This issue of Infant Observation includes papers linked with work at the Anna Freud Centre, from authors who work at the universities of Klagenfurt and Vienna, in Austria, and from authors linked with the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust and Roehampton University.
We begin with a paper written by Alejandra Perez and her colleagues at the Anna Freud Centre who have researched mothers’ motivation and experiences of being observed - this is one of the first systematic studies of this topic. All the mothers had agreed to be observed by postgradate students from the Centre who were asked to observe a new-born infant at home. It is fascinating to discover the complexity of the mothers’ responses. While some clearly felt that they had developed a greater capacity to reflect and to observe themselves, their babies and their relationship, others felt scrutinised, and under pressure to perform. This latter point seems to confirm some of Annette Watillon’s (Citation2008) findings that a number of mothers felt criticised or persecuted by their observer. Another interesting point is that some of the mothers stated that they had agreed to having an observer, because, as professionals themselves, they felt that they wanted to support the observers so that they could fulfil the requirements of their course. It would be valuable if further studies could be done, in order to understand more of why parents agree to have an observer in their home weekly, for one or two years. It is important for those who teach infant observation to remain thoughtful about how they seek parents’ agreement and about the possibility that some parents could be very sensitive to what they imagine their observer thinks about them. The sample in this research is relatively small and almost all the mothers were professionals. This is not the case in all institutions where the parents who agree to having an observer may be from more ethnically and socio-economically diverse backgrounds, as are the observers. Perez and her colleagues have opened up the subject to a new generation of teachers and observers and we hope the paper might elicit considerable interest.
Inge Martine Pretorius and her colleagues have followed up an earlier paper published in this journal with a second in which Goal-Based Outcome Measures have been used to evaluate service-users’ (parents’ and caregivers’) perceptions of progress toward treatment goals. Structured interviews were also carried out with eight caregivers and ten staff members at an Early Years Centre in West London with excellent results. The quality of relationships between staff, service-users and the Child Psychotherapy Service was perceived as central to the facilitative environment of the Early Years Centre and in particular, the child psychotherapist was viewed as playing a critical role in facilitating this triangle of relationships supporting the child.
After these first two papers, the majority of the issue is given over to the second Symposium of Work Discussion papers originally given at the First International Work Discussion Conference in Vienna in 2016. These are introduced in an editorial by Michael Rustin and Laura Pollard who have been guest editors for both Symposia. In the second symposium there are articles on Work Discussion in higher education settings in Austria, on the use of work discussion to support Early Years workers and on a pilot training in the facilitation of Work Discussion. The Symposium begins with a piece describing two pre-conference Work Discussion presentations.
I hope that those interested in work discussion, an application of infant observation, will note the date of the Second International Work Discussion Conference, in June 2019 at the University of Sussex. We publish a Conference announcement with a Call for Papers.