ABSTRACT
The last century saw a growing interest in the emotional and psychological development of the child. One line of work focused on examining the behaviour and establishing the cognitive capabilities of the growing infant, while longitudinal studies aimed at delineating continuities and discontinuities in the progress from infancy to adulthood. This chapter discusses the nature, goals and rationale of infant observation under three headings: Curricular discipline, Research, and as a test of a student’s capacity to learn from experience. Many analysts and therapists have now adopted a posture where a student’s behaviour is automatically seen as a counter-transference response to the patient or, in the context of infant observation, to the infant or parent being observed. Most psychoanalytic and psychotherapeutic trainings assess the abilities and progress of students on the basis of reports from lecturers and supervisors of training cases.
