ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the fostering of a "language of understanding" while leading infant observation seminars. It focuses upon the infant observation seminar's work of creating a language for expressing, understanding, and containing early infantile anxieties present in the relationship between the parents and the baby-in-their-mind; observer, baby, and parents; the seminar members and the observer; the observer and her own baby-in-her-mind; and the evolution of a distinct baby-in-mind in the infant. Infant observation seminar members gather together for the study of an infant developing in the context of his relationships with the mother, father, and other family members. The chapter stresses the important role of the seminar leader, the group, and the observer in mitigating severe anxieties and a harsh superego critic. It discusses the observations to project particular long-standing personal complaints from the unconscious baby-in-the-mind having a relationship to the internal mother.
