ABSTRACT
Esther Bick pioneered the method of the weekly observation, in the natural environment of the home, of a young infant with its mother, a method now introduced into many psychoanalytic trainings throughout the world. These observations are informed by what authors have learned in their psychoanalytic work about its meaning. It was Ferenczi who first drew attention to the importance of not only listening to the patient's words, but also attending to the pervading mood of the associations and observing the patients behaviour on the couch, including, for example, changes in the rhythm of breathing, other physical movements, and so forth. A similar pattern emerges when we consider that the patient may "nudge" analyst into joining him in the cupboard of that withdrawal from painful reality. Meeting with the intensity of the concrete experience of the passions of the young child provides an added dimension to understanding these experiences, or the defences against them, met with in the adult patient.
