ABSTRACT
Many authors agree that the origins of triadic skills lie in the earlier “dyadic” interactions between the infant and caretaker in the first nine months of life. This chapter illustrates how fundamentally important the ability to make links and to “think triadically” is to the young child. It describes how the ability to think triadically emerges from preceding dyadic infant/caregiver relationships formed in the first nine months of life. The chapter demonstrates how triadic thinking is linked to both the Oedipus complex and the Kleinian concept of the depressive position and how the experience of inclusion and later exclusion help to promote a capacity for abstract and three-dimensional thought. It illustrates some of these triangular dynamics with material from a Young Child Observation. Finally, the chapter shows how the observer is helped to retain an ability to think triadically about their own position within the observation by the containment and reflective capacities offered by the seminar group and training organization.
