ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with effecting changes in the relationship between parents and their infant. In marked contrast, there are the cases described by S. Fraiberg in her seminal paper which pioneered parent–infant therapy and in which she coined the evocative phrase “ghosts in the nursery”. Fraiberg was, of course, working with a very deprived, high-risk, multi-problem population. However, many authors who write about brief under-fives work, citing Fraiberg’s inspiration, who can make good use of a brief intervention, and those such as Fraiberg’s team helped, who might require much more intensive input. In Fraiberg, E. Adelson, and V. Shapiro, the process that effects change is the establishing of an affective link with the specifics of the parents’ past that have been evoked by the interchange with this particular infant in the present. The families Fraiberg refers to as having to deal with “transient invaders”, families who form a strong alliance with the therapist.
