ABSTRACT
The art of successful therapeutic work is more than the sum of its parts: it is lifted to a different level by the way that those parts are woven together, informing and drawing out each other. This chapter examines whether anything in the participants' responses in the interviews can be seen as having something of the depth and complexity of this, in order to consider whether we can say that the experience of infant observation shows evidence of a deepening of professional development as well as enhancing certain specific qualities. Naturally, at the outset of the observation process many of the students were sophisticated thinkers, experienced professionals, and a few of them working clinicians, so it is not surprising that we find traces of the complex interweaving of capacities that are a prerequisite for clinical work.
