ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the words of a mother speaking to the psychoanalyst Salo Tischler more than four decades ago. It focuses on the child psychotherapist's twin guides of ordinary child development and psychoanalytic theory and in particular on Dr Donald Winnicott's understanding of preverbal development. The chapter considers what the therapeutic task might be, taking into account the work of mourning, the work of noticing, the work of imagination. Many families will not need the support of a psychotherapist to find their bearings but, as Tischler suggests, it might be that sometimes parents of children with a disability "need to become extra healthy", to negotiate even the ordinary challenges of development: feeding, sleeping, toileting, separation. Also, some children will need a psychotherapeutic space in their own right. Disability in babies and young children evokes intense and disturbing feelings in those around them, as many writers have described.
