ABSTRACT
The participants were interviewed again after an academic year of studying infant observation, and this time they were able to refer frequently to experiences in which they had recently been involved. Anna Freud Centre (AFC) group were very open about how they had been stirred up by the experience of observing and spoke at times of leaving the observations with a feeling of depression. Although the Institute group spoke overtly about being assessed on their capacity to be in touch with their own unconscious feelings, they did not evidence this much as a concern. The observer stance was an issue that received varying degrees of emphasis, with the Tavistock group speaking very little about it per se and the others reflecting on it more explicitly. All the groups had an interest in observer's relationship to the family, and all expressed thoughts about how they might affect family dynamics and why the family might have welcomed an observer.
