ABSTRACT
Veronika Marlow describes two infant observations in great detail paying special attention to the emotions and fantasies which were stirred up in her. This living experience complements and illustrates James Astor’s paper which provides a thorough description of Michael Fordham’s researches into childhood and infancy. Before Fordham, Jungian psychology did not have a sound genetic base. The classical Jungian view saw the self as an organising centre of the personality which came into prominence in the second half of life, when the tasks of the ego had been accomplished. By contrast, Astor writes, Fordham showed how Jung’s developmental concept of individuation was, in fact, a lifetime task made possible by the dynamic of the self, deintegration and reintegration. The practice of psychotherapy is illustrated by Astor with reference to mandala symbolism and to the children whose behaviour first suggested to Fordham a new way of viewing the child and individuation. Fordham’s model was both structural and dynamic and kept a distinction between pathological development and normal development. It has underpinned the London School’s integration of the clinical discoveries of psychoanalysis and analytical psychology. Marlow uses Fordham’s paper ‘On Not Knowing Beforehand’ as the theoretical background for her infant observation, while Astor emphasises how the infant should be viewed as significantly influencing the environment in which he or she develops.
