ABSTRACT
Further on the theme discussed in chapter 5, in this chapter about infant observation in a neonatal intensive care unit where the babies are very premature or ill—for example, on drug withdrawal, as some of the mothers are heroin addicts—the focus is on one baby in particular, who is on methadone and possibly has AIDS. Powerful feelings are aroused in the nurses and in the observer. Margaret Cohen describes the gradual development in this baby of a sense of containment, the beginnings of exploration of her world and the rudimentary symbolic expression of a psychic conflict related to the experience of methadone.
