ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author focuses on the first three months of infant–parent psychotherapy with fifteen-month-old Sara, and her mother. Through selected clinical vignettes, she explores Sara’s experience of early trauma from the premature disruption of her attachment to her mother, and physical abuse by her father. On several occasions Sara was left behind with her father, while her mother took her eldest daughter, leaving the family home for days, to escape her husband’s violence. Sara had been physically hit, thrown to the floor and kicked by her father while in his care. As her mother’s awareness of Sara’s feelings developed and Sara communicated her experiences of trauma to her mother, there appeared to be some noticeable shifts in their relationship. The complexity of the mother’s trauma and ongoing struggle at times made it harder for her to hold onto her thinking in relation to Sara’s anger and therefore Sara being separate from her father.
