ABSTRACT
In this chapter I explore thinking around the teaching of observation to students who are not planning to become clinicians. Is it relevant? What is its impact? Using experiences from two groups and comments from students themselves, I suggest that infant and young child observation is not only the province of pre-clinicians – there is a profound learning experience inherent in the task, having, as I suggest, its roots in the primal relationship between infant and caretaker, and the vital role of this in the unfolding of psychic life.
