ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that an emphasis in some child development research on the use of the imagination and of subjective experience, with more meaningful observational studies, could therefore offer possible models for developing new methods of research within the field of psychoanalytic psychotherapy. The particular difficulties of carrying out research in the human field have led to a long-standing split between the academic researcher and the clinician. The research on infants puts increasing emphasis on the social context of development, and of observation, on the interaction between care-giver and developing infant, and also between subject and experimenter. The research work has highlighted the importance of different sensory modalities, particularly the ears and eyes, which might lead us to rethink the central position of the mouth in psychoanalytic theory. The lack of an internal thinking mother seems intimately connected with the marked learning difficulties shown by these deprived children.
