above all, all the members of the Seminar, Anna Lisa Amodeo, Livia Ascione, Paolo Fiorentino, Luigia Landi, Gerarda Siani, Floriana Vecchione, Francesca Verdelli, Luigi Viscardi, Elisa Zullo, who also gave me permission to use material taken from their observations.

Notes

1. The Young Child Observation Seminar in Italy at that time used to last two years and was introduced at the same time as Infant Observation. In an interview with Gianna Polacco Williams (Adamo, 2006), Polacco recalls how there had been a particular interest in this experience and a request to extend its duration by making it a two-year seminar. This became a usual practice for several generations of students of the observational courses in Italy. There are many implications introduced by this variation and we have discussed it elsewhere (Adamo & Rustin, 2004).

2. The group included seven women and two men, all psychologists, except for a child neuro-psychiatrist and a social worker.

3. A particular quality of Young Child Observation is the fact that it can be conducted both in the family's home and at school. On the implication of this choice, see: Adamo and Rustin, 2004.

4. In re-reading the material, I was tempted to omit the detail about the repeated door slamming, since it seemed not very meaningful. Suddenly, after a few days, a chilling association came to my mind, when this detail linked to other observations where the child and the observer are petrified because, from behind the bathroom's door, where the mother is bathing Mario, they can hear the sound of the mother's slaps on the child's naked skin. Such moments have a specific cruel quality, because of the vulnerability of the naked child and the contrast with the expectation of the bath being a moment for pleasant and intimate interactions between mother and child.