ABSTRACT

The primary task of infant observation is for the student to be present for one hour per week with mother and infant in their home and to observe, without interfering, what goes on between them. This chapter describes what participants learned though their experience of the infant observation seminar group and discusses what facilitated that learning. It presents the learning experiences and the attendant dynamics of our last affective learning group. A common link among our group was that we all had several years experience in learning about psychodynamic processes through the affective learning group model. Seminar participants felt that what they learned through infant observation significantly enhanced their clinical skills. The chapter reveals that infant observation was so challenging to participants emotionally that our affects were already stirred up and there was insufficient room to tolerate excessive anxiety among the work group members.