YOUNG CHILD OBSERVATION

Tavistock Clinic Series

Margot Waddell (Series Editor)
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YOUNG CHILD OBSERVATION
A Development in the Theory and Method
of Infant Observation

Edited by
Simonetta M. G. Adamo & Margaret Rustin

KARNAC
First published in 2014 by
Karnac Books
118 Finchley Road
London NW3 5HT

Copyright © 2014 by Simonetta M. G. Adamo & Margaret Rustin

All contributors retain the copyright to their own chapters.

The rights of the editors and contributors to be identified as the authors of this work
have been asserted in accordance with §§ 77 and 78 of the Copyright Design and
Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in

a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written
permission of the publisher.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A C.I.P. for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978–1–78220–060–4

Edited, designed, and produced by Communication Crafts

Printed in Great Britain

www.karnacbooks.com
 This book is dedicated to our grandchildren,
with whom we love to play:
Lorenzo, Gloria, Madeleine, Rosemary, and Gilbert
CONTENTS

series editor’s preface xi

acknowledgements xv

about the editors and contributors xvii

Introduction
Simonetta M. G. Adamo & Margaret Rustin 1

I
part
Developmental issues 25

 1 The transition from home to nursery school

Isca Wittenberg 29

 2 The story of child development: a psychoanalytic account

Donald MeItzer & Martha Harris 42

 3 Oedipal anxieties, the birth of a second baby,

and the role of the observer
Simonetta M. G. Adamo & Jeanne Magagna 58

vii
viii contents

 4 The Young Child Observation seminar:

new steps in developing the observer role
Maggie Fagan 80

II
part
Observing in the home 97

 5 An observation of a young Asian child with feeding

difficulties, conceived via assisted reproductive technology
Anjali Grier 99

 6 Laurie and his cars: a 3-year-old begins to separate

Claudia Henry 113

 7 The day Captain Antonio’s balloon burst

Sharon Warden 123

 8 The observed child, the observing child: the complexity

of a child’s response to the stillbirth of a sibling
Simonetta M. G. Adamo 135

III
part
Observing in a nursery 163

 9 The work of playing: a male observer gets to know

a little boy whose father is absent
Ben Yeo 167

10 Seeing beneath the surface: an observer’s encounter

with a child’s struggle to find herself at nursery
Elisabeth Dennis 179

11 Thoughts on transitions between cultures: Jonathon

moves from home to school and from class to class
Elizabeth Taylor Buck & Margaret Rustin 192

12 “The house is a boat”: a group of children face separation

Simonetta M. G. Adamo 205
 contents ix

IV
part
Applications 211

13 Sewing on a shadow: acquiring dimensionality

in a participant observation
Deborah Blessing & Karen Block 215

14 A participant observation with a boy suffering from

a chronic illness
Anne-Marie Fayolle 224

15 Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends:

familiar faces in an uncertain world
Mel Serlin 239

part V
Research 257

16 Now we are two, going on three: triadic thinking

and its link with development in the context of
Young Child Observations
Anna Burhouse 259

17 Young Child Observation used as a research tool:

investigating toddlers’ development in day care nurseries
Wilfried Datler, Nina Hover-Reisner, Maria Fürstaller,
& Margit Datler 274

18 Young children’s relationships with staff and peers

in nursery: observations of two girls aged 29 months
and 25 months
Peter Elfer 295

Epilogue
Michael Rustin 321

references 335

index 351
SERIES EDITOR’S PREFACE

Margot Waddell

S
ince it was founded in 1920, the Tavistock Clinic has d ­ eveloped
a wide range of developmental approaches to mental health
which have been strongly influenced by the ideas of psycho­
analysis. It has also adopted systemic ­family therapy as a theoretical
model and a clinical approach to family problems. The Clinic is now
the largest training institution in Britain for mental health, providing
post­graduate and qualifying courses in social work, psychology, psy­
chiatry, and child, adolescent, and adult psychotherapy, as well as in
nursing and primary care. It trains about 1,700 students each year in
over 60 courses.
The Clinic’s philosophy aims at promoting therapeutic ­methods
in mental health. Its work is based on the clinical expertise that is
also the basis of its consultancy and research activities. The aim of
this Series is to make available to the reading public the clinical,
theoretical, and research work that is most influential at the Tavistock
Clinic. The Series sets out new approaches in the understanding and
treatment of psychological disturbance in children, adolescents, and
adults, both as individuals and in families.
At the beginning and end of this beautifully organized and
thought-through volume, Young Child Observation, Simonetta Adamo
and ­Margaret Rustin’s Introduction, together with Michael Rustin’s

xi
xii series editor’s preface

­ pilogue, provide a detailed history and a comprehensive account

E
of the development, nature, breadth, and depth of the methodology
and practice of Young Child Observation, as a teaching and training
method. They also describe the central contribution that this very
­particular method has made to the psychodynamic understanding of
the young child as he or she leaves babyhood behind and struggles—or,
perhaps, dances—into the world of sibling relationships, of nursery
settings, of early school days, of the beginnings of friendships, loving
or fraught—indeed, of the engagement with love and loss of all kinds.
Such is, roughly, the life of the 2- to 6-year-old age group.
The book spans a huge variety of cross-cultural and cross-­
disciplinary work now going on in many parts of the world—in dif­
ferent regions of the United Kingdom, in Italy, France, Austria, the
United States, and also, in terms of migration to Europe, of the world
beyond the West. This huge span also encompasses extensive insight
into different regions of the mind and the welcome exploration of
the complexities of early years education. For example, the theory
of the development of mind described in these chapters is, as the
­editors say, “a crucial counterweight to a ‘competency’ view of early
childhood learning, so prevalent at this time”. The extent to which
the courses providing an opportunity for longitudinal observation of
young children are found to be of enormous significance in a variety
of settings becomes clear in the overview provided in the Epilogue:
in the teaching profession, for example, in nursing, childcare, and
social work, as well as in the pre-clinical foundation years of a child
psychotherapy training. Moreover, the ethical and technical issues
that arise in the context of this difficult work are fully, and very help­
fully examined, as is what might be referred to as “the mindedness”
required to, as it were, see with an inner as well as an ordinarily “see­
ing” outer eye, in such a way that learning from experience becomes
possible and meaning can gradually emerge. Such a development in
the observer is greatly supported by the seminar structure of shared
reflection that accompanies and underpins the regular weekly obser­
vations.
The book is organized around a number of parts: the historical;
observation in the home; observation in the nursery setting; the appli­
cation of Young Child Observation in settings where the observer can
be felt to function in some kind of therapeutic role—for ­example, in
a special needs preschool, or in a family where the observed child
is seriously ill, or in a care setting where a child develops his or
 series editor’s preface xiii

her own resourceful and self-protective relationship with a fictional

“character”—in this case, Thomas the Tank Engine. The fifth and final
part focuses on research—the bringing together of different theoreti­
cal approaches and the richness of understanding that this can bring
about.
The book comprises an extensive range of chapters, both “­ classic”—
that is, written by some of the earliest developers of the field of psycho­
analytic observations—and also contemporary, as in current teaching
staff, those still in training, and recently qualified child psychothera­
pists. In the former instance, I am speaking primarily of the marvellous
chapters included here by Martha Harris and Isca ­Wittenberg—­pioneers
in observational work with young children, alongside Esther Bick,
Anna Freud, and Shirley Hoxter, among others. All these contributors,
as the editors point out, rooted observational work in “the contribu­
tion of their imaginative empathy with young children and their grasp
of how psychoanalysis can enrich our understanding”. Further parts
contain chapters written from within a variety of disciplines that focus
on the relationship between children’s needs and realities, on the one
hand, and the school’s culture and organization at the point of entry
into group life, on the other. There is much in these often lively, often
sad, always fascinating observations of the process by which children
grow and develop in the conjunction of their young—yet also already
distinct—personalities with the nature of the external circumstances of
their lives.
In these explorations of separation and transition, we come across
a little girl fearful of being forgotten or abandoned by her parents as
she feels the need to be a “big girl now” on entering nursery, yet feel­
ing lost in an empty space, “in a no-man’s land of affection”, as Anna
Freud put it. We become involved in oedipal anxieties around the birth
of a second baby and the links between those and the respective roles
of the father and of the observer. We encounter all manner of examples
of the vicissitudes of these young lives and what we can learn from the
quality and depth of such observation. We meet “Laurie and his cars”;
we come to understand the significance of “The day Captain Corelli’s
balloon burst”; we get to know “Thomas the Tank Engine and friends”,
and so much more.
Young Child Observation is a book full of the pathos of learning, the
pains and pleasures of growing up, the joy of ever-deepening under­
standing. But, quintessentially, it explores and demonstrates how all
those who have parental or professional responsibilities for children
xiv series editor’s preface

can gather insight, can begin to see and think differently. It is a

­tremendous achievement, and, as Series Editor, I am very proud that
the work described here has so central a part in the ongoing work
and influence of the Tavistock Clinic, where, in its present form, at
least, this story started.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

W
e are most grateful to all our contributors and to the many
families, children’s services of different kinds, and nurseries
who have allowed the observations to be gathered.
Invaluable support has been given in the preparation of the manu­
script in various ways. We thank in particular Sue Coulson for help in
translation, Harry Caidan for typing many drafts, Karen Tanner for her
support, and Kate Stratton for editorial and bibliographical help. The
past and present editors of the Journal of Infant Observation, Lisa Miller
and Trudy Klauber, have been a vital source of encouragement and
practical help.
We also thank Taylor and Francis for permission to republish some
papers originally published as articles in Infant Observation: Interna­
tional Journal of Infant Observation and Its Applications: Simonetta M. G.
Adamo & Margaret Rustin (2001), “Editorial” (Vol 4, No. 2: 3–22); Isca
­Wittenberg (2001), “The transition from home to nursery school” (Vol.
4, No. 2: 23–35); Donald Meltzer & Martha Harris (2001), “The story of
child development—a psychoanalytic account” (Vol. 4, No. 2: 36–50);
­Simonetta M. G. Adamo & Jeanne Magagna (1998), “Oedipal anxieties,
the birth of a second baby and the role of the observer” (Vol. 1, No. 2:
5–25); Sharon ­ Warden (2001), “The day Captain Antonio’s balloon
burst” (Vol. 4, No. 2: 68–79); Claudia Henry (2001), “Laurie and his
cars: A three year old starts to separate” (Vol. 4, No. 3: 87–95); ­Simonetta

xv
xvi acknowledgements

M. G. Adamo (2001), “The observed child, the observing child: The

complexity of a child’s response to the still birth of a sibling” (Vol. 4,
No. 2: 80–106); Elisabeth Dennis (2001), “Seeing beneath the surface: An
observer’s encounter with a child’s struggle to find herself at nursery”
(Vol. 4, No. 2: 107–120); Lizzie Taylor Buck & Margaret Rustin (2001),
“Thoughts on transitions between cultures: Jonathon moves from home
to school and from class to class” (Vol. 4, No. 2: 121–133); Simonetta
M. G. Adamo (2001), “The house is a boat . . .”: The experience of sepa­
ration in a nursery school” (Vol. 4, No. 2: 134–139); Deborah Blessing
& Karen Block (2009), “Sewing on a shadow: Acquiring dimensionality
in a participant-observation” (Vol. 12, No. 1: 21–28); Anna Burhouse
(2001), “Now we are two, going on three: Triadic thinking and its link
with development in the context of young child observations” (Vol. 4,
No. 2: 51–67).
We are very grateful to Professor Romana Negri for giving us the
original tape of Mrs Harris and Donald Meltzer’s supervision, on which
chapter 1 is based. We also wish to thank the Giornale di Neuropsichiatria
dell’Età Evolutiva, in which the chapter was originally published in the
Italian version (1985, Vol. 5, No. 3: 275–283).
We are most grateful to Ernesto Tatafiore for the beautiful cover
design. Finally, we thank Margot Waddell, the Series Editor, for her
warm and steady support and guidance and the team at Karnac for
their excellent work.
ABOUT THE EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS

Simonetta M. G. Adamo, former Full Professor of Clinical Psychology at

Milan’s University “Bicocca”, is a child and adolescent psychotherapist
and member of the Tavistock Society of Psychotherapists. She co-organizes
the Tavistock Short Course “Working with Troubled Adolescents”, is the
Organising Tutor of the Naples Observation Course, and teaches at the
Centro Studi Martha Harris, Florence. She has edited the books: Un breve
viaggio nella propria mente. Counselling psicoanalitico con adolescent (1990); Il
compagno immaginario. Studi psicoanalitici (2006); and La cura della relazione
in oncologia pediatrica (2008). She has co-planned experimental projects in
schools and works in Naples in private practice.

Deborah Blessing is a clinical social worker and psychoanalyst in p ­ rivate

practice in Washington, DC. She is a Core Faculty member of the Infant and
Young Child Observation Program at the Washington School of ­Psychiatry,
where she is also a supervisor in the Clinical Training Program. She holds
other faculty positions in the Object Relations Couple and Family Program,
the Close Attention Program, and the New Directions: Writing with a
Psychoanalytic Edge Program at the Washington Centre for P ­ sychoanalysis.

Karen Block is a clinical social worker who treats children, a­ dolescents,

and adults in private practice in the Washington, DC, area. She is a gradu­
ate of the Infant and Young Child Observation Program at the Washington

xvii
xviii about the editors and contributors

School of Psychiatry and is currently on the faculty of the programme.

She is also a candidate in psychoanalysis at the Washington Center for
Psychoanalysis.

Anna Burhouse has been working therapeutically with children and young
people since 1988. She is a qualified child and adolescent psychotherapist
with a special interest in infant–parent mental health, child development
research, and autism. Alongside this clinical role, Anna has also developed
an interest in the role of clinical leadership in organizational improvement
and is the Director of Strategic Modernisation for 2Gether NHS Foundation
Trust. Anna is a Health Foundation fellow and is currently undertaking an
MSc in Leadership Quality Improvement at Ashridge Business School as
part of the Health Foundation’s “Generation Q” leadership programme.

Margit Datler is a professor at the University College of Teacher Educa­

tion Vienna/Krems and lecturer at the University of Vienna. She chaired
two Young Child Observation seminars as part of the research project
­“Toddlers’ Adjustment to Out-of-Home Care”, financed by the Austrian
Science Fund (FWF). She is a psychoanalyst (IPA) and a member of the
Infant Observation Study Group Vienna (IOSGV).

Wilfried Datler chairs the Psychoanalysis and Education research unit

at the Department of Education of the University of Vienna. He has run
several research projects that were characterized by the use of observation
according to the Tavistock model as a research tool. In that context, he
has published research results generated by the use of observation as an
ethno­graphic method, papers concerning the scientific impact of single-
case studies, and considerations about methodological aspects of observa­
tion. He is also a training analyst of the Austrian Association of Individual
Psychology (ÖVIP) and a member of the Infant Observation Study Group
Vienna (IOSGV).

Elisabeth Dennis is an adult psychotherapist working in private ­practice

in Birmingham. Until 2007 she was also working in the NHS at the
­Women’s Therapy Centre. She is a professional member of the West Mid­
lands Institute of Psychotherapy. The observation described in her chapter
in this book was undertaken as part of the Psychoanalytic Observational
Studies Course in Birmingham.

Peter Elfer is Principal Lecturer in Early Childhood Studies and Convenor

of the Master’s Programme in Early Childhood Studies at the Univer­
sity of Roehampton. He has a long-standing interest in the well-being of
babies and children under age 3 in nursery. His work has examined the
 about the editors and contributors xix

contribution of psychoanalytically informed observation, work discussion

methods, and social defence theory to understanding issues in nursery
organization and practice. He has published a number of academic papers
on this theme. He has written, with Elinor Goldschmied and Dorothy
­Selleck, Key Persons in the Nursery: Building Relationships for Quality Provision
(2003, revised ­edition 2011), which has recently been published in Italian.

Maggie Fagan trained as a child and adolescent psychotherapist at the

Tavistock Clinic after long experience as a psychotherapist in an adolescent
inpatient unit. She then joined the staff of the Tavistock Fostering, Adoption
and Kinship Care team and also co-chaired the Fostering and Adoption
Workshop. She was a central staff member of the observation course for a
number of years, with special responsibility for Young Child Observation
seminars. Her most recent paper is “Relational Trauma and Its Impact on
Late Adopted Children” (Journal of Child Psychotherapy, 2011).

Anne-Marie Fayolle is a remedial psychomotor specialist in the Child and

Adolescent Medico-Psychological Clinic attached to the Laval Hospital
unit (Mayenne, Pays de Loire). She is a graduate of the Tavistock-Model
Observation Course in the Martha Harris Study Centre in Larmor-Plage,
France. Over the past 13 years of her work in the clinic, she has developed
the “Participant Observation” technique with young children living at
home.

Maria Fürstaller is a scientist in the Psychoanalysis and Education research

unit at the Department of Education of the University of Vienna and
participated in the research team that ran the research project “Toddlers’
Adjustment to Out-of-Home Care”, financed by the Austrian Science Fund
(FWF). The relation between videography and observation according to the
Tavistock model is one of the major topics of her research.

Anjali Grier initially qualified as an art therapist and worked with adults
in a hospital acute-admissions psychiatric unit, before developing her
interest in working with children. She has worked as an art therapist with
very young children in a hospital oncology department and also, for many
years, in a Child & Family Consultation Clinic. She then qualified as a Child
and Adolescent Psychotherapist at the Tavistock Centre and currently
works as a Senior Child & Adolescent Psychotherapist in the CAMHS and
Perinatal Departments of the Chelsea & Westminster Hospital. She is also
training at the Institute of Psychoanalysis, London.

Martha Harris was trained as a child psychotherapist by Esther Bick and

was also a child and adult psychoanalyst. In 1960 she became head of the
xx about the editors and contributors

Tavistock Child Psychotherapy Training and was responsible for its ambi­
tious gradual expansion in the 1970s. She was a deeply inspiring teacher
who influenced a whole generation of clinicians working with children
and families, particularly through her espousal of the value of Infant
Observation for clinical work with children and adults. In the last years
of her life, she travelled with her husband, Donald Meltzer, to teach in
many countries. Several of her books have recently been republished by
Karnac.

Claudia Henry trained as a child and adolescent psychotherapist at the

Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust. She is currently working
in Loughton CAMHS. Prior to training as a child psychotherapist, C ­ laudia
worked for a number of years as a hospital play specialist in a large
­paediatric hospital. She also spent part of her clinical training working on
a neonatal intensive care unit. Her interests include work in hospitals and
parent–infant psychotherapy.

Nina Hover-Reisner is a scientist in the research unit “Psychoanalysis and

Education” at the Department of Education of the University of Vienna; she
coordinated the research project “Toddlers’ Adjustment to Out-of-Home
Care”, financed by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF). Early education, work
discussion, and the use of observation according to the ­Tavistock model as
a research tool are in the focus of her research.

Jeanne Magagna was Head of Psychotherapy Services at Great Ormond

Street Hospital for Children for 24 years and worked as a Consultant
­Psychotherapist in Ellern Mede Centre for Eating Disorders in London.
She completed three separate trainings at the Tavistock Clinic in Child and
Adolescent Psychotherapy, Family Therapy, and Adult Psychotherapy.
Jeanne is the vice-president and joint coordinator of training for the Centro
Studi Martha Harris trainings in Florence, Rome, Venice, and Naples and
works as a clinical consultant to the staff at Family Futures Adoption and
Fostering Consortium. She has edited Henri Rey’s Universals of Psycho­
analysis in the Treatment of Psychotic and Borderline States (1994), and jointly
edited Psychotherapy with Families (1981), Crisis at Adolescence: Object Rela­
tions Therapy with the Family (1977), Intimate Transformations: Babies with
Their Families (2005), and The Silent Child: Communication without Words
(2012). She has lectured internationally in many countries.

Donald Meltzer was trained as a psychiatrist in the United States and as a

child and adult psychoanalyst in Britain. He wrote extensively, e­ xpounding
and elaborating the paradigm of Kleinian psychoanalysis and linking it
 about the editors and contributors xxi

to Wilfred Bion’s ideas about the development of the mind. Among his
best-known books are The Psychoanalytical Process (1967) and The Claustrum
(1992). His teaching and writing continues to be enormously influential
world-wide, particularly in relation to the understanding of early develop­
ment and to the practice of child psychotherapy.

Margaret Rustin is a child, adolescent, and adult psychotherapist and an

Associate of the British Psychoanalytical Society. She was head of child
psychotherapy at the Tavistock Clinic from 1985 to 2007 and has taught
extensively in Europe and elsewhere. She was co-editor of Closely Observed
Infants (1989) and has maintained a deep interest in the observational roots
of child psychotherapy. She has written many books and papers about child
psychotherapy and, with Michael Rustin, two books on the application of
psychoanalytic ideas to literature. Her most recent book, co-edited with
Jonathan Bradley, was Work Discussion: Learning from Reflective Practice in
Work with Children and Families (2008). She has a private practice and con­
tinues to supervise many child psychotherapists.

Michael Rustin is Professor of Sociology at the University of East London,

a Visiting Professor at the Tavistock Clinic, and an Associate of the British
Psychoanalytical Society. He has been closely involved in the academic
accreditation of professional trainings and the development of research
by child psychotherapists and others. He has written two books about
psychoanalysis, The Good Society and the Inner World (1991) and Reason
and Unreason (2001), as well as many papers, and he has co-written, with
­Margaret Rustin, Narratives of Love and Loss: Studies in Modern Children’s
Fiction (1987/1999) and Mirror to Nature: Drama Psychoanalysis and Society
(2002).

Mel Serlin worked for several years in social care with looked-after children
living in foster homes and residential settings. After originally graduating
in Media Arts, she completed her Master’s in Psychoanalytic Observation
and has since trained as a child and adolescent psycho­therapist at the
Tavistock Clinic, based in the Fostering, Adoption and Kinship Care team
and the Adolescent Department.

Elizabeth Taylor Buck is an art psychotherapist who has been working

with children, young people, and families for 16 years, initially for the
NSPCC and more recently as part of an NHS CAMHS team. In 2009 she
was awarded a Clinical Doctoral Research Fellowship from the National
Institute of Health Research. Her research focuses on dyadic parent–child
approaches to art psychotherapy.
xxii about the editors and contributors

Sharon Warden is a clinical psychologist who works psychoanalytically

with adults who have complex mental health problems, in an NHS out­
patient psychotherapy service in Sheffield in the United Kingdom. She is
a graduate of the Leeds Infant Observation course. She is a senior super­
visor for the local Doctorate in Clinical Psychology course, for whom she
also runs Balint Groups. She has a professional interest in the application
of psychoanalytic understanding to public service and in evidence-based
psychoanalytic treatments. She is an inaugural member of the ISTFP (Inter­
national Society for Transference Focussed Psychotherapy) and has a small
private practice.

Isca Wittenberg is a Consultant Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist of children

and adults who worked at the Tavistock Clinic as a Senior Tutor in the clini­
cal training of child psychotherapists. She was Vice-Chairman of the Clinic
for 10 years. She lectured and led seminars in many countries in Europe
and overseas. She has held temporary professorships at the University of
Turin and at Klagenfurt and is a life-long Honorary Senior Staff Member
of the Tavistock Clinic. She now works in private practice, doing brief
and long-term psychotherapy and supervising and teaching in the United
Kingdom and abroad. She has published many articles and written three
books: Psychoanalytic Insight and Relationships: A Kleinian Approach (1970);
The Emotional Experience of Learning and Teaching (1983), which includes
chapters by Gianna Williams and Elsie Osborne; and, most recently, Expe­
riencing Endings and Beginnings (2013).

Ben Yeo is Family Engagement Manager across six schools in Tower

Hamlets, East London. He works predominantly with children and
­
­families from British-Bangladeshi and Somali communities. He completed
the Post Graduate Diploma in Psychoanalytical Observational Studies at
the T
­ avistock Centre in 2012 and is now undertaking training as a child and
adolescent psychotherapist.
Introduction
Simonetta M. G. Adamo & Margaret Rustin

T
his book is devoted to Young Child Observation as it is under­
stood and practised within a large number of Psychoanalytic
Observation courses running within academic and professional
contexts across six continents. It is intended as a step towards establish­
ing a theory of this approach to the study of the development of chil­
dren between roughly 2 and 5 years. We hope to interest readers in the
growing awareness of the specificity of Young Child Observation and
address the need for more reflection and debate about some fundamen­
tal questions. What are the specific aims of Young Child Observation, as
a learning experience, compared with Infant Observation? What is the
knowledge one can hope to gain from it in terms of child development,
and in what way can it offer a valuable contribution to the training
of child psychotherapists and to the broadening of understanding of
young children in the wider professional sphere? In this introductory
chapter we aim to tackle some of these matters.
Some of our questions concern problems of technique and possible
applications of the method. Young Child Observation should not be
considered as an applied version of Infant Observation, but as a devel­
opment of it, which requires adjustments of technique and confronts
the observer with specific challenges. These arise from the necessity of
redefining the observational role in the face of the increased autonomy
of the child, and with the full impact of oedipal conflicts, which bring

1
2 simonetta m. g. adamo & margaret rustin

to the fore dynamics of inclusion and exclusion. Neutrality and par­

ticipation are intrinsic polarities which both contribute to define the
observer’s position, but must be renegotiated on a different basis if one
is to observe a young child, who is so much more active and independ­
ent a being than a baby.
Young Child Observation had, in fact, in earlier years been a rather
neglected area of psychoanalytic observational studies (Adamo &
Magagna, 1998). Recently, however, there are some signs of a change
of attitude and of wider interest and attention. Papers have begun to
appear more frequently in specialized journals, and in 2004 a s­ pecial
issue of the International Journal of Infant Observation was entirely
devoted to Young Child Observation. Dedicated spaces to it are now
given within international conferences. A 2011 conference, “Teaching
Infant Observation Today”, had as its subtitle “6th International Con­
ference for Teachers of Infant Observation and Young Child Observa­
tion”. The inclusion of Young Child Observation was in itself significant
of this new attention, but even more striking was the fact that two of
the plenary papers were specifically related to it, and that within the
Parallel Sessions devoted to the discussion in small groups of observa­
tional material, equivalent space was given to Infant Observation and
to Young Child Observation.
The diffusion of interest in observing young children is confirmed
by the wide range of contexts from where the chapters included in
this book arise. Over the last 30 years, many psychoanalytic Observa­
tional Studies courses linked to the Tavistock have been established in
the United Kingdom, Europe, and beyond. The chapters that follow
derive from work done in the Birmingham, Bristol, and Leeds courses,
together with other material originating in Italy, France, Austria, and
the United States. We think that the impact of different regional voices
and the varied cultures of childhood represented provoke reflection on
important contemporary issues in early years education. The theory
of the development of mind described in these chapters is a crucial
counterweight to a “competency” view of early childhood learning,
so prevalent at this time. The importance of play and of access to
toys and a playful, not-too-educationally-overloaded atmosphere is a
value shared between psychoanalytically minded observers and child
development researchers. Play that is too narrowly directed to “learn­
ing outcomes” impoverishes children’s imaginative development. The
more mechanistic toys linked to dominant mass cultural production
for children have a similarly stifling influence. However, children’s
capacity to subvert adult high-mindedness and to make something
 introduction 3

intensely personal out of popular cultural artefacts should not be

under­estimated, as our contributors reveal.

A historical note
It may be useful to start with some history, not only in order to set
Young Child Observation in the broader context of the development of
psychoanalytically oriented observation, but also in order to give full
recognition to the role played by some pioneers and to outline some
similarities and differences among the different approaches. In a paper
she wrote in 1951, Anna Freud recalls how:
when the knowledge concerning infantile sexuality and its trans­
formations had once spread in the circle of psychoanalytic workers,
direct observation of children began. Such observations were carried
out first by parents, either under analysis, or analysts themselves, on
their own children, and were recorded regularly in special columns
of the psychoanalytic journals of the time. When psychoanalysis
began to be applied to the upbringing of children, the analysis of
teachers and nursery school workers became a frequent occurrence.
The observational work of these professionally trained people had
the advantage of being undertaken with greater objectivity and more
emotional detachment than parents can muster when confronted with
the behaviour of their own children. It had the further advantage of
dealing not only with individuals but with groups. [A. Freud, 1951,
p. 18]

The dual focus on the individual child and on children’s group life
is one of the most interesting themes of a number of chapters in this
book and is characteristic of much contemporary thinking about Young
Child Observation.

Susan Isaacs and the Malting House School

Very similar remarks are made by Susan Isaacs in the introductory
chapters of her two volumes, Intellectual Growth in Young Children (1930)
and Social Development in Young Children (1933), which were based on
the records of observations done at the Malting House School in Cam­
bridge, an experimental school for young children that she directed
in the years 1924–1927. Isaacs comments that “compared with the
admirable studies of individual development, very few detailed and
strictly psychological records of the behaviour of a group of young
children over long periods and under relatively free conditions, are
4 simonetta m. g. adamo & margaret rustin

so far ­available”, and that “a very great number of supposed psycho­

logical observations are permeated through and through by pedagogic
influences and moral judgements” (1930, p. ix). She is referring here
particularly to observations carried out by psychologists on their own
children, but is also concerned with introducing her own methodol­
ogy of observation and discussing issues associated with it. The first
problem that she raises is, in fact, that of selection and of the possible
subjective bias that it can exert on the conclusions reached. The actual
work with the children was, of course, educational: the material was
gathered in a school, not in a laboratory. But the records themselves
are direct and dispassionate observations, recorded as fully as possible
under these conditions, and as free as possible from evaluation and
interpretation. Isaacs’s view was that, ideally, no interpretations should
appear in the records. Vague evaluatory or summarizing phrases, such
as “the children were very interested–polite–quarrelsome” are better
avoided. Only full verbatim records of what was said and full objective
records of what was done should be given.
In the years between 1924 and 1927, the records were based on notes
made by the staff and written down in a more extensive form on the
same day, while in the following years, 1927 and 1928, shorthand typ­
ists ensured “verbatim and more objective records” of events. Accord­
ing to Isaacs, not only should interpretations be totally avoided in the
recorded observations, but they should also be kept separate from them
even at the further level of theoretical elaboration. She writes:
Selection is in fact unavoidable, even in experimental researches, but
in this way it is at least out in the open. I have offered my own deduc­
tions and theoretical views, as well as some of the actual observations
on which they are based, but I have kept these two things apart as far
as possible. My wish is that readers should be able to turn freely to
the records for their own theoretical purposes, and that there should
therefore be the minimum of theoretical selection in presenting them.
[Issacs, 1930, p. 2]
The distinction made here could perhaps be refined along the lines that
faithful recordings of observations of behaviour can be more or less
selection-free, but that once one analyses the material or presents it in
a theoretical structure, selection of focus is inevitable.
It is very interesting to read these notes, and not only for histori­
cal reasons: those acquainted with the methodology of Young Child
Observation seminars on the Tavistock Model would find, for instance,
that Isaacs’s words express very clearly and concisely the kind of
­recommendations usually made by seminar leaders to students about
 introduction 5

the way observations should be recorded and presented for group dis­
cussion. Even if one adopts the above-mentioned devices, the “purity”
of the observation is in fact, according to Isaacs, no more than an ideal
to which one can, in the best conditions, approximate.
Only if he [the observer] . . . enters into no active relation with the
children, merely listening to what they do and say, without comment
or question, and as unobtrusively as possible, can he keep near to
the passivity of the mere observer. This, however, can only happen
behind the shelter of other adults, who do take responsibility and
accept an active relationship with the children. [Isaacs, 1930, p. 9]
If other adults are in fact absent, the child will see the non-interfering
observer not as a neutral figure, but as a “passive parent” who either
colludes with what he is doing or leaves him unprotected against his
potential destructiveness and sense of guilt. This is an ethical and tech­
nical issue, which remains very relevant in Young Child Observation:
there can be times when the observer is the only adult present in the
room with the child and is confronted with demands from the child to
set limits, as well as to understand and join in.
A last point that we would like to make arises from Isaacs’s com­
ments on the degree of “freedom” in the contexts where the observation
is taking place. When children are allowed to be more active and free to
express and pursue their own impulses and curiosity, without undue
restriction, “they show us their inner minds with far less reserve and
fear than in ordinary circumstances . . . There [is], in other words, more
for us to see and we [can] see it more plainly”. We think here of the
sense of boredom that observers sometimes complain of, feeling that
“there is nothing there to be seen”. This statement can, of course, have
multiple roots and be understood in different ways, but it tends to be
made in situations, at home or at school, that are characterized by the
great impoverishment of the intellectual nourishment provided for the
child. The observer will tend, in these cases, to feel strongly identified
either with the child deprived of the food necessary for intellectual
growth, or with a ­depriving mother figure who inflicts on the seminar
group material that lacks interest or depth.

Anna Freud and the Jackson, War, and Hampstead Nurseries

Almost ten years after Susan Isaacs’s completion of her seminal work,
Anna Freud set up the first of her nurseries. These, too, were character­
ized by the strong importance attached to the observation of children.
She established the Jackson Nurseries in Vienna in 1937 and then, in
6 simonetta m. g. adamo & margaret rustin

London, in the years between 1940 and 1945, the Hampstead War Nurs­
eries and, finally, the Nursery at the Hampstead Clinic, subsequently
renamed the Anna Freud Centre. This Nursery operated from 1957
until 2000, when, sadly, it was closed. The Jackson Nurseries hosted
very young children, 1–2 years of age, and observing them immediately
confronted adults with problems related to the methodology of data
collection—that is, as Hansi Kennedy (1988) puts it, the choice between
“behaviouristic observation” and what Anna Freud called “the analytic
method”:
With hindsight, there is no doubt that these observations were from
the beginning not mere records of observed behaviour but a method
of collecting data on the basis of pre-existing knowledge: an attempt
to observe children’s behaviour which aimed at confirming or con­
tradicting psychoanalytic assumptions. [Kennedy, 1988, pp. 272–273]

The War Nurseries were set up (Edgcumbe, 2000) by Anna Freud and
Dorothy Burlingham “for children separated from their families by
the death, illness, absence in the armed force or on war work of their
parents . . . and aimed not only to provide for their physical and edu­
cational needs, but also for their emotional and psychological needs”.
What makes this work unique is the collection and scrutiny of literally
hundreds of detailed written observations by all the nursery workers,
as part of their in-service training. The observations gathered were used
not only to modify the organization of the nurseries in order to better
meet children’s needs, but also to nourish the psychoanalytic under­
standing of children’s development, as evidenced by the literature
that was based upon them (Freud & Burlingham, 1944; Hoffer, 1981).
To the written material should be added the visual material, made up
of the hundreds of photos taken by Willi Hoffer, which often record a
whole series of events in sequence and represent, in that sense, a sort of
precursor of subsequent techniques of recording observations through
film or videotape. It should be remembered, in this context, that one of
the first psychoanalysts to use this technique, James Robertson, him­
self worked in the War Nurseries as a social worker (Edgcumbe, 2000).
Another video, by Lynn Barnett (1988), shows the use of observation
at the Anna Freud Centre, while a paper by Nancy Brenner (1992)
describes in a more detailed way its methods of work.
The nursery, attended by children aged between 2½ and 5 years, was
set up “to provide students training at the Centre with the opportunity
to observe and study normal child development”. But “ongoing obser­
vations on the children are also recorded daily by the staff”. Brenner
 introduction 7

quotes the words of Manna Friedmann (1988), the teacher for the first
20 years:
At first, when we were asked to record observations, we did not really
know how to go about it. We wrote long daily descriptions of some
particular child, his appearance, his activities, and so on, and we
wondered how to utilize them. At a special meeting with Anna Freud,
she spelled out how we should proceed: “Make a note”, she said,
“of anything you would feel inclined to tell a friend, either because
it charmed you, or it was funny, and amused you, or it was irritat­
ing and angered you, make a note of anything which would confirm
some psychoanalytic theory or which would contradict it and make
a note of any behaviour which would seem to you precocious or the
opposite.” [Friedmann, 1988, pp. 280–281]
As an example, Friedmann quotes a comment made by Anna Freud on
observing the interactions between children and teachers:
We had what we called a “thinking bench” which was used as a
punishment for a child who had hurt another child in the garden.
Anna Freud overheard the teacher saying to a boy: “Sit and think
about what you have done, so that you won’t do it again, then you
can come back to us again.” Anna Freud’s humorous comment later
in the meeting was: “Won’t the child in future connect ‘thinking’ with
punishment? Maybe it would be better to call it ‘a waiting bench’”,
which we did. [Friedmann, 1988, pp. 281–282]
Interestingly, a similar episode occurred few years ago in a large confer­
ence held in Naples (Italy) to launch a training programme for nursery
teachers. One of them recounted that a similar punishment had been
inflicted on a young boy who misbehaved in the classroom. This little
boy, however, had spent the time he had been restricted drawing on a
sheet of paper the bench on which he had been confined and gave it
to his teachers with the comment that “it was very useful and all the
classrooms should have one of them, for sure!” Undoubtedly in this
case the boy had rightly understood the positive function of this “wait­
ing bench”.
Going back to the Anna Freud Centre, for the nursery teachers,
observing and recording observations constituted “additional time
given to children”, “the occasion”, as Brenner (1992, p. 88) puts it, “to
have with the single child, a ‘private’ visit, which enabled our ongoing
relationship to deepen”.
Marie Zaphiriou-Woods (personal communication, 2001), Nursery
Consultant in the years 1986–1997, gives the following account of the
use of observation in training:
8 simonetta m. g. adamo & margaret rustin

Students doing our MSc in Psychoanalytic Developmental Psy­

chology observe children in three different contexts. They all do
Infant, Toddler, and Nursery Observations. The students who go
on to do the clinical training do a second year of Infant Observa­
tion. They are required to write two observation papers, on their
infant and a selected toddler. Students observe toddlers at the
Centre, where we run several groups for toddlers who come with
their parents, usually mothers, once a week for an hour and a half.
Usually some students observe in the room and some behind a
screen. The focus of these observations is the toddlers’ develop­
ment as well as their interactions with their mothers. The observa­
tions are discussed in weekly seminars. The benefit students can
receive from observing children is twofold: they learn about crucial
developmental issues and see the ongoing structuralization of the
children’s personalities, and they learn to acquire an observational
stance, which is very important in clinical work. Students come
from many different professional backgrounds, and they now have
to learn to sit back and to think. In observations done in a nursery,
young children tend to involve observers to a certain degree, and
observers cannot avoid responding. They are, however, taught not
to initiate interactions or games. The observation of young chil­
dren confronts the observer with specific challenges—for instance,
when children misbehave under their eyes, but in the absence of a
teacher. This poses a technical problem but is also a way to learn
about the superego characteristics of that particular child. When I
was Nursery Consultant, students did their Nursery Observation
at the nursery school of the Anna Freud Centre, and this allowed
fruitful interchanges with the educational work carried on by teach­
ing staff. The Nursery Observation seminar was usually composed
of six students, who did weekly observations of an hour and half.
Students were advised not to write in the presence of the children,
but as soon as possible after the observation took place. Each week,
all the students observed the same child, and, in turn, all children
attending the nursery were observed at periodic intervals. This
allowed us to make comparisons among the observations of the
same child carried out by different observers, and to see, for exam­
ple, how the observer’s gender could influence the perception of
the child. The discussion of discrepancies then paved the way to
the attempt to integrate different points of view. Students were
advised to cluster their observations around a selected fact, some
critical event that happened to the child during the time they were
 introduction 9

observing, which for some reason struck their imagination, and to

describe in a detailed way the context of that event. The discussion
of these observations and of the way the observers themselves felt,
of their countertransference reactions, allowed us to formulate some
psychoanalytic understanding of the child.
Susan Isaacs’s and Anna Freud’s approaches thus reveal interesting
similarities, as well as differences, in the theory, use, methodology,
and findings of Young Child Observation as they understood it. It
is striking to see how, at a very early stage of the development of
psycho­ analytically oriented observational studies, discussion about
the observation of young children, promoted by child analysts such as
Susan Isaacs and Anna Freud, began to tackle many of the pertinent
issues. These include the value of direct observation for research and/
or for the training of different professionals, such as nursery teachers
or child psychotherapists, the use made by the observer of psychoana­
lytic knowledge, the specific meaning that the observer’s activity and
passiv­ity acquire in the observation of a young child compared with
the observation of a baby, and much technical advice for the gathering
and recording of observations.

The application of Young Child Observation

to experimental projects within nursery schools
Before moving to the next point of historical development—that is,
Esther Bick’s observation method and the development of Young Child
Observation at the Tavistock—we would like to underline the impor­
tance of the application, in Anna Freud’s methodology, to reflection on
the organization of her experimental nurseries. Sometimes the obser­
vation paved the way for some important changes in the organization
itself. This is the case, for instance, in the decision to substitute the
practice of group care, where all the teachers took care of all children,
with the introduction of the figure of a key teacher who was specially
in charge of a small group of children. This was aimed at allowing the
children the possibility of making significant emotional links with an
adult, a condition particularly important for children who had suffered
many losses and separations because of the war.
One part of this book is devoted to describing some of the possible
applications of Young Child Observation. Here, to add a contem­
porary example to the educational experiments of Susan Isaacs and
Anna Freud, we would like to describe an innovative project within
10 simonetta m. g. adamo & margaret rustin

a ­nursery-school setting running in Southern Italy since 2004, where

observation was a central resource. “Fox’s Earth” is the name of this
project, which grew out of a collaboration between Naples City Coun­
cil’s “Early Years Service” and the “Federico II” University. It was
designed for children, parents, and nursery teachers living and work­
ing in a highly deprived district of the city of Naples.
In 2004, when the project began, the district had been devastated
by a war waged by local gangs for control of the drugs market. The
ongoing violence that was devastating the area took place against a
background of chronic problems. The district had been built in the early
1970s as part of a state programme of low-cost social housing. In fact,
the area was never completed. Basic infrastructure, services, squares,
and leisure and sports facilities are still missing; levels of unemploy­
ment and school truancy are high, and the presence of organized crime
is strong and pervasive. There are many single-parent families and high
levels of poverty and deprivation; many families struggle with drug
use and/or mental health problems. The whole population is acutely
affected by the general decay and insecurity of the area.
Once a week one of the local schools remained open for two hours
after the end of the normal school day in order to host the activities the
project offered to children and their families.
Parents took part in a group led by two psychologists where they
were encouraged to share and to discuss parenting issues. Those who
wanted to discuss problems more privately were offered individual
counselling sessions with another psychologist. Meanwhile the chil­
dren were divided into three groups according to age and went off to
different activities. The “play workshop” and the “storytelling work­
shop” were aimed at children 2–6 years of age, while the workshop
for the “older siblings” was for children aged 7–13 years. Finally, the
nursery-school teachers took part in a workshop based around the crea­
tive recycling of waste materials.
A key aspect of the project was the supervision seminar. All the
staff, a total of 18 people, met fortnightly for two and a half hours
at the university. Each seminar was run by two professionals and
involved a psychologist as observer. The discussions in the super­
vision seminar were based on detailed observation taken during the
different activities. In all cases—with the exception of the counsel­
ling setting and the recycling workshop—the interactions were
recorded by psychology trainees who did not actively take part in
the work and were therefore non-participant observers. The psychol­
ogy trainees received initial instruction in Infant Observation method­
 introduction 11

ology. Given the specific context, however, some differences were

introduced. For example, in the case of the play and story-telling
workshops, the children were between 3 and 6 years old. This was
therefore essentially a Group Young Child Observation that con­
fronted the observer and the group with all the particularities and
adjustments that observing children of this age requires (Adamo &
Rustin, 2001), starting with a re-consideration of the meaning of the
“neutrality” of the observer.
Another area where differences were introduced was in the time
scale of the observation. Each workshop lasted an hour and a half, and
this phase of the project continued for only five months. The duration of
each single observation was therefore longer than the usual hour, while
the span of the observation as a whole was considerably shorter than
the traditional one-year period. A further difference was the focus of
the observations. Observers were instructed not to focus upon a single
child (as would be the case in Young Child Observation) but to provide
a more general observation of the group of children (which ­varied
in number from six to twelve) and the relationships between them
and with the workers. In fact, the method adopted could be located
half-way between the more traditional approach followed in Young
Child Observation and the observation of institutions as described by
­Hinshelwood and Skogstad (2000).
Although the structure of the project had been carefully planned
in order to offer to everyone involved an experience of containment,
slowly the observation began to record a widespread situation of dis­
order and chaos. Mothers, for instance, tended to come to the work­
shops late and brought with them babies, whom they handed to the
leaders of the activities. These, in order to perform their duties, asked
the observers to care for the babies. This resulted in their being put in
the situation of not being able to observe. The repetition of this process
of handing-over and the discussion of the observations in the seminars
allowed us to see how this dynamic reflected a paradox linked to the
characteristics of the area. From one point of view, to ask the mothers
to respect rules risked losing them; on the other hand, the intrusion into
the project of such disorder risked a descent into chaos. This would
render it little different from the everyday context, but would at the
same time deprive it of its potential to offer an experience of a situation
where the respect for rules and boundaries was not immediately asso­
ciated with persecutory and punitive feelings, but could be perceived
as creating the conditions for order, stability, and harmony. The state
of play had reached an impasse. However, the possibility of reflection
12 simonetta m. g. adamo & margaret rustin

offered by the thinking atmosphere prevailing in the seminar allowed

us to envisage a creative solution.
The school had an ample hall, which communicated with the
entrance and with the rooms where activities were organized. In fact,
a snack was offered in this hall to the children and families before the
beginning of the activities, while waiting for everyone to gather. Some
toys were also available in this space. It was therefore already character­
ized as an informal, welcoming space. It was then decided that a young
psychologist would take up residence in this space, welcoming the
mothers who arrived late or who brought their babies, offering atten­
tion, a space for them and their children, and a chance to explain the
meaning of the arrangements but at the same time not allowing them
to disrupt the project and its rules. Spontaneously, this new figure was
named “the local policeman”! This figure subsequently became a stable
and much appreciated member of the staff in all the following versions
of the project. Moreover, the observations gathered by the local police­
man–psychologist allowed the planners to understand the importance
of including in the project a less structured, flexible space that could
be used by families who, for several reasons, found it difficult to stick
to the limits of the other activities. In some ways this space ended up
by acquiring characteristics similar to the “Maisons Vertes” set up in
France by Françoise Dolto. These were set up as informal spaces where
adults accompanying children could go, with no previous registra­
tion, and stay as long as they wished, and where children could play
freely. Maisons Vertes are run by psychoanalysts whose function is to
be there, observe, and preside over the quality of the atmosphere and
of whatever happens there. This initiative was, of course, part of the
wider French commitment to the provision of high-quality and acces­
sible early child-care, which has been more widely espoused in Britain
in recent years. Indeed, the idea of spaces for children-with-their-carers
was a central plank in many Sure Start nurseries, an initiative sadly
threatened in austerity Britain.

Esther Bick and the Tavistock Clinic

At the Tavistock, Nursery Observation was the starting point of Young
Child Observation seminars, and the methodology followed was that
initially designed by Esther Bick for Infant Observation. Just to remind
readers very briefly of the key principles, observation was originally
developed by Esther Bick as a training tool for students training in child
 introduction 13

psychotherapy at the Tavistock; it was subsequently extended also to

the training of psychoanalysts. Students observe the development of
a baby within his family in his first two years of life. Observations
are weekly, and they last one hour. Usually a first visit to the family
is arranged before the birth, in order to introduce the observation, to
make the necessary arrangements, and to explore the parents’ fanta­
sies and anxieties about the birth and the way it will change family
life. Students are instructed not to use technological equipment (e.g.
a tape recorder) and to avoid judgement, interpretation, or premature
attempts at finding explanations based on theoretical concepts, includ­
ing psychoanalytic ones. They are encouraged to minimize any active
interference and to pay attention to all the verbal and non-verbal inter­
actions and to their context and sequence. After each session, students
write a detailed record of whatever they observed, and these written
records are presented in the seminar, which is a small group led by an
experienced child psychotherapist. The function of the seminar is to
support the students in the task that faces them of “an encounter with
primitive anxieties” (M. E. Rustin, 1988), to keep the observer’s role
when confronted with the unavoidable inner and external pressure to
step out of it, and to promote in the seminar an atmosphere conducive
to thinking and learning where the meaning of the data gathered can
slowly emerge. As will become evident through the reading of the
various chapters, Young Child Observation is based on these same
principles and methodology, although some adjustments are required
in order to take account of the different age of the children and the
observational context, which, as we shall see, can be either the family
or the school.
A first account of the development of the Young Child Observa­
tion seminar (by Shirley Hoxter, cited in Adamo & Magagna, 1998)
tells us that, from 1948 to the mid-1960s, the child psychotherapy
training lasted three years and included a seminar on Infant Observa­
tion run by Esther Bick, but no seminar on Young Child Observation
existed. “There was, however, a Tavistock Nursery School, held on the
premises in Marylebone. This Nursery School provided the Tavistock
trainee educational psychologists with opportunities to test young
children and it was also visited by the trainees of other disciplines in
the Clinic” (pp. 5–6). A seminar, organized to discuss the observations
made, was initially led by Shirley Hoxter and then by Frances Tustin.
Eventually the Tavistock Nursery School was closed, and the Clinic
moved to the new premises in Belsize Lane. The Child Psychotherapy
14 simonetta m. g. adamo & margaret rustin

training became more extensive and lasted four and, ultimately, six
years. “There was a change of name from ‘Nursery’ to ‘Young Child
observation’. Weekly observations were undertaken, lasting a year.
Some people observed the children in their own homes and some in a
nursery or pre-school setting. Weekly observations were undertaken,
lasting one year” (p. 6). Not much has changed since then. Since the
seminar became a component of the MA course, students have been
required to write an essay on their work, which meant the beginning
of a wide collection of written observational material on children from
3 to 5 years. At the Tavistock, the Young Child seminar usually begins
in the second year of training. Students have, therefore, already had the
experience of observing a baby for one year when they begin to observe
a young child. The d ­ ifficulty of keeping in mind simultaneously both
a very small baby and a more autonomous, but still very dependent
young child, with their different needs, is considerable. But it also
makes possible the anticipation of the growth of the baby and allows
for review of the baby stages and states of mind seen in the young child.
The tendency to make comparisons and, sometimes, to feel preferences
allows the observer to feel from within the richness and challenges of
parenthood and helps him or her to empathize with the situation of
being a parent of children of different ages.
A “natural experiment” concerning differences arising from the
duration of the Young Child Observation happened in Italy, where
for many years for historical reasons in the development of the cur­
riculum the Young Child Observation seminar lasted two years, and
therefore students began the two observations simultaneously. When
the observation lasts two years, the relationship between the observer,
the child, and the rest of the family tends naturally to become deeper,
and the conclusion of the observation requires careful preparation.
In an unpublished paper, Meltzer (1987) speaks of the “responsibil­
ity” that the observer takes on and of the opportunity to continue to
visit the family even after the completion of the period of observa­
tion, since the observer often becomes, in some sense, “a member
of the extended family”. It is difficult, however, to establish general
rules, and the “weaning” from observation will be influenced by the
process and relational style of any particular observation (Adamo
& Magagna, 1998). It is also clear that a two-year duration helps to
develop the “therapeutic potential” of observation, where very dif­
ficult and troubled families are concerned, as is shown in some of the
chapters in this book.
 introduction 15

The book’s structure

The book is composed of five parts—Developmental Issues, Observing
in the Home, Observing in a Nursery, Applications, and Research—
followed by a concluding chapter, the Epilogue.
Each part is introduced by brief notes aimed at identifying the main
issues discussed in the single chapters and at establishing some links
among them. We would like, however, to consider at this point some
of the more general issues and dilemmas of Young Child Observation.

How and where to observe

The question of where to observe has been debated since the introduc­
tion of Young Child Observation. Without claiming to provide answers
or offer solutions, we have included chapters describing observations
made both in the home and in nurseries, hoping to show more clearly
both sides of the question and therefore to contribute to deepening
the debate and to demonstrating what can be learnt in these different
contexts. In the seminar accompanying the observers in their task, both
varieties are likely to be represented, and indeed individual ­observers
are often able to arrange something of a combination. There are, how­
ever, a few general remarks that can be made about the meaning and
implications of the choice of observational setting. Separation and
­oedipal conflicts are the developmental issues that need to be negotiated
by a 3-year-old and his or her family. School and family represent privi­
leged observatories where anxieties and ways of coping related to each
of these two areas can be focused. In this sense, the debate concerning
where it is preferable to observe a young child can be seen as a dilemma
intrinsic to the developmental stage of the child. Intimacy and distance
are polarities that any observer has to negotiate in order to find his or
her place. In Infant Observation, this right distance needs to be found in
relation to the mother–baby couple, while in Young Child Observation
it has to be found centrally in relation to the child. School and family
allow different degrees of distance and intimacy. Activity and passiv­
ity acquire a different meaning when the child directly relates to the
observer and involves him or her in activities. In the home, the child’s
increased autonomy means that often he or she is left alone with the
observer, without the protective filter of mother’s presence. O ­ bserving
at school may protect the observer from the uncertainties of too deep
or confusing an involvement with the child and is an ­experience that
16 simonetta m. g. adamo & margaret rustin

is in some ways more similar to Infant Observation, in the sense that

the observer is allowed to occupy a relatively marginal position with
respect to other relationships, which are more at the centre (child and
teacher, child and peers). However, play interactions with the child can
allow the observer to experience being used by the child, to help him
or her to express thoughts and phantasies, without becoming control­
ling or controlled. The kind of interested and open attention that can
sustain and encourage the child’s free exploration and expression of
his or her inner world is crucial in the psychic equipment of the child
psychotherapist and can be seen as a prerequisite for the subsequent
task of learning and mastering the technique of play analysis.
Choice and acceptance both play a part in the possibility of start­
ing an observation. The aspiring observer chooses to seek a family in a
specific area or sociocultural milieu but is totally in the dark about the
actual characteristics of the family he or she is going to meet. In this
sense, his or her situation resembles that of a pregnant mother who
does not know what her baby will be like. In Infant Observation, when
the first meeting is arranged before the birth, the first encounter that
the observer has is with the baby imagined by the mother. Young Child
Observation immediately confronts the observer with both parents and
an actual child who may have distinctive feelings, expectations, and
anxieties about this new person. “How will my child react to observa­
tion?” “How will observation affect the child?” “How shall I introduce
you to him/her?” are the most frequent questions that parents ask, once
they have agreed to the observation. Parents act as a filter between child
and observer, but the child is himself a filter between the observer and
the possibility of the observation taking root. Often parents recount at
this point some previous reaction of the child towards new figures, such
as baby sitters, and discuss with the observer what to say to the child.
This is an important learning experience not only for a future
child psychotherapist, but for any professional working with children,
because it allows him or her to observe how issues of difference and
interrelatedness are dealt with within the family system. The observer is
confronted with the necessity of creating a space in relation to the child
that is distinct and asymmetrical, neither in conflict with the parents’
position nor totally coinciding or aligned with it. Child psychothera­
pists face very similar problems when they first meet parents and dis­
cuss with them how to prepare a child to meet their therapist. It is crucial
to acknowledge different points of view in establishing a cooperative
relationship with parents of a child one hopes to help in therapy.
 introduction 17

Similar problems have to be faced in visiting a nursery school

and negotiating permission to observe a child. This can be a complex
process because the systems and subsystems that need to give con­
sent are many: the school system—administrators, head teacher, and
class teacher—and the family system, which includes the child. Very
interesting observations can be made about how power and authority
issues are dealt with in the school’s culture. Is the culture hierarchical
or more democratic? This can expose some painful realities at times. In
one nursery school, for instance, the headmistress did not seem at all
interested in a preliminary meeting with the observer, in hearing about
the aims of observation, or in discussing reciprocal responsibilities.
The only problem she raised was that of the formal authorization, the
“circular letter” that the observer should get from the central authori­
ties. When the observer obtained it and came back to the school, she
discovered that she was being referred to by the teachers as “the lady
of the circular letter”, and she could not find a single teacher willing to
accept her in her class or even to discuss the possibility! She had become
totally identified, in the teachers’ eyes, with a distant and authoritarian
power, seemingly offering them nothing of benefit, not interested in
knowing their point of view, and imposing decisions upon them. When
at last she found a teacher who allowed her to observe, she discovered
that her own experience mirrored in many ways the prevalent attitude
towards the children. The children seemed at times quite neglected,
while teachers spent time talking among themselves, basically inter­
vening only to reproach or control. The dynamic of “little ones” being
totally ignored and their needs, rights, and thoughts unacknowledged,
along with “grown-ups” talking and taking decisions over their heads,
seemed to be interwoven in the structure and culture of the school as
a whole.
Another observer was constantly referred to as “the foreigner”, in
relation to her supposed origin from another country, which, as she
had repeatedly clarified, was untrue. It emerged subsequently, as the
observation proceeded, that the idea that children can be interesting
and that one can learn from them was felt to be quite foreign. Such
experiences are difficult, but at the same time they show how observ­
ing in a nursery setting can be an invaluable opportunity for students
to learn about the functioning of institutions, which play such a central
role in the upbringing of children of this age.
The observer who chooses to observe in a school setting has another
problem to solve, besides that of being accepted by the institution and
18 simonetta m. g. adamo & margaret rustin

the family. Very often, the observer has to choose a child to observe,
­singling one out from among a group of peers. This can be a very diffi­
cult task. The observer may become anxious about choosing the “right”
or “wrong” child, one more or less suitable or interesting, or can feel
that, by choosing a particular child, too much of the self will be revealed.
One observer who had “lost” the child she was previously observing,
because the child had moved to a different school, later chose to observe
a child whom she found rather unappealing and uninteresting. With
the help of the puzzled seminar group, she could see how through
this “choice” she had unconsciously protected herself from becoming
emotionally involved with a new child and having to risk suffering
another loss. This choice, however, risked her not committing enough
of herself to the observation. Choosing can be particularly difficult if
the school is characterized by scarcity of resources and deprivation,
as some can be. The observer may feel guilty at being able to offer to
only one child the extra attention that observation provides. Sometimes
the atmosphere can even seem similar to that of an institution where
abandoned children are waiting and hoping for adoptive parents. If
such feelings are present and not specifically addressed and worked
through in the seminar group, the observer can find it very difficult
to concentrate on a single child and can easily lapse into a superficial
observation. From this point of view, just as we usually advise infant
observers to look for an ordinary—that is “good-enough”—family in
which to observe, it may be important to steer young child observers,
where possible, towards a setting that is fundamentally supportive of
the children’s development. Of course, things can always turn out to be
different from expectations, and that has to be lived with.

Curiosity, observation, and self-observation

The observer and his or her method of work inevitably attract young
children’s curiosity. Children often associate the observer with a range
of activities linked with vision and watching: they play with cameras
or binoculars, they pretend to be at the cinema, they ask, “Have you
come to take pictures of us?”
Sometimes parents show photos of their children to the observer
in their first meeting. These photos may give an especially attractive
image of the child, as so many family photos do, an image that the
­parent hopes will be shared by the observer. The charm and liveliness of
many small children can indeed be captured in photographs, and many
observers do, of course, greatly enjoy their time observing a child at
 introduction 19

play. In some other cases, however, photos can give a pejorative image
of the child, as becomes clear to the observer when he is confronted for
the first time with the actual child. In these cases, the issue seems to be
one of parents who have a distorted image of the child, filtered through
their own projections. By showing it to the observer, a parent may be
introducing a crucial problem that affects the relationship with the
child, possibly with the unconscious hope to be helped to get, through
the observer’s eyes, a different picture of the child (see, in this respect,
Grier’s chapter: chapter 5).
Coming back to the children, the play with toys and devices associ­
ated with vision, with its obvious symbolic meaning, demonstrates the
deep, intuitive grasp children have of the nature of the observer’s inter­
est in them. This play with toy cameras, sunglasses, and so on suggests
an unconscious understanding of the task of building a mental repre­
sentation of a person, where the choice of focus, as well as the personal
perspective of the observer, contribute to the creation of the final image.
At the same time, the child can identify with the observer in the sense
that he or she too is very much occupied in building a picture of family
structure and relationships. The term “familiar”, wrote Gaddini (1976),
“is associated with the idea of family as something one is supposed to
be well acquainted with. This is certainly not so for the growing child,
for whom the task of becoming familiar with his family’s structure and
life is certainly immense” (p. 397).
The task of orienting himself in a complex and partly unknown
system of roles and relationships and of finding his place in it also faces
the child entering school and can promote his identification with the
observer. Here is a delightful sequence from an observation held in a
nursery school.
The male observer went into the school every Monday for an hour,
in the class of the older children—that is, children aged from 24 to
36 months. He took a seat on a small chair and observed what hap­
pened around him. Every Monday the children knew that he would
arrive and began to wait for him. When he arrived, they were very
curious, they clustered around him, brought toys to him, inspected
his coat, and asked him to accompany them to the toilet. Only
one child stayed silently near him, saying nothing, doing nothing,
but staying there quietly looking around. Once he dragged a little
stool, smaller than the little chair on which the observer used to sit,
and he sat down beside the observer. One day he placed the little
stool behind the observer, who, after a while, forgot him. When the
20 simonetta m. g. adamo & margaret rustin

observer turned to see what the child was doing, he found that the
child was, as usual, sitting and looking around him, but this time
he had a triangle made of paper glued on his chin, just like the
observer’s beard!
The observer often becomes the witness or confidant of a child’s inves­
tigations of sexuality, as is shown in the following example.

Paolo, 3 years; Marco, 3 years

Something has fallen on the floor, under the table. Paolo bends over
and then he lies under the line of small tables. Marco follows. The
two children seem to be plotting something, and they whisper in
each other’s ear. Paolo now moves forward, crawling towards a
little girl’s legs, bending his head to see better. The observer under­
stands at this point that he intends to peep under the girl’s skirt.
Then she hears Marco saying, “Can’t see anything.” Paolo leads the
expedition. As he gets closer to his goal, he glances from time to
time at the observer, with a faint smile, half bold, half worried. None
of the girls seem to be aware of what is going on; neither do the
teachers. Suddenly the boys re-emerge from under the table. Paolo
is exultant, while Marco looks dreamy and shocked. Sitting at his
table, he puts on a pair of heart-shaped glasses, then takes them off,
then puts them on again. Finally he takes them off and puts them on
the table. When another child picks them up, Marco screams “They
belong to me!” and becomes very upset, as if he were going to cry.
“They belong to my sister. She has lent them to me for the day”, he
adds and snatches them from the other child.
In this sequence the two boys seem to display very mixed feelings
towards the observer in relation to their adventure. She is associated
with an image of a friendly adult who can allow their “observations”,
but at the same time there is anxiety, because knowledge sought
without respect for the other arouses fear of an angry or reproachful
superego figure. The experience seems to have a very different impact
on each of the two children. When Paolo re-emerges, he looks excited
and seems to have got rid of his earlier anxious hesitation. Marco, by
contrast, looks “shocked” and “dreamy”, as if he were somewhat over­
whelmed, perhaps partly by feelings of guilt and persecution aroused
by the intrusiveness of his curiosity. He then tries to put a sunglass-
shield between himself and what he has done, and to protect himself
from the observer’s eyes, which he seems to perceive as full of reproach.
 introduction 21

However, the glasses put him in touch with thoughts about his sister
and reinforce his anxiety. The sense of guilt connected with the feeling
of having “stolen” something, through peeping under the girls’ skirts,
becomes so unbearable that he has to project it into the other boy, accus­
ing him of stealing his sister’s glasses. He can then identify himself only
with his good feelings towards the girls and his sister.
When a child’s curiosity is imbued with powerful wishes to intrude
or steal, it tends to be denied and projected. One little girl scolded her
doll for being a “busy-body”. The observer, too, can become the recipi­
ent of such projections and thus a threatening figure from whom one
wishes to escape. “One of these days I want to become a ghost, so you
will have nothing to look at!” pointedly exclaimed a 3-year-old to her
observer. Curiosity about sexual and intimate relationships is enhanced
by the birth of a sibling, which is a very frequent occurrence in the life
of children of this age. Several chapters in the book describe the “cata­
strophic changes” activated in the family by this event, the conflicts that
it enhances, but also the ways in which it contributes to spur the child’s
epistemophilic instinct and the enlargement of his relationships. Inter­
estingly, in some cases where the relationship between the mother and
the young child was initially very closed and enmeshed, the mother
became pregnant with a new baby during the course of the observa­
tion or at its conclusion. One could hypothesize that the need to make
space for a third could, at least unconsciously, have contributed to the
parents’ decision to accept the observer.
This takes us to the consideration of the impact on both observer
and family when the observation takes place in circumstances that are
difficult, either in terms of the strains of particular current aspects of
the family’s life, such as the arrival of a new baby or a family illness
or bereavement, or with respect to the overall social and economic
external context, or more chronic family problems, such as long-term
unemployment or a disabled family member and the question of the
limitations of the family’s internal resources.
It is striking, in reading reports of a wide range of Young Child
observations, that observers can find themselves painfully aware of
the children’s experience of emotional deprivation and at times become
anxious about abusive relationships within the family. The ­observer’s
reliable, thoughtful, interested presence can, of course, sometimes
provide an important additional resource. In particularly worrying
circumstances, observers need the support of their seminar group to
understand and tolerate the painful feelings evoked in the observation
and to think out whether the severity of the family’s difficulties is so
22 simonetta m. g. adamo & margaret rustin

extreme as to warrant external intervention or a change in the role of

the observer and, if so, in what way to raise this (Adamo, 2012).
In nursery-based observations, both the qualities and limitations of
the nursery setting within its specific local community become evident
over time. Observers will share both the joys of children’s discovery of
this new wider world and their disappointments. They have the luxury
of a primary focus on an individual child and an opportunity to see
something of the vicissitudes of the child’s evolving relationship to the
group of children and to nursery staff. In a poorly resourced nursery,
this too can be a painful experience, particularly if there is a mismatch
between what the child seems ready for and what is on offer.

Concluding remarks
Finally, we should like to underline some specific areas in which the
practice of Young Child Observation can contribute to growth in under­
standing. First, it enlarges the observer’s knowledge and appreciation
of the different modes of expression open to a child that give access to
the inner world of unconscious phantasy: play of all sorts, conversation,
dreams, body states, early forms of artistic expression (song, dance,
drawing, etc.), and, most importantly, relationships with adults and
other children. Observers are introduced in memorable ways to the
cultural world of the child—to the culture of family is added that of
school, and influencing both of them is the culture of the mass media,
which exert a powerful impact through television, film, and video and
toys associated with these images. All this is enormously valuable for
observers in their work with children. Second, it provides v ­ aluable evi­
dence of the impact of institutional experience on children’s develop­
ment. Such study opens up areas of possible early intervention and
preventative work in nursery settings. Third, it offers a setting in
which psychoanalytic thinking about group life can be integrated with
the study of the growth of individual personality. Fourth, it can be a
resource that can be creatively employed and applied to offer support
to children and families in difficulty and to enrich the offer of more
traditional services. Finally, it offers rich opportunities for research
allowing access and understanding of the under-the-surface life within
human relationships.
The book should therefore be of interest to parents, students,
and teachers of Young Child Observation, to nursery teachers, social
­workers, and all professionals working with young children, but also
to policymakers in the fields of education, of children’s mental health,
 introduction 23

and of provision of support services to families. We are aware that the

chapters that follow address only selected issues. They do not include,
for instance, an observation of a child growing up in a single-parent
family, which is a significant omission and suggests to us a time-lag in
the way that observers understand their task. The very large number of
single-parent families, in Britain at least—whether this is a consequence
of choice or of life events—means that observation in such families is
very important both to represent the demographically normal range
and to understand the specifics of a child’s experience of growing up
in one parent’s absence. We should also have liked to include mate­
rial about young children being cared for by grandparents, as that is
an increasing trend, and to have examples of the differences between
childminder care and nursery care. Taken as a whole, however, the
chapters allow us privileged access to both the inner world of distinc­
tive individual children and to their families and draw our attention to
the imaginative capacities of observers and their originality as writers.
We can also appreciate afresh the importance of the seminar group for
the observer’s growing understanding, as is explored in some of our
chapters. The conjunction of the developmental tasks associated with
separation and the theme of oedipal issues with the growth points as
the child begins to move outside the family make the study of children
of this age extremely rewarding.
 PART I

Developmental issues

The first part contains four chapters, which explore developmental issues
in more than one sense. These contributions relate to the historical devel-
opment of the practice of Young Child Observation and to the psycho-
analytic understanding of development in young children, as a process
that reactivates infantile anxieties and provides opportunities for further
psychological growth. The key role of Martha Harris and Isca Wittenberg in
developing the whole field of psychoanalytic observation was rooted in the
contribution of their imaginative empathy with young children and their
grasp of how psychoanalysis could enrich our understanding.
Chapter 1, written by Isca Wittenberg under her maiden name, is based
on more occasional but very careful observations made by parents and
nursery teachers. The paper was originally written for the opening confer-
ence of a training programme for nursery teachers. These observations
are more similar to those conducted by sensitive and psychoanalytically
informed parents and professionals in the early days of psychoanalytic
direct observation (A. Freud, 1951). Going to a nursery school is, for a
child, a crucial transition, similar in impact to the first major transition of
birth. Particularly poignant are the author’s comments on sensory over-
stimulation. The noise that a child experiences in this new environment
can be felt as an unbearable bombardment, perhaps not so very different
from what happens to a baby leaving intrauterine life to enter into the new
world outside. Attention and comparison of the child’s different behaviour
and moods at home and at school can help parents and professionals go
beyond a superficial picture and enable them to differentiate real integra-
tion from compliance, resignation, depression, or adhesive adjustment.
In chapter 2, we enter the more familiar realm of observation proper. It
is a pleasure to include this chapter, which shows how Martha Harris and

25
Donald Meltzer approached material from the observation of a 3-year-old
undertaken by Romana Negri. The chapter has the lightness of a fairy tale,
and this adds to its originality and does not diminish its depth. The story
starts with a reconstruction of the initial condition of the foetus. The accent
here is mainly upon the “friends” a child can encounter in his developmen-
tal journey. The narcissistic, omniscient parts of the personality offer them-
selves as allies to the child confronted with the struggles and the losses of
growth, and fight with the dependent aspects of personality. This conflict
is heightened at all times of change, as is shown by the observation of the
child just beginning nursery school. Simone had been observed for a long
period at home (Negri, 1988) before the school observation took place. We
have therefore here (as in chapter 10, by Elisabeth Dennis), an example of
a mixed observation—that is, an observation usually taking place either at
home or at school, which includes occasional visits to the other context. In
such cases, the observer represents a link between home and school, and
the way the child relates to her provides evidence of his capacity for or
difficulty with linking. In the situation described by Romana Negri, Simone
totally ignored the observer, probably because, as Martha Harris suggested,
he was “trying to keep at bay his feelings or thoughts concerning home
and being away from home”. The observer was used by the child in order
to split and project upon her the “bad mother, who sent him to school”, in
order to protect the good mother, who was “left at home”.
We see a very different situation in Elisabeth Dennis’s chapter (chapter
10), and the continuity of the observation allows us to follow the evolution
of the child’s relation to the observer. The little girl’s fear of being forgot-
ten, or even abandoned, by her parents prompted her to stick close to the
observer, whom she had first met at home and who therefore represented a
kind of umbilical cord, or a safety belt, against the fear of being lost in an
empty space, “in a no-man’s land of affection” (A. Freud, 1943) and feeling,
as a 5-year-old boy expressed himself, “nobody’s nothing” (A. Freud, 1943).
“Young Child Observation is itself a second-born”—this is one of the
opening sentences of chapter 3, by Simonetta M. G. Adamo and Jeanne
Magagna, on “Oedipal Anxieties, the Birth of a Second Baby, and the Role
of the Observer”—the first published paper specifically devoted to Young
Child Observation as now generally practised. This partly accounts for the
wide range of aspects that the chapter explores. These include some histori-
cal information on the place of Young Child Observation in the Tavistock
training, based on the personal communications of some of the child psy-
chotherapists who contributed to it, the movements in the relationship to
the mother and to the father that the birth of a second baby sets in motion,
theoretical considerations on the role of the father, and some technical issues

26
linked to the role of the observer of a child of this age. The projection onto
the observer of aspects associated with the father’s role is a relevant issue
in this chapter. In fact, this observation allowed the child to have a special,
“private” space to which she could move when she felt overwhelmed by the
high temperature of feelings associated with the relationship between the
mother and the newborn. This “private” space, contiguous with yet separate
and distinct from the realm of primary relationships, is the space of symbolic
representation, where play can take the place of enactments. In this way,
intense, ambivalent, primitive anxieties could be approached, be available
for inner and outer communication, and be initially explored.
Maggie Fagan’s original chapter (chapter 4) introduces a fresh perspective
in noting the particular way in which the childhood family experience of
observers is evoked by their experience of observing a young child. Whereas
in Infant Observation the “memories in feeling” (Klein, 1957) that are often
stirred are at an unconscious level, closeness to young children at play in
family and nursery settings provokes conscious as well as unconscious rec-
ollections and can shape powerful identifications. In addition, the fact that
for most observers the Young Child Observation begins subsequent to a year
or more of Infant Observation, and usually lasts for a shorter time, can have
the effect of giving it a diminished status or lead to observers experiencing
the two observations as rivals, with Young Child Observation seen as the
intruding and unwelcome new baby. She discusses the special responsibility
the seminar leader carries for awareness of these potential dynamics in the
group. She also has some interesting reflections on the place of theory in
observation seminars, made even more complex by the expanding research
literature on child development. The risk of a focus on the norm and hence
also on pathology rather than the sympathetic attention to individual com-
plexity is highlighted.

27
CHAPTER ONE

The transition from home

to nursery school
Isca Wittenberg

This chapter was written as a talk for a group of nursery teachers in Naples
at an opening conference of a new project of ongoing workshops for nursery
staff. It presents a lucid and evocative account of the problems young children
encounter in facing the first substantial separation from mother and home and
provides a fitting introduction to a collection of papers arising from observa­
tions of young children at home and in nursery settings. It is a reminder of a
natural link between child psychotherapists and those involved in education
in the early years. The upsurge of commitment to and investment in preschool
education in Great Britain and elsewhere provides a new opportunity for such
fruitful encounters.

E
mbarking on something new—a course of study, marriage,
­having a baby, moving to a new house—all such events tend to
arouse hope of increasing our knowledge, pleasure, and fulfil­
ment. It is such hopeful expectations that lead us throughout life to
continue to seek out new experiences. The young child beginning to go
to nursery is also filled with hope, expecting to find interesting toys to
play with, to learn to do things that the older children he admires are
able to do, and to meet children who might become his friends. Unless
previous experiences have been too deeply disappointing, we continue
throughout life to hope that some new event might bring us nearer to
the fulfilment of what we desire. We may invest it with hope and indeed

29
30 isca wittenberg

idealize it, but at the same time we are also likely to harbour fears and
dread about what this unknown new situation will bring with it. We
may be afraid that the new place or person will be frightening, the new
child be unmanageable, unlovable; that the new teacher will be harsh,
punitive, too demanding. We may be afraid that we will not have the
physical, mental, or emotional capacity to live up to the new challenge;
we may feel lost in new surroundings, confused and disturbed by
new ideas. We may fear to be judged by others, thought to be stupid,
ignorant, lacking talent; we may be afraid that we will be made to feel
inadequate, laughed at, disliked, thrown out. All these thoughts tend
to arise when we are faced with a new situation.
We do not usually speak about having such disturbing emotions.
We may be ashamed of them and think that we should have outgrown
such fears, that they are childish. They are childlike only in as far as
their origin dates back to early childhood. The psychoanalytic study of
the mind has shown that all our experiences, right from the very begin­
ning of infancy, leave memory traces, and the emotions connected with
the events remain in the depth of our minds throughout life. Very early
experiences are not consciously remembered but reappear in the form
of what Melanie Klein (1957) called “memories in feeling”—that is to
say, in bodily and mental states and phantasies. These are re-evoked
in us whenever the present situation in one way or another resembles
an earlier one. Thus, the feeling states we experienced in infancy and
childhood remain within us, they are never outgrown. Being in touch
with these child aspects of ourselves helps us to understand and toler­
ate our own and other people’s more infantile fears and desires. And
such understanding is essential if we are to appreciate what goes on
in the minds of young children. Unlike us, most 2- or 3-year-olds can­
not put their thoughts into words, and when they feel lost in strange
surroundings they cannot ask someone to show them the way home;
they do not even know where home is. All they can do is communicate
through their behaviour how they feel.
Robert, a child of 2½, was excited at the thought of going to nurs­
ery. He liked the company of other children and had been told that
there would be many new toys to play with. When he arrived at
the nursery with his mother, he at first stayed close to her but then
began moving a little further away from her and sticking coloured
shapes onto a piece of paper. An hour after their arrival, mother
thought that he had begun to settle down happily and got up to
leave. Robert rushed to her, started crying but, encouraged by the
 the transition from home to nursery school 31

teacher, mother went out, saying she would be back when she had
done her shopping. When she rang the nursery an hour later, she
was told that Robert had stopped crying and was fine. The next day,
when after a little while Robert had started happily to use the paints
at the nursery, mother left, but when she phoned later, she could
hear her child crying. On the third morning, Robert was reluctant to
leave home; he asked for another drink, then another biscuit, then
for another cuddle and another. By the weekend he was running a
slight temperature and seemed generally unwell. When the parents
took him for a walk in the park, he did not run ahead as usual.
When he saw his grandmother, he greeted her without his usual
enthusiasm, and when his parents went to the canteen to fetch a
drink, he would not, as he had always done on previous occasions,
stay happily with her but kept pulling her in the direction his par­
ents had gone, asking repeatedly: “Where is mummy, I want to go
to mummy”. On Monday morning he did not want to get dressed
and cried all the way to the nursery. He screamed when mother
tried to leave him there, as the teacher suggested. The teacher said,
“Maybe it’s just bad temper”, but because he had been disturbed
all weekend and was now looking very frightened and would not
settle, mother eventually took him home. She said she had never
seen him in such a state before except sometimes when strangers
came to the house. When mother went back later to speak to the
head teacher, Robert clung to her, crying so intensely that the adults
could barely carry on a conversation. The teacher told mother that
she had been over-protective of Robert and that was why he had a
problem separating from her. The parents acknowledged that there
could be some truth in this but felt hurt at being blamed. They in
turn criticized the nursery staff for not helping the child sufficiently.
Such mutual blaming is not uncommon but helps no one. Let us,
rather, try to understand the situation. What sense can we make
of the extent of the child’s distress? How could the beginning at
nursery have been made more tolerable for him? Robert’s mother
decided that he was too young to start nursery, that she would wait
another four months before taking him back. But is it really going
to be very different then?
Let us start by examining what feelings are aroused in a young child
when he finds himself left by his mother in strange surroundings with
people he does not know. To understand the depth of the emotional
distress, we have to turn our attention to the very beginning of life,
32 isca wittenberg

to the event of birth itself. And here we note that being born is both
a beginning and an abrupt ending. The infant loses the world he has
lived in for nine months. As he leaves mother’s body, never to return,
he exchanges a fluid environment where he was automatically fed
and held within the warmth and protective layer of the womb for a
new existence in aerial surroundings. He is exposed to the cold, to
the impingement of harsh lights and sounds. Life within the womb
may have become restricting, but now he suddenly finds himself in
boundary­less space. Furthermore, the human newborn lacks the mobil­
ity to support his body, to reach the source of food, warmth, shelter, and
protection from danger. This extreme helplessness leaves him terrified,
afraid to fall, to die. The French doctor Leboyer (1975) demonstrated
how the dramatic experience of entering this new world can be made
less traumatic by trying as far as possible to re-create the conditions
operative in utero during and immediately after the baby’s birth, thus
providing some degree of continuity of experience for the baby. This
includes keeping the lights dimmed, putting the baby on the mother’s
stomach before the umbilical cord is cut, allowing the baby to suck
at the breast as soon as possible, immersing him in a warm bath, and
gently massaging his body. When this procedure was followed, the
infant’s cry soon subsided, his cramped posture relaxed, and he began
to explore the world around him.
Infant Observation has shown that throughout the early weeks,
a baby only feels safe if the link with the placenta is substituted by a
readily available nipple in the mouth, and the physical holding within
the boundary of the wall of the womb replaced by his feeling closely
held and enveloped. The infant’s state of bliss when connected with
the breast and held securely within mother’s arms and loving attention
quickly gives way to screams and disjointed movements whenever he
feels cut off, uncontained, disconnected from the source of life. Here
we witness the epitome of the terror of separation. Wilfred Bion called
this terrifying state catastrophic anxiety. It threatens to overwhelm us
whenever we face change. Clearly, the further we are removed from
our home base, the more frightened, the more lost and disorientated
we tend to feel. We fear that we will again experience such helplessness
and terror as we did in our infancy. We are afraid to be alone, aban­
doned, left to die. We see reflections of this at all the stages in our life
that involve major changes. Thinking about children, the younger the
child, the more helpless he in fact is, and hence the greater the anxiety
he is likely to experience when faced with what is new and unfamiliar.
 the transition from home to nursery school 33

The way anxiety is dealt with also has resonance with the way he could
be comforted in babyhood. We saw, for instance, how Robert, afraid of
being left by mother, held onto her body, asked for drinks, food, and
cuddles, clinging onto all these vital connections with the source of
life and security he had learnt to depend on. And just as we saw that
the provision of some continuity of experience helped the newborn to
become interested in the totally unknown environment of the external
word, so the continuity of the mother’s presence and the gradual hand­
ing over to the teacher when he has become used to her can greatly
facilitate the child’s transition into the world of the nursery. That such
factors as the noise level in the nursery may be as disturbing to a child
coming from a quiet home as loud sounds are to a baby was brought
home to me when I was told that Robert had complained that his ears
hurt and said, “I can’t hear the music, there’s so much noise.”
So far, we have looked at the residues of the impact of the abrupt
ending, which is part of being born. But the child coming to nursery
will, of course, have also experienced many less extreme separations.
Every ending of a feed, every putting the baby down in his cot, every
time mother goes out of the room is a separation, making the baby
aware of being not at one with but separate from his mother. As
Winni­cott (1964) pointed out, it is important to “introduce the world
to the baby in small doses, otherwise being separate is too terrifying”.
Mother–infant observations show that only through many repeated
experiences of loving attention from a mother who is readily available
when he feels frightened, hungry, or in pain can the infant come to feel
that there is someone who will be there when needed. Together with the
taking in of the milk, he takes in a picture of being mothered and gradu­
ally establishes a mental concept of a mother who is reliably loving,
comforting, and able to respond to his communications of pleasure and
pain. Gradually these memory traces of good experiences in mother’s
presence enable him to have short periods of lying awake by himself,
holding onto and re-creating in his mind his pleasurable, sensual inter­
changes with his mother. When he is put down, he may at first cry,
but he can increasingly call on this inner picture to provide him with
a feeling of being held and comforted. It is the task of parents to learn
to judge what their baby can tolerate, how long he can be left without
getting into a state of panic. There are parents who put their baby out
of earshot so as not to be disturbed by his ongoing crying; if the baby is
left too often for too long, trust in a reliable, good mother may never be
securely established. At the other extreme, there are parents who cannot
34 isca wittenberg

bear their baby to cry for a minute: they pick the baby up at the slightest
sign of upset. This undermines the development of the child’s learning
to draw on his inner resources—such children become dependent on
mother being always there to help. I think this might have been so in
Robert’s case. It is often difficult for parents to discover what is right
for their child because in looking after the baby and later the child, their
own infantile self is evoked, and therefore they tend to react in much
the same way as their own parents and carers responded to them dur­
ing their infancy and childhood. Good experiences enable the baby to
invest the outer world with hope. But while other people and objects
in his environment will attract his interest, mother usually remains the
secure base, the terra firma from which he ventures forth only as long
as he feels sure he can return to it.
Let us look now beyond these brief separations to a very crucial
ending in every infant’s life: being weaned. Whether the baby has
been breast-fed or bottle-fed, the feeding situation provides the great­
est intimacy between mother and baby. It is a relationship in which a
loving kind of giving and taking, touching and looking, in one-ness
and separateness, physical closeness and responsiveness to each other
is developed or fails to develop. It lays the foundation for all later inti­
macy. The ending of this most intimate relationship faces the baby with
a very profound loss. In Klein’s opinion, the way weaning is dealt with
determines the way we are likely to deal with losses later on in life.
I would like to bring a brief example from an Infant Observation to
see what it can teach us about the difficulties encountered at weaning:
Katrina was a happy baby who had a close and passionate though
quite demanding relationship with her mother. When mother sat
her up in the middle of a feed in order to burp her, she always
protested, but as soon as mother gave her a cuddle, stroked and
kissed her, she was again all smiles and happily settled at the second
breast. This changed dramatically when, at the age of 7 months,
mother began to wean her, leaving out the mid-morning feed. She
now bit the breast whenever it was first offered. This made mother
exclaim with pain and scold the baby. When at the end of the feeds
Katrina protested, her mother’s affectionate behaviour no longer
soothed the baby. She simply arched her back and turned away.
Mother told the observer how rejected this made her feel. She felt
sad about breast-feeding coming to an end. When visited two weeks
later, however, mother had stopped breast-feeding altogether. She
looked depressed, and the radio was continually turned on, playing
 the transition from home to nursery school 35

loudly. Katrina was sitting in her chair, hugging her big teddy bear,
talking to it excitedly, at times pushing her head into its stomach.
When mother picked her up, the baby looked away and struggled
to get off her lap.
It would appear that neither mother nor daughter was able to sustain
the pain of the breast-feeding relationship coming to an end. The baby
showed by biting and turning away how angry she was with mother.
She now invested all her loving feelings in teddy, an object that unlike
mother was under her control, could be pushed into, held onto, ­spoken
to, thrown away, and picked up again at will. Mother found the baby’s
little bites not only physically painful but also emotionally very hurtful.
She in turn became angry with Katrina and withdrew physically and
mentally from her. Thus the loss of the breast led to a loss of emotional
closeness. Worry and guilt at causing each other pain could have led
mother and baby to try to regain their loving relationship and share
the sadness at the loss of the intimate feeding relationship. But if loss
is dealt with by the evasion of such pain and resentment prevails, the
good relationship cannot be re-established. If this turning away in
hatred remains a permanent rather than a temporary state, it results in
avoiding commitments to deep relationships and choosing instead to
depend on seeking comfort from material possessions.
Weaning is a crucial stage of development, putting to the test, like
all later losses, the capacity to maintain love and gratitude in spite of
frustration, anger, and the pain of missing what is desired, and feeling
depressed and sad. The baby needs the parents to tolerate the emo­
tional turmoil he is undergoing. He needs them to demonstrate that in
spite of his destructive outbursts, they and their love for him survive.
Instead, many parents respond, as Katrina’s mother did, by distancing
themselves from the child or punishing him in some way. Equally, most
adults cannot bear to see a baby being miserable, as many babies are
at the time of weaning. They try to jolly the baby up, amuse him, and
distract him. And yet what the baby needs is not cheering up or denial
of his emotions but to find that his feelings of anger, of worry that the
breast has gone because he has hurt or drained it and his feeling of
grief at losing this close relationship can be accepted, understood, and
shared. He will need at this time a great deal of extra attention so that
he can discover that although the breast is no longer there for him,
mother as a person remains as available and loving as before. This will
stimulate him to find new ways of building connections with her, with
other people, and with the world around him. Equally, the feelings of
36 isca wittenberg

anger, worry, and sadness at separating when the child begins to go to

nursery need to be acknowledged, borne by the parents and nursery
staff while their ongoing loving attention gives him the assurance that
he is not abandoned but being gently introduced to an extending world
of relationships.
I believe we often underestimate the degree to which young chil­
dren feel that whatever occurs relates to them and is caused by them.
If something is wrong, it must be their fault. If mother is ill, they worry
that they have made her ill; if father leaves home, they fear that they
have got rid of him by wishing to have mummy all to themselves. If a
new baby dies, they fear that have damaged him and caused his death.
The problem is that they are not yet able to distinguish between the
phantasies that go on in their minds and events in external reality. In the
1940s and 1950s, the psychologist James Robertson, working together
with John Bowlby at the Tavistock Clinic in London, undertook exten­
sive studies of children who were temporarily separated from their
parents (e.g., Bowlby, Robertson, & Rosenbluth, 1952; Robertson, 1952).
Robertson made films of children in hospital and of others who stayed
in residential nurseries or foster homes while mother was away from
home, having a baby (Robertson & Robertson, 1967–76). The distresses,
the confusion, the growing mistrust of adults, the feelings of loss,
depression, despair, and withdrawal are there for all to see. These films
have had a major effect on hospital visiting hours and arrangements
for providing accommodation for parents to enable them to stay with
their children in hospital. The effect on nurseries, however, has been
very limited.
One of the things that struck me most when I looked at these films
again recently was how the children seemed to blame themselves; they
felt they must have done something wrong for mother and father to
leave them. Similarly, some children when they start nursery may feel
that they are being left by mother because they have been bad, naughty,
and too much trouble. Robert, the child I spoke about earlier who was
so terrified at being left by his mother, kept on telling her in the days
following their visit to the nursery: “I love you mummy, I do love you.”
I think this may indicate that part of his anxiety arose from the fear that
mother wanted to put him into a nursery to get away from him and his
naughty, demanding behaviour. In spite of all her reassurance that she
would come back soon, he did not seem to believe her. This surprised
mother, because she had never broken her promises to him. What I
happen to know is that both she and father had recently been ill, and
there was much concern in the family about their state of health. This
 the transition from home to nursery school 37

may well have made him feel worried or guilty. Here is another child
beginning nursery:
Maria is a very quiet girl with a gentle manner. Unlike Robert, she
showed no resistance to being at the nursery when she was taken
there at the age of 3. Her father stayed for a while on the first two
days, and when he left she made no fuss and continued to sit quietly
in her group with the teacher. Each day, she brought home a nice,
neat drawing she had made. The parents felt that she had settled
down well. In the third week, however, they noticed that Maria
always looked forlorn and withdrawn when they came to collect
her, and they were not at all convinced by the teacher telling them
that Maria had had a very happy time. It made them wonder how
much the teacher paid attention to her unhappiness. Mother was
worried enough to decide to observe the child at nursery. She was
shocked to discover that the nursery teacher, though not unkind
to the children, was constantly shouting at them, asking them to
be quiet because having to shout gave her a sore throat and telling
them not to make a mess because they made her tired and ill. She
said she needed to be well because she had an ill mother to look
after when she got home. The children were spoken to in this way
not once, but day after day. Maria’s parents felt that their child was
too burdened by her teacher’s outbursts and decided to remove her.
After looking at a great number of places, they found a nursery that,
in their words, was “child-orientated, not adult-orientated like the
other one”. But this is an over-simplification, for if we want adults to
be taking good care of the children, the teachers’ needs have also be
to be taken care of—that is to say, the staff have to be helped to con­
tain the enormous burden they are carrying. Not only can a group of
under-6-year-olds make a great deal of noise and mess, they and their
parents make very considerable emotional demands on us. Teachers
need therefore to have the opportunity to meet on a regular basis in
order to share and discuss the problems they encounter. Such a group
could have helped Maria’s teacher to contain the stress she was under,
perhaps even to get some assistance rather than feel so overwhelmed
that it spilt out onto the children. I think this case also illustrates that
we should pay attention not only to the children who demonstrate
their unhappiness loudly and clearly, but also those whose distress is
expressed in quieter ways. While Robert showed his feelings openly,
Maria seemed to accept passively being left in a frightening situation,
so very different from the gentle atmosphere at home.
38 isca wittenberg

Some children come to nursery already traumatized by major end­

ings in their life. This was true of James. His parents were immigrants.
Mother, as well as father, needed to go to work to support the family,
and so he was almost at once put into an all-day nursery. For James
it meant that he had lost all he had ever known: the parents, the
­grandparents who had looked after him, an extended family, the whole
known environment, even the language he understood. He cried incon­
solably each morning when he was left at nursery; he held on to a small
toy car he brought with him from home and retreated into a comer;
sometimes he climbed into a cardboard box, rocking until he was so
exhausted that he fell asleep. He would not eat at lunchtime but kept
staring at the door through which he had seen his mother disappear.
The nursery staff picked him up and cuddled him but soon put him
down again as other children demanded their attention. Children like
James, unless they are given much individual attention, withdraw more
and more into themselves; some fall into despair and may even become
autistic. Alternatively, children who have been, or are, unable to deal
with the traumatic changes in their life but have enough resources to be
more independent may develop a hard, protective manic shell. Sophie,
for instance, who had been in a number of children’s homes, at once
waved goodbye to the woman who had brought her to the nursery, got
onto the bike she found there, and raced wildly around the room. When
other children got in the way, she pushed them. When they had a toy
she wanted, she grabbed it away from them, and when they held on
to it, she bit them. When other children cried, she looked at them for a
moment and laughed. It would seem that all the softer, upset part of her
had been got rid of, and she treated those who showed any behaviour
that reminded her of her vulnerable self with contempt.
You may feel that I have brought only rather extreme examples. I
have chosen to do so because they illustrate the kind of problems that
occur to a lesser or greater degree in the children we meet who have
not been sufficiently helped to deal with difficulties of beginnings and
endings. There is always the danger that some children fail to make the
transition to nursery, like Robert, and that others like James are hurt
and suffer deeply. Yet others seem to adapt readily but have become
hardened and show disturbingly aggressive behaviour. What we all
hope is that children can be enabled to use the experience of coming
to nursery to help them extend their relationships, to develop skills, to
learn to share with other children and enjoy group activities. Whether
a child settles down or not seems to depend on a number of factors:
 the transition from home to nursery school 39

1. The child’s inner equipment. As I have tried to outline, this depends

on the inner security he has developed on the basis of reliable,
understanding, yet not over-protective parenting as well as on his
capacity to retain good experiences in his mind in the face of inevit­
able frustrations.
2. The way beginnings and endings have been managed in the past.
3. The way beginnings and endings are managed in the present,
providing or failing to provide a sense of continuity and security.
Some teachers visit the child’s home, get to know the child before he
joins the nursery, and ask the parents how he has dealt with earlier
separations. Many nurseries encourage a parent or other person the
child knows well to stay at the nursery until he has settled. As one
teacher told me: “You never know how a child is going to react, and
I always insist that the parent stays until I feel the child is ready to
be left. It may take anything between one and five weeks. If parents
have to go out before then, I need to have their phone number so
that I can ask them to come back if the child becomes upset.”
4. The hand-over from parent to teacher each day, the welcome the
child receives as he enters the nursery, and the amount of contact
that is maintained with parents.
5. The amount of individual attention given to the new child until he
has settled into the group.
6. The size of the group: the bigger it is, the harder it is for the child
to relate to the teacher or another child.
7. The size of the room: young children need to feel held within a
manageable boundary; they feel lost in a big space.
While these are general guidelines, the exact way an individual child
manages the transition to nursery varies from one child to another.
Some children have a much easier time than those I have described so
far. Lucy, for instance, is a little girl aged 2 years and 8 months. She is the
youngest of three children in a loving, busy household where friends
of the parents and their children frequently visit. She is thus used to
being in the company of others, sharing her toys with other children as
well as having to share her parents’ attention. From early on, she has
been eager to be able to do the things her older brother and sister do
and has become very independent. She was keen to go to the nursery
group, which her sister is still attending. There is a close relationship
between the staff of this small nursery and the parents, and Lucy and
40 isca wittenberg

her mother were allowed to visit the nursery for an hour a week for
some time before she started attending on her own and on a regular
basis. She experienced no difficulties at joining the group but was at
first very tired by the end of the morning and more demanding of her
mother’s attention in the afternoons at home. Sometimes she was a
little anxious when her mother went out of the house; at other times
she was bad-tempered with her. Lucy had been well prepared, the
transition had been gently and carefully handled, and the disturbance
at beginning nursery was minimal. But even in these very favourable
circumstances, as we can see, a child is quite likely to show some degree
of anxiety and anger at the ending of being the baby in the family and
having mother all to herself for part of the day.
There is one other transition I would like to draw attention to: the
ending of the child’s time at nursery and the beginning of school life
proper. If all goes well, the nursery becomes for the child after a while
a home away from home, a place he knows well, where he feels he is
taken care of by kindly adults, where he has enjoyed being and has
made friends with other children. Leaving nursery involves parting
from all these attachments. Such an ending needs to be prepared for
well beforehand, so that there is a chance for both the anger at some­
thing valued coming to an end and the sadness at parting to be worked
through. The children may, because of their jealousy of new little ones
taking their place, have sudden outbursts of tearing paintings, breaking
toys, or becoming aggressive to their teachers. Others may talk so much
and so excitedly about going to school that they make the nursery staff
feel that they are only too eager to get away from nursery. Teachers tend
to feel hurt and rejected by such children in the same way as Katrina’s
mother did. It helps to tolerate such behaviour if we realize that such
children are passing on to the teacher the painful feelings they find
too hard to bear: feeling ousted from the nursery, replaced by the new
group of younger children, anger at being left, and avoiding feelings of
sadness at losing so much of what they have come to love and depend
on. If teachers can tolerate the destructive and rejecting behaviour of
the children and continue to care, the child’s love and sadness will in
most cases eventually come to the fore. As one little girl told her mother
when she was about to leave the nursery: “I loved my green room, my
dear room, I will miss it.” Teachers too may find it hard to part from the
children they have come to love and have difficulty in mourning their
loss. One teacher reported that she had been telling the little boy who
was her favourite that he only produced rubbish and that she had been
generally short-tempered with him. In the process of telling us about it,
 the transition from home to nursery school 41

she became aware that she was going to miss him when he left at the
end of the term, how angry she was with this, and that rubbishing him
had been her way of escaping from the pain of losing him.
Such pain also makes teachers, like mothers, reluctant to let children
go and thus makes it hard to prepare them for the transition to school.
Going to school involves another very great change for children: having
become by this time one of the big ones in a small pond, they feel fright­
ened, bewildered, lost, and helplessly at sea when they find themselves
being a little fish surrounded by lots of bigger children in a very big
space. I know of some nursery teachers who, realizing the difficulties,
have taken the children for preliminary visits to the school they are
going to join, looking with them at the classroom and talking with their
future teacher and head teacher. Such bridge-building is enormously
helpful, allowing children to find their way about the school and feel­
ing held in both the old and the new teacher’s mind. Such adults also
show by their example that it is possible to care beyond the ending of
the immediate relationship. If endings can be dealt with in this way,
there is an external loss, but the past good experience is remembered
with gratitude and becomes part of the individual’s enriching, inner
treasure that accompanies him throughout life.
CHAPTER TWO

The story of child development:

a psychoanalytic account
Donald MeItzer & Martha Harris

Donald Meltzer

T
his morning we would like to tell a story entitled “The Genesis of
Development” based on the ideas of Melanie Klein and Wilfred
Bion as interpreted by Donald Meltzer. Martha Harris will com­
ment on material presented by Romano Negri from the observation of
a boy during his first days at nursery school. We will attempt, through
the observation of the child, to see whether we can rediscover traces of
the first phase of his life after birth in his experience of the first period of
nursery school. Melanie Klein’s view of this “Genesis” was definitively
described in her book Narrative of a Child Analysis (1961). The Kleinian
theory of child development is in fact implicit in the description of the
analysis of Richard and in the notes that complete it.
The story could be told in the following way: Once upon a time
there was a little creature who lived in a world of his own; it was a very
comfortable world, especially because he had a close friend with him
(the placenta), which seemed to understand him perfectly and to which
he was strongly attached by the umbilical cord. This little world of his
was perfectly suited to him for various reasons: there was enough space
to move, and there were no sharp or dangerous objects; the habitat was
enhanced by a delightfully diffused light, every sound was muffled, it
even had a pleasant taste, and all the stimuli were perfectly suited to his

42
 the story of child development 43

delicate skin. This place was therefore extremely pleasant from every
point of view, so much so that he never wanted to leave it. However, the
space gradually became smaller and smaller and proved an obstacle to
his freedom of movement; as the space shrank, the tiny creature became
increasingly restless and felt the need to make it broader and longer
by using all the strength in his body. Suddenly, however, something
terrible happened, as though everything had exploded, and the tiny
creature felt as though he were being forcibly sucked and dragged out
of his lovely comfortable world into a much less inviting place, which
differed considerably from his original habitat.
This new world is a place full of noise, light, and high-pitched
sounds; hard objects touch his skin, he feels cold, and, the worst thing
of all, he realizes that his friend is no longer present. Naturally, the child
screams, searching for his lost friend, and, to his amazement, his friend
immediately arrives: no, not through the umbilical cord, but through
his mouth, with something that fills his stomach and makes him, at
least for the time being, very contented. The child therefore thinks he
has found his lost home and can go to sleep peacefully. However, when
he re-opens his eyes, he realizes that it isn’t true, and every time he
awakes he feels really unhappy. It is true that his new friend (the breast)
has somehow entered inside him and that, when joined to it, it seems
to him as though he could return back inside the world he had come
from. However, there are many unpleasant happenings which stop him
from believing this is really true. But to his great relief his new friend
continues to reappear and attaches itself to his mouth, and, now that
the child can distinguish it more clearly, he is struck by its beauty. He is
amazed by how beautiful it is, so milky white, with a dark part in the
middle, so delicious and succulent. Despite this, a problem remains: he
cannot understand why his friend does not stay inside his mouth, as
had happened before during the union with his first friend.
Quite soon, the child starts to realize that the delicious dark part that
joins him to his friend sometimes changes in appearance and seems to
look ugly and nasty when it disappears. He also notices something else:
when his friend is attached to his mouth, two dark spots also appear,
which are most fascinating, but these too sometimes change into some­
thing frightening (the eyes). The child also notices that, through the
repetition of these events—the friend entering his mouth, the sucking,
which gives him so much pleasure and relief, and so on—his friend
now seems to reappear inside him as well. However, it is not just the
good friend who is around, but also the nasty frightening one. The
child thus realizes that he actually has two companions inside him who
44 donald meitzer & martha harris

are completely different from one another; things are beginning to get
really complicated.
There are now friends outside—good and bad ones—and friends
inside—again both good and bad. As a result, the child feels very con­
fused and insecure. He therefore decides that it might be better to keep
only the good friends inside him and throw out the bad ones; in order to
do this, he tries to expel them by burping or by peeing or by defecating.
At first this intelligent system seems to work well; however, it has
rather complicated consequences, though he feels pain and suffer­
ing when his bad friend is inside him, he at least knows where it is.
However, when he expels it from his mouth or his bottom, it seems as
though it is all around him once more, in every shadow that he sees.
He seems to see it around him particularly when the lights are turned
off. In order to get some relief in this situation, there seem to be only
two options: either he has to go inside his good internal friend and
sleep there—and this is akin to rediscovering his original habitat—or
he has to attach himself with his mouth to the good external friend and
feel completely safe and satisfied. Yet, even these two alternatives have
their problems because, when the child goes to sleep inside the good
internal friend, he sometimes dreams of the terrible adventure that had
cast him outside; he feels as though he were imprisoned inside or on
the verge of being jettisoned outside—a real nightmare. He is forced to
recognize that even the external friend (the one that attached itself to
his mouth) has the disadvantage that it often goes away, leaving him
very discouraged and suspicious of it.
The child therefore arrives at the conclusion that his friend is no
longer exclusively his but must have other friends in the world. He
realizes that his friend has one friend in particular (his father); he comes
to the conclusion that his original friend is no longer his own exclusive
possession, and he consequently feels completely alone in the world.
However, he very soon discovers that he has a new friend inside him
which is much better than the first: a friend that really does share his
body as well as a large part of his feelings of bitterness and discourage­
ment; a friend that appears to be more intelligent than he is and seems
to have an explanation for all of these transformations (the omnipotent
part of himself). Indeed, it seems as though this friend has a more
independent mind; it continues to explain to him that he has no need
of that other friend which has been unfaithful to him and which has
attached itself to the other creature; it tells him that he must learn to do
without it, and it teaches him that he can put other things in his mouth
 the story of child development 45

which are just as good as that exquisite object; it helps him to discover
other parts of his body and the child can experience immense pleasure
by touching them. It seems that he has found a wonderful friend. The
most important thing is that this new friend seems to wield great power
over the external world; now he knows how to scream and get others to
obey him, and this seems to him to be a really good solution. The child
therefore decides to follow this new friend and allows it to scream and
consequently keep his old friend under control so that it comes and
feeds him every time he so desires, thus making it his slave.
However, this does not altogether seem to give him satisfaction;
indeed, the child realizes that being fed by a slave is not the same as
being fed by a good friend. Although he feels more secure, he also
feels rather unhappy. He therefore decides to break off every form of
contact with this friend that seems so omniscient and omnipotent, and
instead find another friend; even this friend, he realizes to his aston­
ishment, shares his body and, like his other friend, his first friend, it
is also white, soft, extremely pleasurable and warm (his thumb in his
mouth). The child realizes that he can have a kind of friendship with
this friend, which closely resembles the one that his first friend has with
the creature known as “daddy”. Child and thumb, when they are by
themselves, can cuddle each other and obtain mutual pleasure in the
same way that he imagines the mother–creature and the father–creature
do when they go to bed in the evening; this, thinks the child, is the secret
of eternal happiness.
He soon becomes aware, however, that there are yet more complica­
tions because, when he spends a nice time in bed with his new friend,
he sometimes has dreams that are not particularly nice; they might not
be considered exactly nightmares, of the type he dreamed when going
inside his old friend, but they are still rather upsetting. In these dreams,
the mummy–friend and the daddy–friend seem to have become two
enemies who somehow hurt each other, and this provokes terrible
feelings within the child. He is not now as afraid of them as he was at
the beginning when he treated them as slaves, but he still experiences
awful feelings . . . which make him cry, ask for forgiveness, promise that
he will not behave like this anymore . . . and other feelings of this kind.
When he feels like this and cries, feeling ashamed of himself and
wanting to say sorry, out of the blue his “know-all” friend reappears,
the omniscient friend, who tells him: “You mustn’t behave like this,
they aren’t your friends, they’re your enemies, you should hate them,
you must find a way of escaping from their influence and control!” The
46 donald meitzer & martha harris

child realizes he is extremely sensitive to what his “know-all” friend

tells him, and he fears that he will never manage to see things clearly in
the way it does . . . except for the special times when the mother–breast–
friend is in his mouth. Then he is able to think much more clearly, and
he realizes that she is his real friend, a friend who is doing something
for him that differs considerably from the pleasure that the child gains
from his other friend, his friend–wife (the thumb in his mouth).
The child starts to realize something that he had never properly
understood before, that is that the friend that enters his mouth—just
like his first friend which was attached to him by the umbilical cord—
makes him grow. He also realizes that, rather than his mother–friend
becoming small (as he had initially thought when his first house had
shrunk), it is he who is growing because it is this mother–friend, which,
just like his original friend, helps him to grow. The child senses that this
process will continue for some time and that a day will come—possibly
in the not too distant future—when he will be as big as his mother–
friend and will be able to marry her instead of his friend–wife and live
happily ever after.
Clearly, it will be necessary to get rid of that other fellow, called
daddy, but perhaps, thinks the child, his know-all friend will have a
good idea about how to do this as well; the question regarding the
friend–wife still remains, but he may be able to leave it to his know-all
friend in exchange for the help that it will give the child to get rid of
that daddy fellow. It is at this precise moment, just when he thought he
had organized everything so that he could live happily ever after, that
terrible things start to happen.
His mummy–friend has increasingly limited contact with his mouth
and, instead of entering it directly, introduces other things into it—
which are at times good and interesting—but they are no matches for
the real thing. Suddenly the child becomes aware of something terrible:
the same thing that happened when he was in his first home is happen­
ing all over again. Again, he is afraid that his first external friend will
explode, disintegrate, and go away and, whatever the outcome, it will
be awful. The child now knows that his life will always be unhappy.
He searches in his mind for all the possible explanations for this
impending defection by his mummy–friend and he discovers some­
thing horrible: things will carry on being like this for the rest of his life.
For the whole of his life, whenever he finds a friend who helps him to
grow, he will grow in a way that makes it impossible to stay together.
Sharp things are growing in his mouth; they are so sharp and danger­
 the story of child development 47

ous that his friend does not dare stay with him anymore. Then another
thing happens: when he still has his mummy–friend in his mouth, it
seems to him as though everything is clear to him, things are going fine
and there is not just this sense of loss but also the chance of discovering
a new form of happiness. However, as soon as he is alone, his know-
all friend reappears and suggests things are not as they seem; it is all
a trick and a bluff and they are actually keeping all the good things to
themselves, leaving him with just the bad things.
Exactly what he feared turns out be true: his mother–breast no
longer enters his mouth—and he forms an alliance with his omniscient
friend and tries to dominate mother with screams and tantrums in
order to make her his slave once again; but she does not give in, and
the child feels desperate.
Nevertheless, when he is with her again, when her eyes, which so
remind him of her nipples, smile at him and she puts all that stuff in
his mouth, it seems that everything is all right again; the stuff is actu­
ally rather good, and the sharp things in his mouth turn out to be very
useful. Maybe a whole new world of happiness is about to open itself
up to him.
Everything seems to be going smoothly: his mother loves him, she
does the right things for him, even his father seems to be a friendly
figure who looks after his mother. The child thinks that it might be pos­
sible to go on in this fashion until he is big enough to keep his mother
in his bed with him every night and live happily ever after. His faith
in his mother is newly restored; even when he is not with her, he has
another one within himself whom he can be with, who can cuddle him.
This leads him to think that he could get rid of his know-all friend, the
one who taught him that everyone was his enemy. The child now seems
to have found a satisfactory equilibrium.
But once more, another extremely worrying thing happens: it is as
though something is happening to his mummy–friend; the child real­
izes that her tummy is getting bigger and bigger and he has a sudden
flash of intuition—this must have been his first home! And if it really
was his first house, it must now be somebody else’s home . . . and this
is really the worst betrayal of all.
It is clear that the only thing left to do is to go inside and get rid of
his rival. He seems to recall that there was a way of entering his internal
home and he thinks that there may be a way of entering the external
home too; it is a matter of finding the key, the secret, the means of enter­
ing that tummy.
48 donald meitzer & martha harris

It as this point that his know-all friend reappears and explains that
he has the key, right between his legs . . . he just needs to find the way
to insert it, to get inside the place and eliminate his rival.
This comes as a tremendous shock to the child; he feels as though
all his and the world’s goodness and innocence have been destroyed in
one blow. The world is no longer a Garden of Eden, a place of goodness,
where the only problems are those that his omniscient friend pointed
out to him. There are now bad things everywhere and he must be con­
tinually on the alert against the bad things inside him and those inside
others; life for him will never be happy anymore.
Now, this is obviously an extremely simplified tale, but it contains,
I believe, the essential elements of the story of child development as
discussed by Melanie Klein. Here it can be seen how, from the very first
narcissistic union with the mother, a differentiation takes place and is
accompanied by a split between good and bad, in the self and in the
child’s objects. This gives way to the evolution of bisexuality, and lastly
the depressive position emerges, thus putting an end to any dream of
living happily ever after.
This fairy-tale is a model, a version of the story of the first year and a
half of life. These primordial conflicts, and the primary efforts to resolve
them, are repeated in each phase of development and every time there
is a change—which Bion refers to as “catastrophic change”—which
constitutes a significant part of the developmental process.
This endless series of conflicts, beginning with the birth of the
individual and culminating in the birth of the “other” child, tends to
repeat itself and must be successfully worked through until it becomes
possible to rediscover a depressive orientation towards one’s objects
and an image of the world as a place where it is possible to live happily
although not in perfect bliss.
At this point we shall continue as follows: Romana Negri will read
an observation of a child aged 2 years and 10 months on his second day
at nursery school—two days after a sort of birth, I would underline—
and Martha Harris will try to examine whether it is possible to find
traces of this primordial scheme, which covers the period from birth to
the birth of the other child.

Simone
Simone was born in October 1979. Francesca, his sister, was born in
March 1982. At the time of this observation, she was 6 months old, and
Simone was 2 years and 10½ months.
 the story of child development 49

September 1982
It is Simone’s second “full” day at nursery school. I have noti­
fied staff through the child’s parents that I would go and observe
Simone at 10.30 am. I enter through the school’s gate and I see that
the children are playing in the garden that is in front of me. The
school is on my right; a lady comes out from a door and tells me
that Monica (later on I learn that she is Simone’s teacher) is coming
out in a few seconds with her group of children including Simone,
and so I wait outside. In the meantime, two children come run­
ning out of their classroom; one of them falls down and begins to
cry. Soon afterwards, two older children come out holding Simone
by the hand. They go to help the child who had fallen down. The
cook, the lady who has spoken to me earlier, comes out to help too;
two older girls take him by the hand and go back to their class­
room. Simone does not notice me. Some children go towards the
cook, who is just outside the kitchen door, and ask her about their
lunch; she replies that there is no lunch today, and so they have to
go home to eat.
Now Simone comes running out together with an older boy to
whom he shouts, “Let’s go!”. Simone stays on the grass along with
three other children; they form a circle and they look at their clothes
for some time and then they run towards the bottom of the garden.
Simone is the last one to arrive, and his three companions start play­
ing with a big ball. He stops, looks around him rather seriously, and
then he moves towards an older boy, Alessandro, who is 5 years old.
Simone obviously knows him quite well. Simone and Alessandro go
towards a small swing with two seats that are already occupied by
two other children; he stops to watch. He is very serious and looks
around him, then gains a seat on the swing with his friend, thanks
to the staff member who is close by, to ensure that the children take
turns on the swing. They sit opposite each other. Simone smiles now,
shouting “ooh!” and watching the other children who are jumping
around the big garden. One soon has the impression that this is a
rather traditional nursery school. The children, the staff, and the
cook are all dressed in white, and the relationship between the staff
and the children is very much limited, as each nursery nurse is in
charge of more than 30 children.
Simone has not yet noticed me, even though he is looking in my
direction. He is watching his teacher from one side, and she calls
out, “Change over”. He gets off the swing holding on to his friend,
50 donald meitzer & martha harris

then stops near a very big tree and watches the children on the big
swing. Then, holding his friend’s hand tight, he goes towards a
merry-go-round, which is made up of several small seats, and finds
seats for himself and his friend. Meanwhile, four big children form
a circle round me and ask me what I am doing, and they follow me
when I go towards the merry-go-round where Simone is playing.
He talks with the other children who are with him on the merry-go-
round. He looks rather serious or even worried. At a certain point,
while he is going round, it seems to me that he notices me and starts
to look frequently in my direction. “Ciao”, I greet him, but he does
not respond.
Some girls are dragging a big cart, and when they pass near us,
they ask, “Simone, what are you doing?” I have the impression that
Simone is now smiling, but he seem worried too and begs his com­
panions, “Let’s go slowly!” Now he looks towards the centre of the
wheel and calls out, laughingly, but with great fear at the same time,
“Stop”, and gets off, slipping as he does so, as the merry-go-round
has not stopped completely. He falls, the nursery nurse goes to the
rescue and calls out, “Stop!” Simone picks himself up, touching his
bottom with one hand and his head with the other, wincing while
doing so. Then he joins his friend, taking hold of his hand, and talks
to him while he keeps his other hand on his buttocks. I turn round
to watch him while sitting on the grass, and it seems to me that he
is cross. The two children go over to the big swings. Simone keeps
his hand on his head and begins to rub his eyes. He cries for quite a
long time and seems upset. The nursery nurse who is seated nearby
tries to console him, saying, “Oh, you will spoil your lovely eyes!”
“I want to go home, to my mummy, I don’t want to stay here for
lunch . . .” he retorts.
Meanwhile, another child who is near us and has seen the scene
bursts out crying desperately. Her teacher says, “Rossana, why
are you crying? Those beautiful eyes!” But the child does not seem
comforted at all. Simone takes his friend by the hand and talks to
him. I can hear him saying, his cheeks wet with tears, “I won’t come
back, when mummy and ‘bambino’ come. I won’t come back!” He
stays very close to his friend and never looks at me, almost as if I
am not there. They go off arm in arm. The nursery nurse explains
that Simone’s upset started because he did not want Alessandro
to leave him to go alone on the swing for the bigger children. She
explains to me that Simone manages to relate to the other children
 the story of child development 51

in small contained environments, like the classroom, but when he

finds himself in larger surroundings, like the garden, he will only
stay with Alessandro, and at the same time insists that Alessandro
stay with him all the time.
Now Simone is sitting down on the grass with Alessandro, who is
playing with a green plastic accordion. When I go closer to him, he
gives Alessandro a quick glance and clings to him, caressing his
neck. “I am going away”, Alessandro says. “What about me, where
are you going to take me?” Simone enquires. He hardly looks at me,
and he talks all the time to Alessandro. As two bigger children come
towards me, Simone turns too, and I hear him saying, “You know, I
am going home”, while he holds on to his friend by the back of his
head. The girls do some acrobatics to show off. One of them calls
out, “Who is that child who is on his knees? “Simone Cocchi”, Ales­
sandro replies. Simone adds, “This is my friend . . . this is my friend
and you must not touch him because he is naughty”.
Simone is still kneeling, and as he continues to stroke his friend’s
hair, he watches the girls who are playing with the conkers. One girl
goes up to Simone and offers him a shoelace, but he does not want
it. He comes near me, and he seems interested in the conkers. Now,
still hand in hand with his friend, he joins a group of older children
who are playing with a big cart that can be dragged and pushed
along, while three children ride on it. A girl calls out “Simone”, but
he does not show any signs of interest in her.
All this time, Rossana has become a constant, silent figure at my
side. She has been feeling homesick, more or less at the same time
as Simone. She too had wanted her mummy and wanted to go
home. Simone is still physically inseparable from his friend, but
­Alessandro is talking to him rather angrily. Simone looks really wor­
ried; his mouth quivers, and he is on the verge of crying. ­Alessandro
wants to go on the cart, but Simone does not want him to. Alessan­
dro says, “Come on, you have to learn!” Alessandro gets up on the
cart while Simone remains at the back, pushing it.
A big fair boy takes the place of the horse, and he plays the part
quite well, but then turns into more of a tiger, raising his arms and
growling to frighten them. Simone seems to like this game, because
he laughs and shouts along with the other children, “Come on,
horse, Gee-up!”. The children shout to encourage the boy-horse to
pull the cart. When the “horse” turns towards his companions to
52 donald meitzer & martha harris

repeat his aggressive gesture, Simone laughs out loud. One of the
children who are on the cart grumbles at “Furia” the horse. Now
“Furia” asks Alessandro to change places. Simone tries to protect
his friend and says to “Furia”, “Go away, you ugly beast!” Luckily
“Furia” smiles at the insult. The child sitting near Alessandro imi­
tates Simone and shouts out, “You ugly beast of flesh and bones . . .
Mr President Horse . . .” Simone is delighted by this. The child–horse
roars in menacing tones, “I am a big strong animal”. Simone gets up
on the cart and sits by Alessandro. Rossana, who is still at my side,
smiles while she watches the children playing this game. She looks
and smiles at me repeatedly while holding onto a big conker and a
small book. Now, at the signal given by the “companion-horse”, a
child cries out “Off you go, you ugly dinosaur.” Simone pretends
to whip him saying, “Gee-up”. The child–horse moves away from
the shaft, pulls up some grass, and throws it at the three children
sitting on the cart. Simone shouts too, “Off you go, you ugly dino­
saur!” simply repeating what he has just heard. Then he brushes the
grass off his friend and repeats whatever ­Alessandro says. Simone
watches the child–horse and laughs at what he is doing. The horse
says, “Grass, the horse’s favourite sweet”, and he throws fresh
grass at his friends as he says this. Simone laughs happily while he
picks the grass off Alessandro; the latter gets off the cart and runs
away. Simone says to me, “I am going off with the big cart now.” I
think that he has just noticed Rossana for the first time and invites
her to go with him, then shouts, “Off we go!” From the cart, Simone
watches Alessandro, who is playing near the big cement tunnels.
He orders Rossana to climb down and shouts at the boy who is
pulling the cart, “Come on, dinosaur, heh . . . horse turn that way”.
Simone looks at me, lets a big boy climb on the cart, and then gets
off, saying, “I must say something to that horse”. Then pointing at
a child on the cart, he exclaims, “Come on, horse, eat him up, come
down”. After that he takes the shaft and shouts, “Go away, you
pirate!” He abandons the cart almost immediately and begins to
run towards the tunnels. He falls, picks himself up, and starts run­
ning again. I realize that he is looking for Alessandro. Simone goes
into a tunnel where a child is seated. It is not ­Alessandro, and he
comes straight out. He sees his friend who is playing in the garden,
leans over another tunnel, and remains there for some time with his
hands outstretched, clinging to it, embarrassed. He finds the green
plastic accordion on the grass, picks it up, and then throws it again,
 the story of child development 53

shouting out, “Look what a beautiful thing . . .” Rossana, who is still

near me, picks up the accordion and holds it along with the conker
and the book.

My hour’s observation is over, and I go to thank Simone’s teacher. Ros­

sana follows me, and when she realizes that I am saying goodbye, she
bursts into tears. “Your mummy is coming”, I say to her, but Rossana
does not seem at all comforted. As I go away, I see Alessandro fighting
with the boy who played “Furia”. Simone runs towards them, but the
two older children have already parted. Nonetheless Simone advances
on the boy with a menacing expression and a clenched fist. I notice
that the bigger boy doesn’t take any notice of him, avoiding him and
turning away.

Martha Harris
I think it is important to say that Simone is developing very well; RN
has observed him weekly from birth at home, and he knows her well.
This is the first time that the child is observed at school, and it is his
second day there. The fact that he does not see her or pretends not to
see her for a long time may mean that he is trying to keep at a distance
his feelings and thoughts about home or his absence from home. He
seems to keep close to Alessandro, this older child whom he already
knows, rather like the friend who DM was talking about previously;
this companion is always there, and, in his company, he does not seem
to feel the need for mummy or home. Simone seems to attach himself
in rather a tyrannical way to this friend. He wants to be with him all
the time and does not let him play with the older children. The attach­
ment to his friend appears to be a defence against the anxiety of being
with so many other children, since there are about 30 of them in the
class. He does not seem able, in this context, to use the teacher as a
maternal figure, perhaps for the precise reason that she has so many
children to look after; indeed, she tells RN that the child is happy to
play in small groups in class, whereas, when he is outside with lots of
other children, he seems to experience problems. It is interesting to see
that Simone begins to feel worried when he goes on the roundabout
with other children: perhaps the movement allows him to feel “held
together”, and when he falls, it does not seem as though he has hurt
himself physically, but, rather, that he feels as though he has been cast
out from a position where he felt omnipotent and invulnerable because
54 donald meitzer & martha harris

he had his friend with him; he now feels humiliated, reduced to being
just a small impotent child who needs his mummy.
It is important to note that when Simone starts to cry, the little girl
Rossana also begins to sob and cry for her mother. It is most interesting
to see how the girl approaches RN as a maternal figure, while Simone
cannot do this because he feels much closer to his older friend Alessan­
dro. Thus, when Simone is upset, he is not able to use RN as a maternal
substitute, despite the fact that he knows her well; he seems angry at
his bad mummy who has sent him to school, and the observer con­
sequently becomes the persecutory mother while the good mother is
unavailable at home. Furthermore, at the end of the observation, during
the game with the cart and the tiger-horse Furia (Fury), Simone seems
able to express—or to find someone who can do this for him—this
“fury”, albeit in a rather contained form—his “fury” at his mother for
abandoning him and sending him to nursery school: it seems as though
he is able to elaborate some of his anxieties and fears in this game.

Donald Meltzer
There is something that seems to me particularly worthwhile underlin­
ing, and that is the relationship between Simone and Alessandro, which
changes during the observation. Initially, Simone is strongly attached
to this child; he holds him by the hand, he regards him as a reassuring
object, he even touches him very delicately, stroking his hair. It is pre­
cisely due to the significance that Alessandro represents for him—he is
someone who was already a friend, who comes from his family circle,
and whom he encounters again at school—that, as soon as he loses
sight of him, he goes and looks for him in the big concrete pipes. It is
also interesting to see that Rossana is attached to RN, partly because
of the attraction to her as a maternal figure and partly because she is
interested in Simone and would like him to be interested in her; here,
the two children function together, the boy part and the girl part of the
personality. When Simone feels freer of his childish anxieties and par­
ticipates to a greater extent in the game, the significance that Alessandro
has for him also evolves: Alessandro becomes for Simone the older
child to be admired, the child who knows how to get by. He becomes
interchangeable with the other children who play with the horse and
cart. It looks as if Simone’s changed attitude towards ­Alessandro is
caused by the accident on the roundabout.
Simone was initially attached to his mother–breast and has already
undergone the experience of being abandoned and afraid of having
 the story of child development 55

nothing to hold on to. At this point he rebels against his mother and
attaches himself in a narcissistic fashion to Alessandro as a sort of elder
brother. He clearly seems to be absorbed by the game with the cart. It
offers the children a perfect portrayal of the ambiguity of the relation­
ship of the father–horse or tiger with the mother–cart. This is because
there is the good father–horse who pulls the cart–mother, but a moment
later he becomes the father–tiger who attacks the children in the cart. It
is clear that he admires the father–tiger who also becomes the father–
dinosaur. Alessandro now seems to be slightly ignored and to become
“one of the gang”, just one of the children taking part in the fight. At the
start of the observation, we saw how Simone seems to be a child who
is feeling lost without his mother, and by the end he becomes “one of
the gang” of children. This represents a significant transformation, or
what I would term a metamorphosis.

Martha Harris
It is significant that Simone has only had a sister for a few months; it is
just now that he is sent to nursery school to join lots of other children,
when he has not yet adapted to the situation at home where he is no
longer the only child. Nor can he forgive RN for having observed his
little sister on several occasions, as we have seen in other observations.
I therefore feel that the moment he turns to Alessandro as an elder
brother can also be seen as turning to the figure of his father and against
his mother who has betrayed him.

Donald Meltzer
With respect to the story that I have just told, the essential difference
between the girl and the boy can be seen, as MH has pointed out, at
the moment when the child has to cope with the birth of a little brother
or sister. Prior to this, the development of both sexes is very similar.
Look at the behaviour of Simone and Rossana: Rossana plays with her
chestnuts, then with a little book, then with a small plastic accordion,
and finally she attaches herself to RN.
In my story, we could say that the girl lives in hope and the boy falls
into despair; in other words, a large part of masculinity is constructed
through the attempt to overcome the despair that stems from the aware­
ness that one is no longer an only child and that it is impossible to con­
sole oneself any longer by imagining that it will be possible to become
the mother and have children with her. The boy thus finds himself
56 donald meitzer & martha harris

with a more difficult task of identification, because he has to elaborate

identification with a good father towards whom he has always been
extremely ambivalent, right from the very first days of the relationship
with the nipple—which was delicious but which he felt took the breast
away from him. The development of masculinity therefore tends to
stop at the stage that Simone, who is now 3 years old, has reached—in
other words at the masculinity which Freud would have referred to
as a p ­ hallic type of masculinity or which Klein calls the masculinity
that consists in being “one of the boys”, “one of the gang”, who each
show off their own muscular and phallic capacities by using the girls
as trophies, as terrain for their exhibitions of strength. The overcoming
of this phallic or “gang” type of masculinity is a very difficult task for
a man. The boy has a more difficult task to cope with, in regard to the
development of his masculinity, and this is linked to the terrible experi­
ence of the birth of the next child. And it will be even more terrible if
a little brother or sister is not born; in that case, what could have hap­
pened to them?
The girl has significant problems due to the envy she feels towards
her mother; if the love and admiration that the girl feels for her mother
have been seriously disturbed before the birth of the next baby by
feelings of envy, the baby will become a bitter rival, and the feeling of
envy towards mother will represent a serious obstacle to achieving the
process of identification with her.
To summarize, we could say that the boy will mainly encounter
problems related to jealousy and identification with an ambiguous
paternal figure, while the girl will experience in particular problems of
envy and will struggle with her ambivalence towards her mother as a
good figure.
In conclusion, we would like to say that the model of development
that we have presented is very simple and applies in situations where
the parents are well-functioning; clearly there exist many variants
inherent in the personalities of the parents and in all the life events of
the child—which may include traumatic experiences. The reason that
we have presented this “divertissement” is to show how important it is
to keep one’s eyes and ears alert to everyday events in children’s lives
in order to understand the meaning of games and behaviour in normal
development.
It also seems to us that the material presented here demonstrates
how one does not need to create a laboratory situation (as may happen
during analysis) in order to gain access to the imaginative life of the
 the story of child development 57

child, which is the actual place where personality development takes

shape. Facts about child development can therefore be accessible to
everyone in daily experience as long as one possesses a model that
allows us first of all to observe and then subsequently to reflect on the
child’s behaviour. Perhaps the fairy-tale we recounted may be easier to
recall than a theoretical formulation and thus serve to create a founda­
tion for observing and thinking about children in everyday situations.
CHAPTER THREE

Oedipal anxieties,
the birth of a second baby,
and the role of the observer
Simonetta M. G. Adamo & Jeanne Magagna

“You must stay until my father arrives.”

A 4-year-old sister of a new-born baby to her observer

T
his chapter describes the changing relationship between a
mother and her young child following mother’s pregnancy and
the birth of a second baby. It is based on the observations of
a 2-year-old girl presented to a Young Child Observation seminar.
Since this is a relatively unexplored area of observational study, a
brief history of the development of this seminar within the ­Tavistock
Training will be given first. The image of an ancient Greek vase
will then help to introduce, through the evocative power of its
­representation, the theme of the wait for the new baby and the young
child’s turning to the father. In particular, the chapter will focus on
the father’s role, as mediated by the observer, through transferential
functions assigned to him by the child. Special attention will be paid
to the young child’s search for a private space with the observer,
physically separate from the intense intimate relationship with the
mother together with her new baby. This emotional space provides
a boundary around the primitive emotions experienced by the child,
thus allowing the development of some capacity for self-observation
and reflection.

58
 oedipal anxieties, a second baby, and the role of the observer 59

The place of Young Child Observation

in the Tavistock Training
Young Child Observation is itself a second-born. Initially, from 1948
to the mid or late 1960s, the Child Psychotherapy Training had no
separate Observation Course. The training lasted three years. In the
first pre-clinical year the main events were personal analysis, Infant
Observation, with seminars from Esther Bick, and attendance at multi-
disciplinary Case Conferences and various other training events at the
Tavistock. At that time there was no Young Child Observation seminar.
There was, however, a Tavistock Nursery school held on the premises
in Marylebone. This Nursery School provided the Tavistock trainee
educational psychologists with opportunities to test young children,
and it was also visited by the trainees of the other disciplines in the
Clinic. A seminar was instituted to discuss the observations made. In
the late 1950s, Shirley Hoxter, then an educational psychologist on the
Tavistock Staff, was asked to take the Nursery Observation seminar.
Eventually, Frances Tustin took over the task of running the seminar in
1969 (Hoxter, 1997).
At about the same time a similar development took shape within the
Anna Freud Centre. After the opening of the Nursery School, in 1957,
a Nursery Observation seminar was held, one of its purposes being
“to provide the students training at the Centre with the opportunity to
observe and study normal child development” (Brenner, 1992).
Eventually, the Tavistock Nursery School closed. Meanwhile the
Child Psychotherapy Training was growing rapidly in every way. There
were more students, an annual intake, a four-year course (later five
years), and a far more rigorous and rich training. This led to a number
of parallel seminars of about five or six trainees in each and a pre-dom­
inance of aspiring child psychotherapists in each group (Hoxter, 1997).
There was a change of name from “Nursery” to “Young Child”
Observation. Weekly observations were undertaken, lasting a year.
Some people observed the children in their own homes and some in a
nursery or preschool setting. Sometimes a few based their observations
on the slightly older siblings of their Infant Observations. As a second-
born, Young Child Observation somehow occupied a secondary space
in the training. It lasted only one year, and no essay on the observation
was required until recently, when it became an essential component
of the M.A. course. In Italy, however, the Young Child Observation
seminar lasts two years. This change goes back to 1982, when, in the
Rome Course, a group of students became so interested in Young Child
60 simonetta m. g. adamo & jeanne magagna

Observation that they spontaneously asked to extend it to two years

(Williams, personal communication, 1997).
This comparative neglect is confirmed by the relative silence
which surrounds Young Child Observation in the psychoanalytic lit­
erature in comparison with the growing literature on Infant Observa­
tion. Does this reflect a theoretical stance? It is an old criticism that
Kleinians give undue importance to the first year of life and to the
two-person mother–baby relationship and therefore underestimate
the importance of the Oedipus complex and triangular dynamics.
Yet it is well known that Klein enlarged the spectrum related to the
oedipal constellation and saw its appearance far before genital pri­
macy. However, it is also probably true that in recent years Kleinian
research into the direction of these primitive forms of the oedipal
organization has greatly developed. These pre-oedipal aspects seem
to be specifically relevant to the understanding of the mental struc­
tures and pathology of autistic and psychotic children. Britton (1989)
has stressed the way the image of the mother of the pregenital Oedi­
pus complex has a deep impact on the genital Oedipus complex: in
particular, on the image of the father.

A Greek vase painting

A woman is standing, holding a child in her left arm. The woman’s right
arm is extended, with her look directed away from the child towards
her open hand. The child too has his body and face turned away from

A Greek vase painting

 oedipal anxieties, a second baby, and the role of the observer 61

A Greek vase, 470-460 B.C., British Museum

mother’s body. Both his arms are lifted, in a gesture suggesting he

would like to be taken into someone else’s arms. A strong divergent
movement pulls the mother and the child apart. Their faces are seem­
ingly inexpressive, but actually they communicate a sense of distance.
Both of them are absorbed and are leaning out towards elsewhere.
The painting depicts the suspension of time as they wait for the
arrival of other actors onto the scene. The link ensured by the physical
contact, for the mother is, after all, still carrying the child, seems unable
to sustain intimacy. There is a dramatic pulling away of mother and
child expressed by the directions in which they are looking and the
movements of their arms. The child’s outstretched arms portray a space
for another figure, claim its presence and the need for its holding func­
tion. Likewise, mother’s hand is wide open and indicates the existence
of a space and the sense of waiting for something.
This unusual and intense Greek vase painting seems vividly to por­
tray the power and drama of changes that take part in the mother–child
relationship when another baby is expected and the father’s presence
is needed.
A child confronted with mother’s new pregnancy can feel mother’s
lap as too full and unable to provide a space for him. This feeling may
partly reflect a perception of mother’s inability to “widen the nest”
62 simonetta m. g. adamo & jeanne magagna

(Gianna Williams, personal communication, 1997) and make space for

another baby. However, it may also be a consequence of the child’s
splitting and projection of his aggressiveness, which makes him per­
ceive mother’s lap as hostile and inaccessible.
At moments like this the child may then move away in search of a
second object, preferably the father, to provide him with the support
and containment that he feels he can no longer find in his mother.
From this new relationship the child requires rescue and relief from
the intense conflicts that colour the relationship with mother. He also
requires support to keep alive his loving feelings which would enable
him to find his way back to mother. Often, in Young Child Observation,
the observer is called upon to play this helpful paternal function. The
relationship that develops between the observer and the child can play
an important role in sustaining the child and family’s psychic equilib­
rium as they go through the terrific change represented by the birth of
the new baby.

Turning to the father

Freud (1933a) writes: “When the next baby appears in the nursery . . .
a child, even with an age difference of 11 months, is not too young to
take notice of what is happening. He feels that he has been dethroned,
despoiled, prejudiced in his rights; he casts a jealous hatred upon the
new baby and develops a grievance against the faithless mother which
often finds expression in a disagreeable change in his behaviour” (p.
123). Freud’s observations belong to a more general context, in which
he is analysing the reasons for a young girl turning away from her
mother and moving towards her father. The birth of a sibling is one of
the many accusations that a girl makes against her mother. Her griev­
ances, which are just as real for the boy, also include grievances about
oral and anal frustration, the restriction of masturbation, and castration
anxieties. Fundamentally they are rooted in the child’s “immoderate
demands for love” (Freud, 1933a).
For Melanie Klein (1945) the “search for new sources of gratifica­
tion” depends on both gratifications and frustrations experienced in
relation to the primary object. The “new desire” (Klein, 1945) towards
the father makes its appearance originally during the second half of
the first year with the experience of weaning. The father becomes an
“ideal container” (Segal, 1989) for projections from the child. The child
looks towards the father to become an ideal source of gratification or,
“in order to preserve a tolerable relation to the breast, he splits the bad
 oedipal anxieties, a second baby, and the role of the observer 63

aspects from both the breast and himself and creates a bad third figure”
(Segal, 1989, p. 96).
At the pre-genital level the father is experienced mainly as a part-
object, while the later Oedipus complex is related to the two parents
perceived as whole objects. Segal (1989) points out how Klein progres­
sively linked the vicissitudes of the Oedipus complex with the develop­
ment of the depressive position: “The relation to the mother as whole
person carries the implication of a mother who is separate from the
infant . . . having a life of her own, which includes principally a relation­
ship with the father, with all [the implied] feelings of exclusion, envy
and jealousy” (pp. 2–3). But the link with the depressive position also
means that the beginning of the Oedipus complex is not associated with
the phase of maximum sadism, but, on the contrary, with a diminishing
sadism and with strong reparative impulses aimed at restoring not only
the breast, but also the couple and the family as a whole.
This process can also imply the temporary regression to splitting
mechanisms between a good breast–mother and a bad genital mother.
In fact, when “aggressive impulses turn, in the child’s mind, the victims
of his aggressive phantasies into injured and retaliating figures . . . the
infant feels an increased need for a loved and loving object—a perfect
and ideal object—in order to satisfy his craving for help and security”
(Klein, 1945, p. 379). Therefore, for children of both sexes, the father
arouses feelings of both love and hate, which are partly inherited from
the relationship with the mother and are partly experienced in a new
way towards him.
Although within a different conceptualization of early psychic
development, Gaddini (1976, 1977) considers the father formation in
the child’s development in some similar and interesting ways. The
father appears on the psychic scene at the time when the child is begin­
ning to recognize mother as separate from himself. The father is seen at
first as a duplication of mother, “a dichotomous aspect” (Gaddini, 1977)
of her, and is differentiated from her only gradually. The real personali­
ties of the father and mother may decisively influence what part of the
infantile relationship with the mother is split off and displaced into the
father and what part remains with the mother (Gaddini, 1977).
The child can either displace onto the father all the conflictual
aspects connected with the separation from the mother, in order to re-
establish with her a perfect relationship, or try to “invest the new rep­
resentation with all that has been lost in the first one” (Gaddini, 1977).
This massive displacement can fulfil either a developmental or a regres­
sive aim. In the first case it allows a more gradual working-through
64 simonetta m. g. adamo & jeanne magagna

of the changes connected to the acknowledgement of the mother as

separate, while in the second case it can be used defensively in order
to avoid the recognition of mother’s separateness and the passage to
subsequent stages of development.
From this perspective, the Greek painting might be seen in a dif­
ferent light as representing the fact that the opening to the new object,
the father, takes root in relation to the primary object and constitutes
an extension of it.

The observer’s paternal function

A narrow space
The following observations illustrate how, in some circumstances, the
birth of a second baby can precipitate regressive rather than develop­
mental trends in the toddler and in the family as a whole. When the
primary relation with the mother is still imbued with early anxieties
and the good breast is not firmly established in the inner world, the
consequence is “incapacity to tolerate the additional anxiety and guilt
arising from the oedipal feelings of rivalry and hatred against the
mother” (Klein, 1945, p. 370). In addition to this, the father may be
absent. In fact, as Rosenfeld (1992) notes, “the actual presence of the
father in a family does not guarantee the existence of a paternal role.
The real nourishment for the Self is the emotional attention, the psychic
attention” (p. 768). If the father is not present to sustain the mother and
to receive the child, integrating the maternal functions, the child does
not experience a secure passage from mother’s to father’s lap, with the
ensuing widening of possible containment and fluidity of loving and
hating feelings. Instead, what the child experiences is, rather, a void of
containment, a fall from mother’s lap. This void can be more or less
temporary, depending on the potential for development in the relation­
ship between the father and the child and the possibility of evoking
paternal functions in alternative figures present in the family milieu.
The strength and tenacity displayed by the child in claiming his needs
also has a crucial role in determining whether or not a child is psycho­
logically held in someone’s lap.
We are now going to describe a child seen in the context of a two-
year Young Child Observation. The observation was undertaken in
Italy by Eugenia Maria Marzano and discussed with the authors jointly
in the first year and with Simonetta M. G. Adamo in the second year.
The observation begins when the mother is in the second month of
 oedipal anxieties, a second baby, and the role of the observer 65

pregnancy with a second child. Lucia, aged 2 years and 2 months, has
recently begun attending nursery school. The couple experience some
marital difficulties, with the husband being viewed by the mother as
being insufficiently supportive to her.

Lucia, 2 years and 2 months

In her first encounter with the observer, mother complains that the
house is too small, and she wonders how they will manage with
the new baby’s arrival. As a matter of fact, Lucia’s toys are spread
everywhere in the house. Also, mother’s mind seems to be flooded
with worries concerning Lucia. She says she had wanted this baby
for Lucia, but at the same time mother feels unfaithful towards her.
She is very concerned about her daughter, who is showing various
signs of distress, including problems in separating from her, sleep
difficulties and nightmares, compulsive masturbation, and stutter­
ing. According to mother, both she and her husband are very fond
of the child, particularly the father, who “hangs on Lucia’s every
word.”
We are confronted from the beginning with a problem of space. The
physical and mental container seems too narrow to encompass all the
anxieties in the family. This seems partly due to an inadequate support­
ive and limit-setting paternal function. Mother’s description of her hus­
band, which may well reflect the quality of her internal father, depicts
him as seduced and powerless, “hanging on Lucia’s every word”.
These difficulties emerge more clearly in subsequent months. Mother
tells the observer about her serious marital problems and the regressive
pull of the grandparents, who wish that she would return to their home.
Lucia seems upset both by her parents’ quarrels and by the new baby’s
arrival. Sometimes she is totally identified with her mother, pretending
to be pregnant and becoming angry when other people don’t notice her
stomach as well as her mother’s. At other times she threatens that she
will kill her little brother, as soon as he is born.
Then mother re-organizes the space inside the house and temporar­
ily sleeps in Lucia’s room. At this time Lucia seems more able to tolerate
some degree of separation from mother. She no longer sleeps cuddled
up with her but, instead, tells her, “We will get married. Actually we
are already married, because you are expecting a baby.” At other times
Lucia announces that when the baby is born, she will wee, and she
hides under the table attempting to do so. In her attempt to gain some
66 simonetta m. g. adamo & jeanne magagna

space, the mother managed to attend a birth preparation course in

order that she could have “some time and space not invaded by Lucia”
for thinking about the new baby.

Lucia, 2 years and 6 months

In an observation when the mother is 6 months pregnant, Lucia
tries desperately to transfer some toys from a large box into another
much smaller one. Not succeeding in this task, she gets very angry
with her mother and sends her away, saying, “Go away, you bad
one . . . I don’t want this mother . . . I want daddy”.
Here Lucia seems to be trying to cope with her envy towards the mother
filled with the new baby. She does this first by denying any difference
between herself and her mother (the small box is the same as the large
one). Then, when the denial of how different a little girl is from a mother
becomes untenable, she feels very angry with her mother and tries to
find relief from these feelings through turning towards her father.
This tentative move towards father seems confirmed one month
prior to the baby’s birth. The mother remarks with relief that now
during the night the child wants her father, adding, “At last Lucia is
becoming more attached to him. Perhaps she has understood that I will
also have to look after the baby.”
In this same observation Lucia has a nice moment alone with
the observer. Having embraced a baby doll, she gives him to the
observer, asking her to cuddle him. She then says that the poor
baby became very frightened during the night because a dragon
came into the basket and frightened all the animals. She adds that
she will play with her baby brother when he is born because he
will not be able to do anything. But afterwards he will grow up and
become as big as a crocodile. Whispering in the observer’s ear, as
if to communicate a secret, Lucia, referring to herself, says that she
is “a beautiful little mummy”. Then she smiles and corrects herself,
saying, “I am a bit a little mummy, and a bit a little girl.”
Around this time when Lucia begins turning towards her father, she
also begins to make a particular use of the observer. The fact that
the observer is emotionally involved but not part of everyday family
life seems to help Lucia to think about what is happening inside her.
Through the private space with the observer, Lucia develops some
capacity for self-observation. She finds it possible to talk of her night
 oedipal anxieties, a second baby, and the role of the observer 67

fears, via the displacement onto her toy animals. She is also able to
recover and to describe flexibility, moving between her identity as a
child and being in projective identification with her mother.
Britton (1989) describes how the primal family triangle provides the
child with two links connecting him separately with each parent and
confronts him with the link between them:
If the link between the parents . . . can be tolerated in the child’s
mind, it provides him with a prototype for an object relationship of
a third kind in which he is a witness and not a participant. A third
position then comes into existence from which object relationships
can be observed. . . . This provides one with a capacity for seeing
oneself in interaction with others and for entertaining another point
of view whilst retaining one’s own, for reflecting on oneself whilst
being oneself. [p. 87]

By waiting to be alone with the observer in order to talk about her

nightmares and by whispering in the observer’s ear, Lucia begins to
circumscribe a private space in which tentative steps towards this third
position can be tried out.
However, this inner development is very precarious. In the days
immediately preceding baby’s birth, the difficult family situation
recurs. Mother appears to the observer to be tense and tired and she
complains that she does not receive any support from her partner. She
feels very angry with Lucia, experiencing her as attacking her capacity
to be a good mother. At the same time mother feels very guilty because
she has not succeeded in protecting Lucia from the parental quarrels.
Lucia frequently falls ill, remaining at home and away from her
nursery. Often she cuts sheets of paper into very small pieces which she
spreads on the floor, in this way representing her sense of feeling in bits.
At other times she moulds plasticine into human figures endowed with
genital organs, conveying her persistent preoccupations.
Lucia also tells the observer of her fear of being devoured by a
wolf or a lion, and one day, while drinking orange juice, she suddenly
exclaims, “I will drink my brother, I will eat him!” She then reassures
and caresses “her baby” in her stomach and invites him to sleep. The
observer is told that Lucia is very seductive towards her father, calling
him “my husband” and summoning him during the night. At other
times Lucia frequently becomes angry and rejecting towards him.
The approaching birth of the baby seems to be accompanied by the
collapse and disappearance of the psychological developments previ­
ously present in Lucia. Her use of the father in order to gain some relief
68 simonetta m. g. adamo & jeanne magagna

from the anxieties experienced in the relationship with her pregnant

mother is probably hindered by a concurrence of factors. These include
her oedipal jealousy and open erotization of the link with her father,
which occur simultaneously with strong hostility between her parents.
This conflict between her mother and father supports Lucia’s vision of
father as being her mother’s enemy.

A boat/lap full of dangerous fish

Lucia, 2 years and 10 months
Immediately after the baby’s birth, Lucia complains to the observer
that “all the space has been invaded by that thing” (meaning the
baby). Later when the mother is breast-feeding the baby, Lucia,
seated nearby, asks her father to bring her a boat-shaped basin.
When father places the basin next to Lucia, she climbs into it and
pretends to fish. She catches only big and threatening fish—namely,
sharks, whales, and swordfish. They are all placed in the boat-basin
beside her. Lucia then finds herself in a terrible storm. The sea
becomes so rough that Lucia repeatedly falls from the boat. Later
she takes a toy car, shows it to her baby brother suckling at mother’s
breast, and then, with the car in her hand, hits her brother several
times on the cheek.
Lucia’s “boat filled with dangerous fish” vividly portrays the way the
“inside of mother [has become] a place of danger” (Klein, 1945). Moth­
er’s boat/lap is experienced as being completely invaded by threaten­
ing objects, both the bad father’s penis and the baby brother. They are
felt to be very menacing because they are imbued with her split-off and
projected oral sadism. Lucia’s wish to devour all mother’s space, to
drink and eat her brother and all that mother has inside contributes to
her feeling that both her father and her baby brother have been turned
into retaliatory, devouring, and attacking objects.
Unable to move to a second object, Lucia has the experience of fall­
ing out of mother’s lap, a lap which has been attacked, injured, and
has therefore become dangerous and incapable of holding her safely.1
During the next few months the potential risk of an impending
family collapse becomes even more evident. Lucia’s aggressiveness
towards the baby escalates. Mother seems slow to protect the baby. She
is hindered by her fear of fuelling Lucia’s jealousy and as a consequence
increasing the risk of Lucia hurting the baby even more. Mother tries
therefore to evade Lucia’s jealousy and anger, by reducing or conceal­
 oedipal anxieties, a second baby, and the role of the observer 69

ing her own bond with the baby. For instance, mother pretends that
in the morning she goes to work instead of staying at home with the
baby. This manoeuvre does not work, and she finds herself confronted
with a very regressed daughter and a neglected baby. In this context
mother tells the observer that she has spoken to her husband about her
worry that the floor of their bedroom, having such an increased load,
might collapse, crushing someone underneath. She told her husband
that it would be necessary to put in “an additional beam” in order to
support the floor.
Mother’s request for an “additional beam” is directed first to her
husband, and then to the observer. However, the whole Young Child
seminar group is required to widen the lap of attention, offer contain­
ment of psychic pain, sustain understanding and hope for development
within the family. What tends to happen during the observation is that
the observer finds that the child is not yet home when she arrives. Her
time is thus split between listening to the mother and observing the
child. Accepting mother’s request for support and having actively to
restrain Lucia if she tries to hurt the baby when mother is absent are
both seen as necessary ways of providing for the family the “additional
beam” required to sustain the increased emotional load following the
birth of the new baby and the worsening marital relationship.
The difficult tightrope upon which the observer is called to walk
includes accepting the family’s infantile anxieties and projections but
only when openly requested and only for the time that is strictly
­necessary. Similarly, when mother hands the baby to the observer, a
concrete representation of the family’s infantile feelings, the observer
takes the baby in her arms but then, after a short while, gently finds a
way of giving him back to his mother. In this way the observer main­
tains her role as an observer while being receptive to the ­family’s need
for her capacity to hold some of the emotional burden. The observer
does not assume the explicit interpretative role of a therapist, but
implicit in her work of being receptive to the family is her silent under­
standing which informs the way in which she receives the family’s
communications and behaves towards them.

Lucia, 3 years
In the last visit before the summer holidays, Lucia is desperately
trying to establish and maintain close emotional links. She is very
pleased with her birthday gift, a book brought to her by the observer,
and she asks her mother to read it to her. But this moment of deeply
70 simonetta m. g. adamo & jeanne magagna

enjoyed intimacy with her mother is suddenly interrupted by the

baby’s awakening. Lucia then quickly gets up and asks the observer
to accompany her to the playroom to help her to put together some
building blocks that keep falling down.
There is a more primitive anxiety now evident in Lucia. As Bick pointed
out (Magagna, 1987), it is not simply jealousy with which the young
child is struggling. Alone with his parents, the child has a sense of being
their child, whom they love. When experiencing the new baby inside
mother, or seeing the baby on the lap of either of his parents, or being
coupled with the baby by joining in the baby’s play or bath, the young
child feels the baby takes away a sense of his own identity. The young
child’s identity of being the baby in mother’s lap is strongly shaken
at a time when he is not yet certain of a new identity of being the big
brother or sister who does not need to be just the same as baby or father.

Lucia, 3 years and 3 months

For many weeks after the summer break, falling becomes a central
issue. Lucia climbs into the playpen of her 5-month-old brother.
She plays with him in such an excited way that soon he gets fright­
ened and starts to cry. Mother scolds Lucia, and Lucia responds by
laughing and leaning dangerously over the edge of the play-pen.
The observer notes that there is a serious risk that she might fall
head-first. The following week Lucia is wearing a neck-brace, and
the observer hears that she has been to hospital because she fell out
of bed.
The falls seem related to Lucia’s feeling that she has tumbled out of
mother’s lap and lost her identity of being “the baby in mother’s
lap”. Lucia does not seem to feel father can help her to traverse this
anxiety-provoking change from being the baby to being the toddler in
the family; she often tells the observer that her father or her husband
has died. One day she came back from school crying, claiming that her
schoolmates had told her that she is without both a mother and a father.

Providing a private space

However, in this critical situation something happens. David Rosen­
feld (1992) writes that “the role of the father can also sometimes be
assigned by the child”. The child permits the father to have a particular
role in the sense that father’s care can be requested or refused in the
 oedipal anxieties, a second baby, and the role of the observer 71

same way as mother’s care can be requested or refused, with the child
turning towards or away from the breast. It is towards the observer
that Lucia now turns in her search for someone willing to perform an
unfulfilled role. In the subsequent weeks, Lucia determinedly protects
her time with the observer. “I’ve been told that you come to spend one
hour with me”, she says to the observer. On another occasion, when
mother is talking to the observer, Lucia objects, saying, “She only talks
to children.” Also, the space with the observer must be a particular one,
separate and protected from brother’s space, or brother-and-mother’s
space. “This play turns out all right if we are alone, just the two of us”,
she explains to the observer.
Lucia’s play centres around a recurrent theme: usually the observer
is asked to be father, while Lucia is mother. As a couple they have to
take to the hospital, cure, nourish, and protect their innumerable ill
and suffering children. Although the quality of the care Lucia provides
to the babies is very rough and ready and shows a high degree of
ambivalence, it seems that the opportunity for private play is of great
importance. The private space with the observer provides security to
Lucia through allowing her to symbolize her aggression towards the
baby. Through this a splitting process is enabled to develop in Lucia. It
is gradually possible to see the re-emergence of her love for her mother
and concern for the new baby. This is illustrated in the two following
vignettes:

Lucia, 3 years and 7 months

It is winter. Lucia is now 3 years and 7 months old, while her brother
is 9 months old. Lucia is colouring near the observer. But then her
mother talks to the baby. Noticing this, Lucia gets up, gathers the
baby into her arms, kisses him, and speaks “lovingly” to him in
words so loud that she seems to be almost shouting. At the same
time she is walking so fast with the baby in her arms that she almost
falls. The baby is frightened and is about to cry. Mother rescues the
baby, taking him back into her arms. At the same time she steadies
Lucia, so that she does not fall. Mother sternly warns Lucia, saying
that one of these days she might cause her brother to break his legs
so that he is no longer able to walk.
When mother leaves the room, Lucia pushes the baby, who is stand­
ing next to a chair. He tumbles to the floor. Then she quickly asks the
observer “to leave”, pointing towards her room. She requests that
72 simonetta m. g. adamo & jeanne magagna

they resume “the old play”. When they arrive in her room, Lucia
puts her dolls into the pram, specifying that she is only taking the
ill ones. She covers them with blankets, saying she is protecting
them from the gypsies “who steal children and everyone’s precious
belongings”. Lucia then puts her favourite baby boy doll into her
little brother’s high chair and she feeds him. When she is finished,
she puts him into his bed “to sleep”.
The difficult question of how an observer should deal with the fact
that the baby has fallen over, though continually addressed in the
observer’s mind, is not the main point at issue just here. In playing
with the observer, Lucia requests that they move to another room, a
separate geographical space which stands for a different mental space.
In order to achieve this change, Lucia had to be able to distance herself
from her primitive feelings and primitive modes of expression. In a
symbolic area one thing can stand for another, the baby doll represent­
ing mother’s new baby. This distancing also permits the contemplation
of the damage that has been inflicted, for all the children are ill.
In her private space with the observer, it becomes possible for Lucia
to regain the experience of an unshared space in mother/observer’s
mind. This seems to be a very precious belonging that must be protected
in the inner world. Through the concrete re-enactments of ­leaving and
being alone with the observer, Lucia is expressing her need to re-affirm
the trust in her unique relationship with the mother, in the sense that
each child has the right to feel that there is a space that is unique and
irreplaceable that he occupies in the minds and lives of the parents.
This space seems to mitigate Lucia’s jealousy and thus allow for the
possibility of triadic relationships. Some reparative aspects towards the
damaged mother’s children can then emerge.
The following week, however, Lucia is pervaded by terrible anger,
almost fury, against her baby brother. She torments him in many
ways, and this results in her mother scolding her. This prompts
Lucia to go out of the room, but then she quickly turns around, runs
towards the baby brother, who is in mother’s arms, and tears his
shirt by tugging at it with her teeth. Following this, Lucia retreats
into her room, asking the observer to go with her. In the safety of
her room Lucia wants the observer to take on the role of the ill child
while she is the mother who sees that her child has a high fever and
cures her. After this scene, Lucia asks the observer to reverse roles
with her, with Lucia being the very ill child and the observer being
a female doctor who succeeds in curing her.
 oedipal anxieties, a second baby, and the role of the observer 73

In this private space with the observer, Lucia’s fiery feelings of jealousy
and hate, aroused by the mother holding the baby, are symbolically
seen as a high emotional temperature, a painful illness, which needs
to be healed. However, there are different ways of conceiving a pos­
sible treatment. These different cures appear in the following observa­
tion, just preceding the conclusion of the agreed weekly visits by the
observer to the family.

Healing or killing the baby

Lucia, 4 years
In impatient anticipation of the observer’s arrival, Lucia has built a
den for the two of them. She says that outside everything is covered
with snow and ice and there are wolves all around. For this reason
she is working hard to build barriers to all the possible openings to
the den. Lucia suggests that she and the observer will be two pole­
cats, who will soon go into hibernation.
The interior of the den is partially depicted as having a warm, cosy
atmosphere with flowers and food for the two polecats and their
many children. Lucia stays for a while in a corner of the den sucking
on her tee-shirt. She refuses to let her brother inside and confides
in the observer saying that the reason why she wants to be alone
with her is because she loves her [the observer] so much. Lucia
then brings inside many wounded puppies she finds wandering
in the nearby woods. She feeds them and heals them while at the
same time questioning them about their age, which is invariably
one year, the age of her brother. She also inquires as to the nature
of their troubles. Lucia then pensively reveals to the observer that
she too has some wounds on her stomach, but then she abruptly
brushes aside concern about them saying: “Anyway, I don’t mind,
I am very brave.”
Shortly afterwards, Lucia’s attention is drawn to a baby doll that
she embraces and caresses, while speaking loving words to him.
Subsequently she pauses, looks at him, and asks: “What is the mat­
ter? Are you cold? I know the cure.” Immediately though she laughs
excitedly and brusquely throws “the baby” to the floor.
For a moment Lucia is more sombre as she picks up the “baby”
and cuddles him affectionately. But then the “baby” complains that
he has some pain or needs something. As soon as the “baby” does
74 simonetta m. g. adamo & jeanne magagna

this, Lucia sharply hits him and throws him down again. Then she
­hastily decides that she will “definitely heal him”. She lays him
­gently on the bed. Taking a plastic knife, she pretends to cut him into
pieces and cooks the pieces. Looking at the observer and laughing,
Lucia proceeds to eat all the pieces of her cut-up “baby”.
Just at this moment, mother comes into the room and talks about
the end of the observations. Lucia forcefully attempts to reinforce
the barricades at the entrances. Her mother responds by pretending
to be a wolf wanting to penetrate the den, and Lucia “shoots” her.
Following this, Lucia’s mood changes once again, and she decides
that she is going to let her brother in after all . . . but she specifies
that he will be a baby polecat and the observer’s little brother.

In this observation Lucia is desperate to barricade her mind from the

idea of the feared forthcoming separation from the observer, associated
with coldness and the destructiveness of the wolves. This denial allows
Lucia to maintain her relationship to the observer as an ideal one, rep­
resented by the den full of warmth, beauty, and nourishment for the
children. However, retreating inside the den and “hibernating” also
implies a state of mindlessness and the suspension of development.
Nevertheless Lucia mentions that something in the den does not
smell so nice. Also, in a “corner” of her mind, Lucia maintains her
awareness of the approaching separation from the observer. Through
sucking her tee shirt, Lucia suggests that the impending separation
makes her regress to an identification with a baby-part in herself which
she must feed and soothe with her own more grown-up self, identified
with a mother.
The separation from the observer is connected with the idea of
the observer turning, like mother, to a new baby. In order for Lucia to
preserve her loving feelings towards the observer, the idea of this new
baby, represented by her brother, has to be kept out. She must also push
out the wolf–father containing the split-off and projected bad bits con­
nected to the separating mother and Lucia’s resulting anger. But the
wounded puppies bring back into the den, and into Lucia’s mind, the
possibility of thinking of past and future wounds. The narrative of the
play in the den develops as Lucia takes care of the puppies in a rather
haphazard way. But Lucia begins to ask the puppies how they became
injured. The response to her question comes when she cruelly hits the
puppy and throws him away. But Lucia is not able to remain in touch
with the painful awareness of her own aggressiveness, and she quickly
 oedipal anxieties, a second baby, and the role of the observer 75

“kills” this insight by identifying herself with a cruel object, excitedly

cutting up the baby.
Thus it is possible to see how the survival of Lucia’s fragile capacity
for self-observation, reflection, and concern is jeopardized by the fear
of the impending separation. However, through the enactment of these
phantasies in the safety of the symbolic frame of play, her murderous­
ness towards the baby and the wolf-father diminish. Lucia eagerly
waited for the observer to come in order that there would be someone
to accept her destructive phantasies without it being necessary for
them to be concretely acted out. Her play enabled her to establish a link
between her love and hate, prompting a development from persecutory
guilt to depressive anxieties and reparative activities. Lucia thus enters
a qualitatively different state of mind. She now allows her baby brother
into the den previously forbidden to him, and then she goes out to her
mother. Having regained contact with the mother who is good and
loving, Lucia asks for food. This suggests some hope for Lucia’s future
psychological development.

The meaning of private space

The characteristics of the private space that Lucia required with the
observer and the functions that it performed for the child and the
family require further exploration. Very often Young Child Observa­
tions are permeated by oedipal themes of competition, exclusion and
secretiveness. The young child sometimes attempts to establish an
exclusive relationship with the observer, leaving out the mother. This
seems to be done sometimes in order to get rid of the jealousy experi­
enced in relation to the parental couple, the mother–baby couple, or the
observer-mother couple, whose conversations can provoke the child.
In contrast to the frequent attempt of young children to evade oedipal
anxieties by projecting jealousy during the observations, Lucia’s search
for a private space was mainly aimed at the possibility of exploring and
reflecting on the anxieties and changes arising from the birth of the new
baby. The private space therefore fulfilled not a defensive but, rather, a
developmental function.
A new baby inside mother creates a fundamental change in moth­
er’s body and mind. As so beautifully illustrated in the observational
case study by Romana Negri (1988) supervised by Martha Harris, the
birth of a new baby potentially provides not only a stimulus to the
epistemophilic instinct, but also a tremendous spur to the psychologi­
cal development of the child. However, for development rather than
76 simonetta m. g. adamo & jeanne magagna

regression to take place, there needs to be room for the child’s aggres­
sive, retributive, and loving phantasies within the child’s internal
dream stage and for expression in play.
The observer can at times provide “a separate lap” to bridge the
changes brought about by the new baby. Lucia seemed to be existing
in a sea filled with dangerous fish and a dragon until the safe boat-lap
of the observer was located. Her very first words to the observer after
the baby was born consisted of complaints that all the space had been
invaded by “that thing”. The play in the basin-boat, felt by Lucia to be
damaged by the threatening presence of her oedipal rivals, father and
the baby, revealed that she needed to recover a peaceful region2 in her
mind in which she could experience her love towards her mother. She
tried to achieve this by finding a figure onto which she could displace
her longing for her lost loved mother and for her lost loving self. There­
fore she initially turned towards her father, but she quickly retreated
from him when she became anxious about the erotization of this link
which was increased by father’s seductiveness. Turning to the father
was also fraught because it was difficult to be so close to him when he
was in such conflict with her mother.
Unfortunately, there did not seem to be other figures in Lucia’s
milieu to enable her to work through the changes brought about by
the new baby. It was not simply containment by the mother which was
needed. If there is not a father’s space outside the mother, but linked
with mother, available to receive projective identifications, the child
cannot introject the couple’s mutually cooperative functioning. What
was significant was that Lucia was able both to request and to succeed
in eliciting this space from the observer.
Gaddini (1977) has emphasized that although the father’s image
inherits feelings originally associated with the relation with mother,
he also gradually contributes more to the shape of this relationship, so
that in the end a distinctive image of father can emerge. In this sense
the contribution provided by the observer was crucial in determining
what kind of paternal constellation took shape.
It is well known how in Infant Observation “the observer provides
an additional ‘reflective space’ for the mother” (M. J. Rustin, 1997). In
Young Child Observation, in addition to this, the observer can help the
young child to reinforce, in identification with him, his observing and
reflective stance, his capacity to look at the external and internal fam­
ily relations. In her private space with the observer, Lucia was able to
“step sideways”, to accomplish that “lateral movement” that “provides
the capacity . . . for reflecting on oneself whilst being oneself” (Britton,
 oedipal anxieties, a second baby, and the role of the observer 77

1989). This possibility brings an enormous relief which was expressed

by Lucia whenever she was able “to leave” with the observer, shut the
door and re-create this private space. On the other hand, every time
she was not allowed to have this separate space, a terrible escalation of
violence towards her brother ensued.

The observer’s position

“Extreme cases highlight the uncertainties of the observer’s position”
(M. E. Rustin, 1988). Many authors have discussed the issue of the
specific impact that transference and countertransference feelings have
on the observer when the observed family finds itself in situations
of distress or a family member is at risk. At least at a phantasy level,
“observers in some families take on a role which, in more cohesive com­
munities, are routinely taken by spouse, siblings, parents, neighbours”
(M. J. Rustin, 1997). The meaning of the observer’s neutrality seems in
these cases particularly controversial, and the observer needs to use all
her resources to sustain the anxieties arising from “the risk of betray­
ing the best interests of child or parent through cowardice, confusion
or unthinking collusion” (M. E. Rustin, 1988, p. 12). In her paper on
the place of Nursery School Observations in the Anna Freud training,
Brenner (1992) talks of the importance of recording the observations as
an opportunity for the observer and the child to have “a private visit”
which enables the deepening of their ongoing relationship. The seminar
also provides the observer with a private space that enables her to fulfil
the dual task of observing the child’s interactions within the family as
well as understanding the depth and complexity of unconscious pro­
cesses elicited in her.
Particularly important for Lucia’s observer, aware of both mother’s
strengths and difficulties as a parent, was the need to shift from identi­
fying with the infantile feelings of Lucia to being available for mother,
providing emotional space for her concerns, and understanding of
her anxieties. In doing this, the observer performed the function of
the father, as the third person becoming a “supporting beam” for the
relationship between the mother and child. At times, the observer also
needs to be helped by the seminar to find “a way of speaking” (Crick,
1997) to make her voice heard, even in the absence of an interpretative
function and to find a way of responding to what is being communi­
cated to her.
These issues were felt very keenly in relation to the problem of the
young child’s aggressiveness towards the baby and with regard to how
78 simonetta m. g. adamo & jeanne magagna

to manage separating from the family. Lucia’s world was full of primi­
tive phantasies and feelings, which she very often tended to act out
against her baby brother. The observer’s lack of response to this could
have been interpreted by Lucia and the baby as an indication that she
was a passive parent (Isaacs, 1933). If the observer is perceived as being
in the role of a passive parent, either the child believes that the observer
endorses destructiveness and harm or the child suffers internally from
the dread of inner retribution. This dread sooner or later results in the
child acting out some sort of self-destructive behaviour. For this reason
the observer was encouraged to protect the baby left alone without the
parents.
It was likely, in view of the last observation described, that an
abrupt separation of the observer from the family would precipitate
intense and painful feelings and a possibly destructive acting-out by
Lucia. This was evident because the relationship with the observer
had become extremely important for the young child and the mother
and also the other family members. For this reason, it was felt that to
keep rigidly to the pre-arranged conclusion of the observation after
two years was inappropriate. A gradual weaning from the observer
was therefore adopted. This consisted of monthly observations for the
subsequent year and more sporadic visits for some time after. At one
point in these later meetings mother was able to ask the observer for
assistance in finding some psychotherapeutic help for herself in order
to find a better solution for her marital difficulties. Some telephone calls
made to the observer enabled Lucia to keep alive the memory of “her
friend” and the times spent together.

Conclusion
In more favourable circumstances, the observer’s role is an easier one.
He is, so to speak, left comfortably sitting in his place, taking part, but
only via his empathic attention, in the events that unfold. However, this
is not always the case. Sometimes the required cast is incomplete, some
of the actors are missing, and the observer is called more directly onto
the stage. But, after all, the stage is not real life.
In this family from the very beginning a strong convergent pressure
emanating from both mother and child was placed on the observer to
fulfil some missing paternal functions. Of course the observer could not
be a substitute for the real father. But she could and did respond, in her
role as an observer, in ways that provided for the child and her mother
a rescuing space, support, and understanding.
 oedipal anxieties, a second baby, and the role of the observer 79

Notes
Acknowledgements: We would like to thank Miss Francesca Verdelli for allowing us
to quote her observation and to give special thanks to Mrs Eugenia Maria Marzano
for her generous permission to quote at length material drawn from her work as
an observer and to use it as a basis for thinking on this subject. We are also deeply
grateful to Mrs Shirley Hoxter for sharing the history of the development of Young
Child Observation with us.
The authors take full responsibility for the comments on the observations.
This paper was first presented at the Second International Tavistock Clinic
Infant Observation Conference, London, 1–4 September 1997.
1.  This recurrent theme in Lucia’s play is also frequently found in observations
of other children, as is graphically illustrated in the following vignette:
Rita, 4 years and 6 months and Giorgio, 2 months
Giorgio awakens and now, holding him in her arms, mother offers dinner to
Rita. Rita says: “I’d like to eat Giorgio. Will you cut him in small pieces for
me?” She mimes the cutting gesture, adding: “Cut him, then we will cook him
and eat him. He is a stinker.”
Mother begs her: “Stop! You’re not being nice to him.” Rita responds by
blowing a raspberry at mother and spitting at her: mother scolds her. Shortly
afterwards Rita climbs on the observer’s knees and asks her to “do as they
did yesterday”. The observer understands that she has to repeat a frequently
played “game” which is to allow Rita to sit on her legs and let her fall as the
observer widens the space between them. The observer explains that if she
doesn’t hold Rita while she goes through her legs, she will indeed have a bad
fall. The observer is puzzled by why Rita continually complains that she does
not want to be held.
In considering this episode, it seems apparent that Rita is re-enacting the notion
that if she wishes to cut her brother Giorgio into pieces and eat him, then he will
no longer be in mother’s lap. But if this occurs, then Rita, in identification with her
baby brother and according to the law of talion, will deserve to be dropped out of
mother’s lap.
2. One is reminded of Melanie Klein’s (1945) description of her patient Rich­
ard’s drawing which depicted the status of the blue maternal empire. Some of the
countries within the empire were freer and more peaceful, while others were felt
to be dangerously occupied by the armies representing the bad daddy, the brother,
and Richard himself.
CHAPTER FOUR

The Young Child Observation seminar:

new steps in developing
the observer role
Maggie Fagan

T
his chapter is an exploration of aspects of Young Child Observa­
tion and, in particular, its relationship to its older sibling, Infant
Observation. It draws on my experience as a young child seminar
leader on the Tavistock Observational Studies course (M7). The chapter
seeks to investigate how the complexities of sibling feelings in both the
observers themselves and in the observed family influence the way
in which students establish the observer role as they struggle to find
a place for themselves with the young child—a place that is neither
so neutral that it risks being seen as dismissive by the child, nor so
involved that it leads to a confusion of roles and boundaries, in relation
to both the young child and their parents. The chapter also seeks to
explore some of the ideas the young child will undoubtedly have about
the observer. Who is this person who comes every week and doesn’t
play—at least, not very often?
I also discuss how the dynamics in a child observation group may
be different from those experienced with Infant Observation because
an awareness of our own sibling relationships frequently adds com­
plexity to becoming an observer of a young child and also adds to
the often intense dynamics of the seminar group. In addition, for
many students, at least initially, the Young Child Observation can feel
as a second-best option, a poor relation to their first love of Infant

80
 the young child observation seminar 81

Observation. Why is this? Is it connected to a prevalent wish to be an

only child and the anxiety about feeling second-best when the new
baby arrives in the family, or the anxiety about losing one’s special
place as an only child when wondering why there aren’t any more
siblings? Is it that we see the study of sibling and peer relationships
as second-best, preferring to concentrate on the baby’s relationship
with the parents? It may be that autobiography plays a greater part
in the study of Young Child Observation and in the group dynamics
of the seminar. Prophecy Coles (2003) has written about how, in her
view, the autobiographies of both Freud and Klein may have affected
the emphasis they placed on sibling relationships in their theories.
Coles claims that Freud’s difficult relationships with his siblings may
have led him to downplay the importance of siblings in his writings,
particularly the more loving aspects of sibling relationships, whereas
Klein, who seems to have had a loving relationship with her brother
and much loved older sister, not only writes about feelings of sibling
rivalry, but also explores sibling love (Klein, 1937).

The world of the young child: some general observations

Winnicott captured the state of flux in a young child’s world when
he wrote: “Each child of four is also three and also two and also
one, and is also an infant being weaned, or an infant just born, or
even an infant in the womb. Children go backwards and forwards in
their emotional age” (Winnicott, 1964, p. 179). Just thinking about the
­emotional work involved in all this to-ing and fro-ing is exhausting,
but this is the everyday psychic work of an ordinary 3- or 4-year-old.
This is the world of feeling included and excluded, the oedipal world
that coincides with rapid but uneven development, both physical and
psychological.
All this forward-and-backward motion between feelings, perhaps
especially acute for the 2-year-old but still very relevant for the child
of 3 and 4, contributes to their characteristic wobbliness—not just on
their legs, but in their states of mind. One minute so full of intense
feelings of progress—I can walk, even run and climb—and the next a
fall. This makes for a precarious state of mind, this being faced with the
limitations of being a very young child—with frequent moves between
omnipotence and profound dependency. In this world there are tremen­
dous upsurges of admiration and of jealousy. Alongside all this wobbli­
ness is the need to develop a sense of potency and autonomy, to explore
82 maggie fagan

the world and its possibilities, including the world of sexual difference,
through the imagination and play. Struggling to be not too big or too
small is perhaps a struggle to find the place, like Goldilocks with her
three bears, that is just right. Within this oscillation issues of sibling
rivalry, both conscious and unconscious, are played out, and there is
the tormenting phantasy of the perfect sibling who has it just right—the
sibling who is just perfect in the parents’ eyes. The work of being 3 or
4 doesn’t stop there, for then comes the task of finding one’s place in
the wider social world, beyond the family—at nursery, for example.
In the many Nursery Observations we hear, this striving is frequently
done with very little adult help. All this makes up the exciting world of
the young child, and yet, somehow, historically in the psychoanalytic
context, it hasn’t attracted the same level of interest and exploration as
Infant Observation. Perhaps this is changing.
Memories of the thrill and excitement of beginning Infant Observa­
tion are often referred to. That was the context in which we began to
know about the value of close observations, the beauty of getting to
know a baby and his family through weekly visits, and the satisfactions
of developing an observational stance. The discussion of our weekly
observations in a seminar group and hearing about the other babies at
a similar stage of development are large learning experiences for most
of us. For many, Infant Observation remains like a first love, or even a
first-born. Then, a year or two later, students begin their Young Child
Observation. (This is the course structure at the Tavistock, but it varies
elsewhere, as discussed in the Introduction.) This can appear to the
student like second-best, even a poor relation, notwithstanding that
in beginning Young Child Observation they are entering the dynamic
world of a child’s oedipal development, the world of the struggle to
share and to handle more aggressive or competitive feelings within a
social context, and the world in which we appeal to our parents or oth­
ers in loco parentis, like the nursery worker, to restore fairness and calm
when there are disputes of snatching and difficulties in sharing. This
is also the world in which peer relationships and friendships begin to
be richer, opening out a new arena for loving relationships outside the
family, providing the difficult work of being able to maintain contact
with a good internal object can be sustained in the face of the separa­
tions inevitable in a 3-year-old’s life.
I say “we” because one of the striking facets of Young Child Obser­
vation is how present are the observer’s own thoughts, feelings, and
childhood memories stirred by the observational experience. In the
 the young child observation seminar 83

general population, too, interest and emotion are readily aroused by

observing young children. The most watched video on YouTube (apart
from professional music videos) is about two young brothers, and it
has been watched by an astonishing 389 million people. It even has
its own Wikipedia entry. (To give an idea of the scale of this audience,
the population of the United States is approximately 312 million.) The
video, entitled “Charlie Bit My Finger—Again” (www.youtube.com/
user/OBlgSz8sSM), captures in very general terms the sibling world
of love and rivalry and the familiar appeal to a parent to restore justice
and make things better. The clip shows two brothers. The older, Harry,
aged 3, definitely feels superior. He projects any vulnerability into his
younger brother Charlie and feels quite sure that he is in charge and
dominant—he even sticks his finger into Charlie’s mouth, as if to say,
“look at me, I’m big, I’m in control”. But Charlie bites back. . . . At first
the older boy is bewildered by the audacity of his younger brother’s
assertive protest and is outraged. And at first the younger child Charlie
is rather taken aback by his capacity to bite and looks quite worried.
Then he laughs infectiously. Whenever I show this clip, the audience
always laughs too. We all understand the deliciousness of being aggres­
sive to our siblings—especially if there is a mum or dad there who can
quickly restore good-enough family relationships so no one gets very
hurt.
Coles (2003) writes about the importance of sibling order. She
comments that “sibling position may be the most important factor in
determining the way we conceive the world” (p. 5). Summarizing the
observations and writing of Neubauer (1982), Coles writes: “It was
observed that, though the birth of a sibling increased the aggressive
drive of an elder child, if all goes well, the elder child learns how to
manage better its aggressive drives” (Coles, 2003, p. 81). Coles goes on
to posit that “rivalry and jealousy are not the fundamental bedrock of
sibling rivalry. They are just a part of the sibling experience” (Coles,
2003, p. 81). Within this context, one can imagine how the younger child
admires the elder, and this may act as a spur to the younger child to
accommodate the older child’s aggressivity, motivated by the wish to
be loved and accepted by the older (Coles, 2003, p. 85). This can only
happen with the help of a thinking parental mind who has space in her
mind for both children—a parent who is actively capable of managing
oedipal difficulties on the children’s behalf and promoting the relation­
ship between the siblings. I would like to suggest that we, as teachers
of Infant Observation and Young Child Observation, need to consider
84 maggie fagan

more carefully our relationships to each other, and perhaps actively

help our students to be thinking about the relationship between Young
Child and Infant Observation in their experience as students on a
course, where both elements are included.
Young Child Observation, more than Infant Observation, gives us
the opportunity to get to know the social world the child inhabits. It
holds a mirror to the social relations of the child and a window into
family relationships. Observations are usually full of the vibrancy of
the rapid development of the young child. Its relevance to clinical work
is immediately apparent: for example, Hindle’s paper (2000) describ­
ing the crucial role of observations in making complex decisions about
the placement of siblings together or apart in foster care. The young
child, from the outset of the observation, nearly always makes use of
the observer in some shape or form distinct to each child–observer
dyad. In Infant Observation, the presence of the mother or father, or
another family member, means that the issue of managing boundaries
is not usually so present—whereas this can be of central significance in
a Young Child Observation. But not only is the world of Young Child
Observation dynamic from the perspective of the observed young
child’s lived experience, the observer, too, is bringing conscious memo­
ries of their own childhood that add a complexity to developing the
observer role in Young Child Observation and contribute to the group
dynamic within the seminar.
Sternberg (2005) gave numerous examples, from interviews with
students, of how in Infant Observation there is a stirring up of personal
feelings in the observer. This is no less true for the student of Young
Child Observation. Indeed, it often happens that the world of Young
Child Observation, with its focus on love and rivalry within sibling
relationships, stirs up both unconscious memories of infantile feelings
and conscious memories of relationships with sisters and brothers. It
is interesting in Young Child Observation seminars to note how often
observers refer to their own family history (probably more so than in
Infant Observation), refer to themselves as a bossy big sister, or the baby
of the family, and so on, and are aware of how these feelings impact on
their observation.
Many observations are inevitably painful as the child struggles
to separate more from the family and join the world of the nursery.
Students are often taken aback at how hard this experience can be.
The student is observing a time in the young child’s life that usually
coincides with the beginning of their own conscious memory. Waddell
(1998) writes:
 the young child observation seminar 85

Bearing separation and loss will be helped by having mentally and

emotionally available, enough of the time, a “thinking breast”, a
mother who, in that she is herself able to bear loss and, ultimately,
the fear of dying, can understand those same fears in her child, and
can discriminate need from greed in his desire for her presence. [p. 69]
We might add that the observer’s capacities to bear separation and loss
are also relevant in the development of the observer role in relation
to each specific child. The understanding and support of the seminar
leader in relation to the group of young child observers is also vital. Just
occasionally it may be that the seminar group’s experiences of separa­
tion and loss are so overwhelming that they go beyond what can be
contained in an ordinary work group: for example, an overwhelming
preponderance of conscious memories of parental divorce, or of being
in the present a lonely foreigner in a new country.

Re-defining the observer role

in Young Child Observation
In the introduction to this book, Adamo and Rustin set out many of
the distinctive areas of Young Child Observation, and they point to
the “specific challenges, and adjustments of technique” confronting
the observer of a young child. These involve the dynamic nature of
the observer role in Young Child Observation and the need for very
active reflection on how this is being played out and experienced by
the observed child: every young child will have some ideas about what
is happening week by week as this observer visits. Because of this, part
of an understanding of the observer role necessitates the observer being
able to imagine how the young child perceives the observer, which
is rather different from the observer’s impact on a baby in an Infant
Observation.
From the very first meeting there is an active and live relationship
with the child. How does one introduce oneself to him or her? What
should one say—if anything? Frequently when the observer has to relate
directly to the young child without the “protective filter of mother’s
presence”, for example at nursery, this becomes an unavoidable issue.
This is why it is so important to meet the family before the observa­
tion begins, so that the child has the experience of the mother or father
introducing the observer to him or her. In seminars one sometimes hears
of observations set up on the telephone with a mother who suggests
meeting with the observer at the nursery. But this meeting does not
always materialize—or perhaps only a long way into the observation.
86 maggie fagan

Perhaps some parents abdicate their parental responsibility for the child
while at nursery, as if all that happens at nursery is nursery business
and they do not need to be too concerned about it. Or perhaps some
nurseries convey a feeling of taking over from parents and excluding
them, or parents believe that even if it is not the reality. In many cases
the issues of intimacy and distance in establishing the observer role
persist, and the student is left wondering how to introduce themselves
to the child. Every observer has to negotiate the right temperature and
distance for the child under the influence of the abstract ideal of the non-
participating observer. But that is the point. This stance is something of
an ideal: it is not actually attainable or even desirable. Many students at
the outset of Young Child Observation experience this more involved
observer role as inferior to the ideal of the non-participating observer,
so that the observational stance required in many Young Child Observa­
tions comes to be seen as second-best. Then interactions with the child
are seen as regrettable or a mistake, a belief that reading a book or slot­
ting together pieces of the railway track will be judged harshly by the
­seminar leader, who represents the fantasized ideal of non-participation.
For students who have struggled hard to establish a less participa­
tory role in Infant Observation, coming to Young Child Observation can
be confusing. Just as a mother had to work hard to find in her mind the
space for two children with quite distinct needs, so the observer has to
find mental space for two distinct approaches to the observer role, and
this seems far easier for some than others.
There can also be scope for splitting between the Infant ­Observation
and the young child seminar. Some students become so identified with
the baby and the family in Infant Observation that starting another
observation seems too difficult, even painful, and they may feel ­resistant
to finding a young child to observe. In Young Child ­Observation there is
not the same invitation to identify with the wanted baby, or to become
part of the family. Sometimes the Young Child Observation seems to
be experienced as the birth of a new sibling who unconsciously is not
really wanted and may be seen as a rival to the existing baby. Does
Young Child Observation more easily find a lively place in the student’s
mind if it is not set alongside Infant Observation, with the risk of poor
relation status?
Giving up an identification with the idealized chosen baby to begin
a second observation can often occur before the position of being
an infant observer is firmly established. Sometimes, for a variety of
­reasons, students have to begin to look for another observation family
before they feel ready. Students who had difficulties in finding a baby
 the young child observation seminar 87

to observe and in establishing themselves in the role of observer can

feel reluctant to begin the experience of looking for a family all over
again because it feels daunting. This occasionally impacts on the capac­
ity to understand the distinctiveness of the observer role with a young
child. Students often want to discuss how active the observer should
be, especially at those moments when there is not the protection of the
mother’s presence, when the child may be alone with the observer.
They have to work out moment by moment where to place themselves
within the continuum of being over-involved to being under-involved
when they run the risk of being perceived by the child as uninterested
or even neglectful. This negotiation frequently mirrors the child’s
­oedipal struggles.
Can it be, too, that sometimes observing in an institution can put too
much pressure on the observer? Observing in too difficult an institu­
tional context might be akin to the situation of observing where there is
maternal depression or some difficulty in the family which can threaten
to overwhelm the observer. In such situations it is harder to establish an
attuned observation—that is, observation based on the noting of detail
and a feeling response to the child’s emotional communications. This
means observation rooted in oneself and not done on the basis of pro­
jective identification with some analytic figure. Such an identification
can lead to inflexibility, making the observer unresponsive and rigid as
she clings to this version of a two-dimensional observer role.

Anna
An example of an observation rooted in attunement comes from a
student who brought a Nursery Observation of a 3-year-old girl called
Anna. Anna and her family had recently arrived in this country, and
she only understood a limited English vocabulary and spoke even
less. By coincidence, the observer spoke her mother tongue but did
not think that the little girl knew this. In the observation seminar we
discussed what it would mean to this little girl if the observer spoke
to her in their shared mother tongue. Not surprisingly, the group was
divided between those students who felt the observer should let the
child know they spoke the same language, and those who felt that
this would compromise the observation and a fuller understanding
of the child’s experience at nursery. One day the children were play­
ing, and the observer felt acutely the pain of Anna’s bewilderment as
she could not understand the instructions being given by the nursery
worker to all the children. But the observer decided not to “help out”
88 maggie fagan

by ­explaining the rules of the game to Anna. A few minutes later it was
time to go outside, and the nursery worker told the children to get their
coats and put them on. Anna got her coat, but struggled to put it on,
and then the observer “found” herself kneeling down to help button
up the child’s coat. Perhaps at this point she felt she wanted to contain
something more about this child’s experience of being an outsider to
the group and wanted to protect her from the “cold”.
This observer was observing from a position of attunement, won­
dering all the time about what the experience of being observed meant
to the child. She used the observer position to understand the child’s
experience and did not immediately act to take the painful experience
away—even though her own autobiography informed an understand­
ing of what it is like to be an outsider because of language difficulties.
But she was also aware of the limitations of her role and yet ultimately
wanted to be a benign presence for this child and not add to her difficul­
ties. When she could quietly add to Anna’s experience of containment
within the nursery group, she did so, and when this observation was
reported to the seminar, the group was very touched by her account.

The role of theory and the seminar group

The seminar leader has to act as a container for many of the intense
feelings stirred up by the observations and needs to be aware of the
intense group processes that can occur in the group. Because there
is usually less idealization of Young Child Observation compared to
Infant Observation, group processes in the seminar can be more acute.
The impact of cultural difference, race, and class is very immediate
when discussing the lives of 3-year-olds as attitudes to discipline, food,
bedtimes, play, are all very culturally determined. Often the seminar
leader has a maternal function and a regulatory function too, which can
help the group become increasingly able to formulate their thoughts.
This is especially important as most Young Child Observation groups
have students with very varied academic backgrounds. Some students
feel at home discussing abstract and theoretical ideas, others have less
confidence. The maternal and regulatory (paternal) function of the
seminar leader ensures that everyone is heard, and once the students
feel more held in the seminar, this contributes to the growing capacity
to capture the details of the weekly observations.
Discussions in the seminar have an important role in integrating
theory and observation. But what is the place of theory? Many papers
written by the students are full of theory, often used in a way that
 the young child observation seminar 89

pathologizes the child. Why is this? Could it be that sometimes there is

a confusion in the student’s mind between a theoretical model of mind
and ideal development and the observed young child? Theory is an
adjunct to understanding but can be debased and used to decode the
“true” meaning of the interactions observed. An unintegrated use of
theory readily leads, for example, to the idea that all separation is bad,
unbearable, and detrimental. It is hard to be in touch with the bitter­
sweet experience of being small; of course there is pain in being little,
but the young child also experiences the power and “sweetness” of
rapid growth and development. For many young children the sense of
a growing imagination, the increasing creativity of play, and the greater
capacity to think about things both from their own point of view, but
also from another’s, is liberating. This is vividly captured in many
children’s stories. For example the mouse in The Gruffalo ­(Donaldson &
Scheffler, 1999) is frightened by being on his own in a hostile world—the
proverbial wood. But he starts to use his imagination and, in a way that
thrills and delights most 3-year-olds, he playfully conjures up (and so
controls, at least at the outset!) the monster, the Gruffalo. Perhaps as
seminar leaders we should encourage our students to read children’s
stories and keep in touch with the popular culture of film and television
for young children to help them stay in touch with the imagination of
the young.
Let’s now turn to two Observational examples that illustrate some
of the complexities of establishing the observer role.

Molly: observing a child cared for by a nanny

At the start of the observations Molly is just 3 years old. She is the mid­
dle child of three—her older brother James is 6 and is usually at school
at the time of the observations, and she has a younger sister, Amy, who
is just 2. Both mum and dad work, and so the children are looked after
every day by a nanny. Although the observer did originally meet with
mum and dad before commencing the observations, most of the earlier
observations took place just with the nanny present. The nanny is new
to the job, so not only is the nanny working hard to establish her new
role, the observer is also having to think hard about the observer role
and often finds herself thinking about the “newness” of the nanny and
is highly sympathetic to the nanny’s task of establishing herself in a
parental relation to the children. Although the observer met the parents,
children, and nanny all together before the first observation, this inter­
view hardly prepared her for the experience of the first observation!
90 maggie fagan

James picked up a ruler and began poking me on my bum and

hips, encouraging Molly to do the same—“poke her, poke her!” he
exclaimed excitedly. Molly located a large wooden stick and began
prodding me, laughing in a slightly hysterical fashion. She kept
looking at James, as if seeking guidance. They continued jabbing
and began circling me. Molly joined in the chanting “Poke her, poke
her.” Amy looked on, also laughing, and let out a shriek of excite­
ment. I tried to remain calm, fighting against the frenzied mood. I
was relieved when Jess the nanny eventually intervened, instructing
them to stop.
In this first observation, the nanny hasn’t yet established a parental
position with the children, and a lack of parental containment allows
the children to gang up against the newcomer, the observer.
In the following observation, the nanny is still new, but there is
some evidence that the children are accepting her more as a maternal
substitute, and in Molly’s play of threading the beads (given to her by
her mother and stored in one of her mother’s bags) there is a sense of
the little girl using the nanny to keep in touch with the good internal
object of the mother. However, this acceptance of the nanny is still
precarious, and once three visiting children arrive with their nanny, all
parental thinking is abandoned—in both the children and the nannies.
Instead, the maternal function is projected into the observer, who finds
herself full of feelings about the children’s safety and wants to take
charge, become the parent, making it very difficult for her to maintain
her observing position.
There was a large pot of plastic beads in the centre of the table. Jess
asked Molly is she would like to make a bracelet. In front of Molly
was a piece of cord/string. As Jess was talking to Amy, and looking
down at her on the floor, Molly picked up a pair of scissors, which
looked worryingly large and not child-friendly. I felt a sense of panic
as I saw Molly put her fingers in them and begin moving the scissors
to cut the string. In the split-second I was debating how to react, Jess
looked up and said, “No, Molly, those are adult scissors. Here let me
help you.” I felt relieved.
A little later:
Suddenly the doorbell rang. I remember thinking that it was prob­
ably Jess’s nanny friend with the children she looks after. At the
sound of the doorbell, James immediately ran to the door, and so
did Amy. Molly’s reaction was more subtle. She looked up in the
 the young child observation seminar 91

direction of the door with a slightly thoughtful look on her face,

then looked back to her necklace and continued carefully threading
the beads. Everyone had left the room except for me and Molly, who
continued making her necklace.
The observation continues describing how the two nannies animatedly
gossip about mutual acquaintances, their boyfriends, and lack of sexual
fidelity, while five children tear about the kitchen. A few minutes later
the observer writes:
The two nannies were still leaning on the breakfast bar chatting.
But the conversation had moved to how one of the children who
the visiting nanny looks after had just given her a card he had made
for her at nursery. Jess commented that Molly doesn’t make her
things unless she suggests it but then added that Molly did make
her a key ring once. Jess turned to Molly at this point to include her
in the conversation. “Remember, Molly?” she asked. Molly looked
up but didn’t really respond. The two nannies continued gossiping,
and while the other children played, Molly remained at the table, a
rather lonely figure making her necklace. As the conversation went
on, the visiting nanny made a slightly sexual reference. The other
children were out of earshot, but I remember feeling protective
towards Molly. After another few minutes Molly got down from
the table, saying that she had finished. She walked over to Jess and
handed her the necklace, she smiled quite shyly and said softly, “I
made this for you!” handing the necklace to Jess.
In this observation it is possible to consider that Molly is using the
threading of the beads taken from her mother’s bag as a way of staying
in touch with a good-enough mother in her mind. Interestingly, being
in touch with the good internal mother allows her to be more accepting
of and generous towards her nanny, Jess. It may be that the observer
is also experienced as a containing presence—and a great deal of the
need for a protective maternal container is being projected into her. The
containing presence of the observer may help to support Molly’s wish
to stay in touch with a good-enough parent, and it may be this that
allows her, bit by bit, to accept the substitute parental authority that
Jess does gradually provide. Perhaps the observer provides Jess with
another option in terms of forming a couple to look after the children:
either she can pair with the visiting nanny, almost as an adolescent girl
group, or she can link with the observer to hold the children, especially
Molly, more in mind. Magagna (1997) writes about the importance of a
92 maggie fagan

shared internal image between a nanny/childminder and the mother so

as to present as a supportive couple to the baby or young child.

Shaun: the arrival of a new baby and the ending

of an observation
This observation occurs shortly after Shaun’s fourth birthday and
shortly after the birth of his baby half-brother. Shaun has a great deal
to cope with and frequently has to manage without an adult mind who
can attribute meaning to his experiences. Indeed, it appears that Shaun
has the experience that during mother’s pregnancy his infantile needs
are neglected—and this, too, may contribute to the second-best, poor-
relation feeling. His mother has met a new partner—and during the
course of the observation Shaun has been seeing less and less of his own
biological father. Mum and step-dad are very loving towards the two
children, but Shaun seems to be given very little help by them with his
feelings of being second-best and displaced by the arrival of this new
sibling. At times, unconsciously, both mum and step-dad join Shaun in
his fantasized aggressive attacks on the new baby. For example, while
mum was pregnant, everyone referred to the baby in utero as “bub­
bles”. Mum, step-dad, and Shaun all played a computer game in which
bubbles are popped and destroyed—much to the manic glee of Shaun.
But at night, Shaun is terrified of ghosts and baddies and has problems
sleeping. During the day he often defends himself against his persecu­
tory anxieties by rushing around frantically or by being completely
transfixed by the television screen, either watching a programme or
playing a computer game. He seems either full-on or rather lost in his
computer world. The observer often feels that Shaun is only waiting to
get back on the computer.
This observation, which is in fact the observer’s last visit to the
family after a year of observation, starts with everyone in this busy
family being together. Granddad is there, and a cousin Corrine (aged 5)
is visiting. They have all been watching television. Then Shaun wants
to go upstairs and leads the observer by the hand to show her his car
racing track. Corrine follows them, but Shaun tells her in no uncertain
terms that she can’t play. However, after a while Corrine does manage
to get a turn.
Shaun starts the race again and Corrine tries to copy him, push­
ing the car to the finish line. “Noooooooo!” Shaun yells at her.
“Hey, you’re cheating!” Granddad tells him, but Shaun snatches the
 the young child observation seminar 93

track back from Corrine. It breaks, and she attempts to put it back
together. Granddad jokes about how competitive they are and then
takes Corrine downstairs to have a snack, telling Shaun to tidy his
room. Shaun comments “what about me ?” and Granddad replies
that he will save him some food.
Shaun and I are left, just the two of us. He picks up the broken
track and tries to stab me with it. I tell him to be gentle. He informs
me “this is my sword!” and as I move the remaining pieces out of
the way, he tries to engage me in a sword-fight. “You can kill with
swords”, he lets me know. I nod and watch to see what he’ll do next.
He then notices other pieces of the track on the window sill, and as I
help him move them, I become aware of lots of photos scattered on
the window sill, lying down in their frames rather than standing up.
They look old and faded, as if they have been in the sun. Shaun is
a baby in them. “These are nice”, he murmurs. Shaun then discov­
ers that a photo frame has come apart. “Can you mend it?” he asks
quietly. I put the pieces back together, and he seems pleased but still
leaves the photo flat down with the others.
A few minutes later, Shaun goes downstairs. I sit at the bottom of
the stairs next to mother. Shaun bounces up to her, jumps on her,
and attempts to give her a big hug. Mum gives him a cuddle back,
but he turns and bites her on the chin. “Owwwww” she screams in
pain. “What’s that for? That really hurt me, Shaun” she adds crossly,
and Peter shouts at Shaun across the room, “what have I said about
hurting mummy?” Shaun walks off to sit with granddad.

Shaun appears overwhelmed in this coming-and-going world in which

he feels very uncertain of his place, perhaps especially on this last day
of the observer visiting. He probably has a sense that the observer has
been very interested in his experiences of having to give up being the
baby and the difficulties experienced in his rapidly changing family
and the loss of contact with his own father. Oscillating feelings of inclu­
sion and exclusion overwhelm him, making him feel aggressive and
then frightened of the damage he can inflict, but he does wonder if the
observer can help with all this—“can you mend it?” he asks her. Feel­
ing unsure of his place in his mother’s mind, especially now there is a
new baby, and struggling on his own with the absence of his biological
father, he crashes onto her lap, and this aggressive enforced closeness
then leads to a bite. There is an expression of an angry wish to attack
but also to have more of mum inside him, but this can only be achieved
94 maggie fagan

through an aggressive taking in. And, of course, the observer is sitting

close to mum. Many of the same feelings could be equally directed at
the observer.
Shaun often loses contact with the good internal mother. His use
of computer games allows him to express his aggressive phantasies
unchecked, but they don’t provide him with the same opportunity of
working through an experience as may be offered with more imagi­
native play. Indeed, the repetition without resolution in a computer
game may add to his fears. In Shaun’s computer game the player just
increases his score, the number of bubbles burst, rather than there being
a narrative that involves a working through of complex feeling. It is as
if the shooting of the bubbles is like the projection of feelings, whereas
in imaginative play the feelings are maintained within the role play,
explored from different perspectives (roles).
This observation exemplifies an observer working hard to stay in
role but wondering all the time how she appears to the child. What
would it have meant to him if she hadn’t fixed the frame on this day—
her last visit? Should the observer have referred Shaun back to his
parents for the help he needs rather than succumbing to doing some of
the fixing herself? Perhaps she should have said something like “Oh,
yes, it does need fixing, but perhaps your mum or Peter can do that
a bit later?” But one could also suggest that the observer did not step
too far out of role and avoided assuming the rather omnipotent stance
of being the one who can fix things. On this last day of the observa­
tion, feelings were running especially high. After all, although Shaun
was pleased that she fixed the frame, he also felt the limitations of her
intervention. He left the photo face down on the window sill, along
with the other pictures.

Conclusion
Using one’s judgment in moments like the two just described is hard
work for observers—the need to consider how they appear in the
child’s mind in order to constantly re-define how they will express the
observational stance within each specific observation. When a child is
busily engaged in a good-enough encounter with their own mother or
nursery, this is less pressing, but we hear many observations where the
child is experiencing a truly difficult world. Blessing (2012) developed
a helpful metaphor for thinking about the stance needed to sustain an
observation without succumbing to becoming over-involved or over-
flexible. She writes:
 the young child observation seminar 95

Sharing what we actually do in the privacy of our seminar rooms

allows us to look at situations in which modifying an aspect of our
technique might be not only warranted but desirable. Rigid adherence
to form can lead to reification and shut down thinking. Like the sway
factor built into the construction of skyscrapers, a little give can actu­
ally preserve the structure. How do we determine which situations
require give, and which require holding firm? [p. 34]

This was written as a reflection on adapting technique in situations

where there is a difficult and worrying Infant Observation, but it is no
less applicable to thinking about Young Child Observation. “Sway” is
a very useful metaphor in explaining what we mean by attunement
in thinking about a young child’s use of an observer. The similarities
and differences between Infant and Young Child Observation require
us to continue to refine our sense of what a proper structure might be
for each.

Note
I would like to thank Abigail Gillingham and Angela Pye for generously allowing
me to quote from their observations.
 PART II

Observing in the home

Chapter 5, by Anjali Grier, describes the development of a child conceived

via assisted reproductive technology. The particular and painful vicissitudes
that accompanied the birth of this boy make evident the lasting influence
that issues linked to conception, pregnancy, and delivery can have in some
particular cases. These aspects, which are to the fore in Infant Observation,
tend usually to be more remote in Young Child Observation. However,
in this case, the unresolved problems linked to maternal infertility, the
unmourned losses, including the genetic loss and the influence of cultural
attitudes towards fertility and parenthood, had contributed to create a
conflictual relationship between the mother and the boy. It is probably
not by chance that the time agreed for the observation coincided with a
moment when the child was expected to eat, since feeding had become
the battlefield where the more persecutory aspects of their relationship
found expression. Interestingly, however, the “implicit use” of the observer
seemed to help the development of a more benign object, both in the inner
world of the mother and the child and in their relationship.
Claudia Henry’s chapter (chapter 6) describes the struggle of a little
boy to develop a capacity for separateness and separation in his relation
to his parents, out of a previous condition where processes of projective
identification were prevalent. These dynamics became evident also in
the relationship that the child established with the observer. The greater
mobility and autonomy of a young child, compared to a baby, implies
that the observer moves around, following the child. It is very interesting
to see how the observation of the psychic state of the child, expressed
through his behaviour, play, and the quality of the relationship he estab-
lishes with the observer, makes evident the symbolic meanings associated
with different spaces. The house as a whole and its different spaces—the

97
bathroom, the parents’ bedroom, the child’s room, and so on—become
in the child’s imaginative world a representation of the child’s own and/
or the parents’ body and functions. As the author notes, a Young Child
Observation observer is immediately confronted with problems of privacy
and boundaries in a way different from what is experienced in Infant
Observation. In many chapters of the book, we are confronted with situ-
ations where the observer has to decline, “kindly, but firmly”, the child’s
invitation to enter into places (tents, bathroom, parents’ bed) imbued with
phantasies and feelings of seduction, intrusiveness, sexual excitement, or
abuse and to reaffirm that he will maintain his position. In this chapter, the
author describes how the observation originally took place in the parents’
bed—the “duvet house”—and only gradually was it possible to move to
the child’s room, making evident “a clear link between Laurie being able
to play somewhere other than his parents’ bedroom and his emotional
development”.
Chapter 7, by Sharon Warden, provides a beautifully detailed descrip-
tion of a little boy’s relationship with his father and its oedipal significance.
This is one of the chapters where the richness and complexity of the
relationship between the child and his father are properly recognized and
explored, taking into account also how the gender of the child contributes
to its shaping through the processes of identification. The author’s account
of her own shifting perspective on the observed family is a particularly
vivid reminder of the complex engagement between observer and fam-
ily and the intensity with which this is experienced. It also demonstrates
how valuable the study of the observer’s reactions can be in exploring the
underlying emotional atmosphere in the family and the pattern of anxieties
and defences.
In chapter 8, the last chapter included in this part, Simonetta M. G.
Adamo writes about a little girl’s painfully moving struggle to cope with the
impact on her of the stillbirth of a younger sibling. The observer’s assistance
to her, of special importance given that the whole family has been terribly
upset by the loss of the baby, is of immense significance. The chapter is an
example of the fact that an observation may have considerable therapeutic
potential for a child, even though it has been undertaken with the primary
purpose of the observer’s learning. This feature of observations makes the
question of how to end them appropriately an important one, as is discussed
elsewhere.

98
CHAPTER FIVE

An observation of a young Asian child

with feeding difficulties, conceived
via assisted reproductive technology
Anjali Grier

I
n this chapter I discuss my observation of a 3-year-old boy, whom
I shall call Suraj. He is the second child of Asian parents and has a
7-year-old sister. His parents are both immigrants, having arrived
in this country in their early adulthood, and appear to be in their early
forties.
Both Suraj and his sister were conceived with the help of fertil­
ity treatments after their parents endured several years of painful
dis­appointment at being unable to conceive naturally. His sister was
conceived through IVF (in vitro fertilization), and Suraj was described
as being a GIFT (gamete intrafallopian transfer) child. At our first meet­
ing his mother poignantly described the great difficulty with which
Suraj was conceived: the repeated disappointments of unsuccessful
IVF treatments over three years, and their decision finally to accept the
alternative of a GIFT baby—implying that the “gift” was possibly both
the donation of an egg, as well as the miracle of their much-wanted
second child, for whom they were deeply grateful.
Alongside these feelings of gratitude, his mother also communi­
cated a sense of disconnectedness and dissatisfaction in relation to
Suraj. She conveyed that he was very much his father’s son—which, of
course, biologically, he was—and not hers.
In retrospect, I wondered whether these difficult feelings may also
have been related to a need to mourn the loss of her own “ideal”

99
100 anjali grier

phantasied baby for whom she had waited so long. Her own rather
ambivalent feelings towards Suraj may also have been amplified by a
deep and almost exclusive attachment between Suraj and his father. I
discuss below some of the complex dynamics this gave rise to in the
relationship between Suraj and his mother.
Feeding difficulties were a major feature of the early observation.
Apparently Suraj had never been a good feeder, even as an infant. I
wondered whether his mother’s hostility towards Suraj might have
been linked to her feeling that he denied her, too, the possibility of
recognizing him as her baby through satisfactory breast-feeding. As
my weekly observation frequently coincided with Suraj’s lunchtime,
I was often witness to furious battles over food between mother and
son, which were sometimes painful to observe. The main theme that I
explore are some aspects of the development in Suraj’s attitude to eat­
ing. I show how his developments in feeding were underpinned by the
developments in two other areas—those of his toleration of separation
and oedipal issues. These changes were accompanied by the expression
of warmer feelings between his mother and himself.
With regard to his separation anxieties, I show how Suraj, who
came across as a passionate child, coped with my departures, initially,
by not acknowledging them. I discuss the first occasion when he did
wish me goodbye, very movingly from within the protective “shell”
of his play-tent, and how he would later protest at my departure and
attempt to control it.
I discuss an interesting development with regard to language. Suraj
spoke fluently to his family in their mother tongue, Gujarati, which was
encouraged and valued by his parents. He also spoke a fair amount of
English, as he regularly attended a local nursery. Although I come from
a similar cultural background, I do not speak Gujarati, and I had com­
municated this to Suraj. However, he would often lapse into speaking
to me in Gujarati, seemingly unconsciously. He would take no heed of
my reminders that I could not in fact understand what he said when
he spoke to me in his mother tongue. I explore some aspects of the
meaning of these communications and his gradual and increasing use
of English with me, in terms of his oedipal development.

Ethnic background
Suraj’s family had come to this country from South Africa several years
ago, and they seem quite settled here amidst most of their extended
 observation of a young asian child with feeding difficulties 101

family, both maternal and paternal. The family appeared to be part of

a thriving, closely knit extended family, who had emigrated to Britain
from South Africa as a group. Both maternal and paternal grandpar­
ents and siblings lived locally, and there seemed to be regular contact
between the families and participation in family events. This brought
to mind Ballard’s (1994) point that the experiences of “twice migrants”
from Africa differed from those arriving directly from South and South-
East Asia, because the former predominantly arrived as whole family
units and as settlers rather than sojourners from the start. They there­
fore seemed better equipped for economic and sociocultural survival,
as they had already been involved in “ethnic reconstruction” for some
generations previously, in Africa.
However, I had the impression that Suraj’s mother, Sunita, felt rather
isolated and excluded, not only from the close attachment between
Suraj and his father, but from the heart of the extended family too.
However, it is important to note that this may well have been a painful
internal state of mind rather than an external reality, as I had no evi­
dence regarding the latter situation. Suraj’s mother often spoke of her
son’s basically suspicious and rejecting attitude towards the extended
family, which seemed to suggest a sense of his being perceived as an
“outsider” within the family. This might also have been a projection of
his mother’s own feelings of hostility towards and alienation from the
extended family. Her sense of internal isolation and exclusion from her
family may perhaps have been rooted in a deep sense of humiliation
regarding her infertility, which seemed to be connected with her cul­
tural identity as an Asian woman. Kakar (1978) states that the favourite
folk-tales and familiar myths of the Hindu tradition emphasize the
belief that “pregnancy is a woman’s ultimate good fortune, a belief that
amounts to a cultural reverence for the pregnant woman” (Kakar, 1978,
p. 77). The shadow-side of this belief would be a cultural negation or
denigration of infertility. Kakar also states that, in the Indian tradition,
life is presumed to begin with conception, birth being understood as a
relatively later event, marking the end of the first stage of the life-cycle
rather than its beginning. I wondered whether, in addition to the sense
of shame about her infertility (this “gift” seeming to carry a mocking
and patronizing dimension, possibly evoking in Sunita unconscious
hatred and humiliation), the double impact of fertility treatment and,
particularly, having to accept a donor egg to help conceive their second
child might have heightened Sunita’s inner sense of cultural as well as
personal disconnectedness and alienation from her baby.
102 anjali grier

Assisted reproductive technologies

and their impact on parents and children
Since the birth of Louise Brown in 1978 (Edwards, Steptoe, & Purdy,
1980) more than 2 million children have been born, worldwide, through
in vitro fertilization (IVF) and related assisted reproductive technolo­
gies (ART) (Squires & Kaplan, 2007). ART refers to advanced techniques
used to help infertile couples achieve pregnancy by bringing eggs and
sperm together. The most frequently used ART technique is in IVF,
where fertilization occurs outside the body, in vitro—in a laboratory
dish. In the GIFT procedure, eggs and sperm (gametes) are isolated
and transferred directly into the fallopian tubes by laparoscopy, where
conception takes place internally (Squires & Kaplan, 2007). This GIFT
procedure has been used with some success in cases where couples
have unexplained infertility, where the woman’s fallopian tubes are
not blocked or damaged and IVF has failed to result in a successful
pregnancy (Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, HFEA:
www.hfea.gov.uk/GIFT.html). While it is more usual for donor sperm
to be used in this procedure, occasionally donor eggs might be used and
eggs and sperm are transferred together into the fallopian tubes, before
fertilization takes place (HFEA, Using Donated Eggs in Your Treatment:
www.hfea.gov.uk/80.html).
Cassidy and Sintrovani (2008), in summarizing the literature on
the subject, comment that infertility and the IVF process produce
psychological distress in both men and women, that the difficulties
experienced by infertile women are exacerbated by social attitudes
towards fertility and parenthood, and that these attitudes are subject
to cultural variation. Colpin, Demyttenaere, and Vandemuelebroecke
(1995, cited in Sutcliffe, Edwards, Beeson, & Barnes, 2004) argue that
the unusual form of transition to parenthood in cases of ART can pro­
foundly influence the attitudes and expectations of parents towards
their child, and, consequently, the nature of the ensuing parent–child
attachment. Parents at particular risk appear to be those who have
not worked through their conflict towards infertility, in which case
the child might be experienced as a “narcissistic injury”, constantly
reminding at least one parent of his or her infertility and possibly
creating a misalignment between the parents. Colpin, Demyttenaere,
and Vandemuelebroecke (1995) also suggest that, having endured
long periods of waiting and uncertainty about the survival of their
child, parents may hesitate to bond with their baby (Pullan-Watkins,
 observation of a young asian child with feeding difficulties 103

1987) or become insecurely attached. Interestingly, however, Squires

and Kaplan (2007) conclude that many large-scale studies (Katalinic,
Rösch, & Ludwig, 2004; Leslie et al., 2003; Schieve et al., 2004; Squires,
Carter, & Kaplan, 2003) have found most children born after ART
to be healthy, normally developing young children, with no signifi­
cant differences between their naturally conceived peers on cognitive,
motor, and behavioural assessments.
From a psychoanalytic perspective, Pines (1990) and Raphael-Leff
(1992) hold that a woman’s infertility might be experienced as a nar­
cissistic loss that powerfully affects her sense of herself as a sexually
reproductive woman, damaging her self-esteem. Additionally, in egg
and sperm donation, there is an irretrievable sense of genetic loss,
which is different from more ordinary forms of IVF and which needs
to be worked through and mourned.
Klein (1940) has vividly described her understanding of how, in
the process of mourning the loss of an actual external loved object,
unconscious phantasies of having lost internal “good” objects are
reactivated. This leaves the mourner feeling that his internal “bad”
objects predominate and his inner world is in danger of being
destroyed. She contends that any pain or loss has something in com­
mon with mourning, and that overcoming it involves mental work
similar to that of mourning (Klein, 1940). It seemed that Suraj’s moth­
er’s hostile and ambivalent relationship with her son and her failure
in some respects to identify appropriately with him might be con­
nected with her own unmourned losses, which cast their shadow on
her relationship with him.

The emotional relationship between mother and infant

and its relation to feeding difficulties
Klein (1952) states that the infant is object-related from birth and that
his relation to his mother and towards food are intimately bound up
with each other from the start of life. The infant’s persecutory anxiety,
aroused by the birthing experience and the loss of the intrauterine situ­
ation, are to some degree relieved by the warmth and comfort offered
by the mother and particularly by the gratifying experience of sucking
the breast and taking in food. Klein contends that a good relation to
the mother is crucially important in enabling the baby to overcome its
early paranoid anxieties, whereas any disturbance in the relation to the
mother increases anxiety and may lead to severe difficulties in taking in
104 anjali grier

food. Due to the constant interplay between the infant’s actual experi­
ences and its internal phantasy life, Klein emphasizes the importance
of the external factor—that is, the mother’s attitude towards her infant
and her capacity to be attentive to her infant’s needs—in helping to
modify or increase his anxiety.
Bion’s (1962) notion of maternal reverie describes a state of mind
in which the mother is able to take in the baby’s projections of distress
and then empathize with the baby’s experience and think about it. This
enables the baby to feel understood and contained by the mother’s
mind and to take back its projections in a less toxic, more “digestible”,
and hence more tolerable form. Problems with the mother’s capacity
to contain the baby’s distress can contribute to the baby’s difficulties in
taking in and digesting food.
Williams (1997) extends Bion’s concept of container–contained by
exploring the quality of introjective processes, with particular regard
to a function which she names the “omega function”, whose charac­
teristics are at the opposite end of the spectrum from those of Bion’s
“alpha function”. She describes omega function as arising out of the
introjection of an object that is not only impervious but also intrusively
projecting into the infant, which has a fragmenting effect on the infant’s
personality. She explores the subject of eating disorders and, in particu­
lar, the issue of food refusal in terms of the infant’s responses to being
bombarded by maternal projections.
Some clinical studies illustrate these theories. Chatoor and col­
leagues (Chatoor, 1989; Chatoor, Schaefer, Dickson, & Egan, 1984;
Chatoor, Egan, Getson, Menvielle, & O’Donnell, 1988) studied the
ways in which the quality of the emotional relationship between
mothers and infants impacts upon the establishment of healthy feed­
ing patterns in the infants. This study shows how the infants with
feeding disorders were also those in the most disturbed relationships
with their mothers.
Daws (1993) understands some feeding problems in terms of sepa­
ration difficulties between mother and baby, underlying which were
often issues to do with loss or bereavement. She also discusses ambiv­
alence or unconscious hostility in the mother towards the baby. In
another paper (Daws, 1997), she concludes that a key element in feed­
ing difficulties may be the mother’s intrusiveness or anxieties about
intimacy, possibly engendered by hostile phantasies of damaging her
infant.
 observation of a young asian child with feeding difficulties 105

Suraj
First meeting
I was introduced to Sunita by the leader of a local playgroup. When
I spoke with her on the telephone, she said she was happy for me to
observe her son, who was 3 years and 1 week old. However, it proved
difficult to arrange a time to meet with the parents together for an ini­
tial meeting, due to her husband’s work commitments. Consequently
I arranged to meet with the mother, on the understanding that I could
meet Suraj’s father at a later date. In fact, it took several months before
this meeting with him took place.
My first meeting with Suraj’s mother was overtaken by a sense of
confusion and frantic activity. She appeared to be preoccupied by build­
ing works that were taking place in their home. We were frequently
interrupted, for which she apologized.
Sunita looked pained as she described the difficulties they had had
in conceiving Suraj and then in managing and caring for her older child
during her second pregnancy. She said that, although Suraj had been
a “good” baby, he had always been a poor feeder. She seemed disap­
pointed and frustrated by this. She had breast-fed him for three months
and then weaned him, but he had refused to drink powdered milk after
this and still didn’t drink milk.
She also warned me that if I saw Suraj with his father, he wouldn’t
take any notice of me, as he would be “stuck” to his father. I had a sense
of her feeling excluded from this relationship and also of doubting her
value to her son.
Just before I left, she wanted to show me a photograph of Suraj—it
was an enlarged photo of him with his father and sister, in which Suraj
was frowning and looking rather grumpy. I had anticipated the kind
of photograph that his mother might be proud to show me, showing
Suraj smiling and happy. I was left somewhat taken aback and confused
about her motivation for showing me this particular image.

First observation
My first observation took place the following week. My initial impres­
sion was of how different Suraj looked from the photograph—he was
small and lively, with an attractive smile and an engaging manner:
Although quite little in comparison to his brother, Suraj had a lively,
mischievous expression and strong, attractive features. He walked
106 anjali grier

over to the mantelpiece and, standing on the slightly raised base,

looked at me perkily for a moment and then started jumping up and
down in a springy and friendly way. He seemed to be saying, “This
is me and look what I can do!” I smiled at him and he grinned back
at me and continued jumping. [Observation 1, 3 years & 9 days]
Later, Suraj brought out some photographs to show me. They were
fairly recent photos of himself and his family. I was reminded of a popu­
lar Asian tradition of proposals for marriage, in which photographs of
the prospective bride/bridegroom and their families are exchanged.
I wondered if Suraj and his mother were keen to introduce me to the
“inner circle” of the family and might unconsciously have been play­
ing with the idea of whether we would “make a match”? While I might
have been perceived by Suraj as part of the “inner circle” because of
my own similar cultural background, was I also being claimed as exclu­
sively his? When his mother joined in the conversation to tell me about
their extended family, Suraj appeared to find it very difficult to share
my attention with his mother.
When it was time for me to go, he barely acknowledged my depar­
ture, not responding when I wished him goodbye and denying it by
continuing instead to busy himself with the photographs.
I wondered whether the very contradictory impressions I had of
Suraj, initially from his mother and then after meeting him myself,
might be linked both to split aspects of the child and to his mother’s
hostile projections that distorted his image.

Feeding difficulties
As I mentioned above, my observations frequently coincided with
Suraj’s lunchtimes. Possibly mother hoped for support from my pres­
ence in the difficult dynamic between herself and Suraj over food.
When I arrived, Suraj would often be sitting alone at a little wooden
table in the sitting room, a plate in front of him, with a relatively small
portion of food on it—usually half a sandwich, neatly cut into two
squares, with some cheese or cucumber to accompany it. His mother
would usually be in the kitchen, cooking.
In the first few months of this observation, Suraj would rarely be
able to finish even half his meal, frequently interrupting it to engage in
rather frantic, compulsive activity. For instance:
Suraj, who was eyeing me over the top of his sandwich, suddenly
put his sandwich down, jumped up, and ran off towards the win­
 observation of a young asian child with feeding difficulties 107

dows at the far end of the room. He licked the fingertips of his right
hand and then rubbed his wet fingers on the glass, as if cleaning
it. He repeated this cleaning activity with each of the four window
panes in turn. He then upturned a stool and started dusting it with
a brush. The switch from one activity to the next was abrupt. . . .
[Observation 2, 3 years & 2 weeks]
I wondered if Suraj was in the grip of a persecutory phantasy that
something had turned bad or become contaminated (by me?), hence his
attempts somewhat obsessively to clean or “purify” his environment
(Klein, 1952). This possibility was borne out by his subsequent rather
aggressive wish to get rid of his food:
His mother entered and asked him rather plaintively to eat his
lunch. Suraj jumped up and said in a rather strong bargaining man­
ner that he wouldn’t eat the half-chewed sandwich but he’d eat the
fresh one. Mother said OK. Suraj then took a bite out of the fresh
sandwich and then immediately opened it up and removed the
cucumber, saying he didn’t want that. He then took the half-eaten
sandwich and threw it on the floor and said that he didn’t want that
either. His mother shouted angrily at him to pick it up. Suraj jumped
up, saying “bin” several times in a frenzied way, and picked the
sandwich off the floor. [Observation 2, 3 years & 2 weeks]
I thought Suraj’s difficulties with taking in food were related to perse­
cutory anxieties that had become attached to food. His need to get rid
of his food in the aggressive manner described above—or, as on other
occasions, by spitting or vomiting it out—seemed to be a way of dealing
with these anxieties (Klein, 1946). These situations would frequently
escalate into furious battles between mother and son, in which Suraj’s
controlling and aggressive behaviour often provoked an angry and
tyrannical response from his mother. These conflicts were very painful
and difficult to observe. I had the impression that mother and son were
locked in a fused and stifling combat:
Suraj then darted into the little space between his mother’s chair
and his own and emerged with a mobile telephone. His mother
sternly ordered him to put the phone down and eat his lunch. Suraj
started speaking into the phone in an incoherent and manic way . . .
he then kicked the table over with his feet, upturned it completely,
and sat inside it, saying in a frenzied manner, “Drive the car, drive
the car”, making wrrr-ing car-sounds. [Observation 3, 3 years &
4 weeks]
108 anjali grier

Suraj seemed to be caught up in a phantasy of being trapped inside

his mother’s body (Klein, 1928). The phone might have represented a
possible way out—by attempting to make a connection outside—pos­
sibly with his father? However, he then got back inside and attempted
to take control via mania.
In the school holidays, Suraj went for the first time with his family to
visit his country of origin. On their return, I learned that this had been
quite hard for Suraj. He had become ill at the start of the holiday and
then had found travelling difficult. He had also lost his appetite and
hadn’t eaten very much throughout.
Suraj frequently expressed angry feelings towards me after this
four-week break. When I acknowledged this, he appeared to feel some
relief. For a few months he ate more, often hungrily and ravenously, as
though stuffing himself to fill a gap:
Mother brought Suraj a sandwich on a plate. He sat down and
started eating. Mother went back into the kitchen . . . Suraj then
rushed with excitement to the bag of toys, only having eaten a
couple of mouthfuls of his lunch, picked it up and emptied it on
the carpet. He did this with great excitement while chattering
to me in his mother-tongue . . . His mother came into the room
and asked him to eat. He asked her if he could have his plate on
the carpet beside him. His mother reluctantly handed him his
plate. He leant forwards over his plate and began shovelling hand­
fuls of grated cheese into his mouth. [Observation 9, 3 years &
3 months]
I wondered whether his mother’s departure from the room (after hand­
ing Suraj his lunch) might be connected with how frantically he tried to
engage my attention, almost as if driven to fill the gap of her departure,
replacing her with me (speaking to me in Gujarati), thereby omnipo­
tently denying the gap. When his mother returned, he demanded that
she move his plate nearer to himself—again, conveying a sense of need­
ing to deny any separateness. His manner of eating at this time looked
as though he was ravenously tearing something apart, mirroring his
experience of separations.
His mother almost always absented herself after giving Suraj his
lunch, perhaps in the context of my presence. She would then come in
periodically to check whether he was eating, and this was often con­
ducted in a stern, “policing” manner. I wondered whether his mother
had taken into herself Suraj’s negative projections, particularly in rela­
 observation of a young asian child with feeding difficulties 109

tion to his very negative attitude to food—by which she seemed to feel
personally rejected and so felt inclined to absent herself. Her leaving
him to his own devices, however, quite possibly made it difficult for
Suraj to modify and integrate his bad internal objects (O’Shaughnessy,
1964), since he was left prematurely to deal with his anxieties on
his own.
One possibility was that Suraj was using me as a containing object
(Bion, 1962), in whose presence he was able to take in more food, both
concretely and symbolically. There was by now an interesting devel­
opment in his capacity to play in a focused and imaginative way. On
one occasion, he became absorbed in playing with his play-tent and
enthusiastically invited me into it. I refused (firmly, though kindly).
He reacted by asking me to shut the door-flap, in a slightly dampened
mood. However, he soon peeked his head out of the door to ask if I
might like a cup of tea? I said that would be nice. He then pretended
to make me a cup of tea and handed it to me. This was the first time
that he had managed to play in such a sustained manner. It seemed to
be important to him that I didn’t disappear, even when I had not given
in to him (on this occasion, to his seductive oedipal wishes to enter his
tent), but remained open to receiving his tea.
Some months later, there appeared to be a marked change in Suraj’s
attitude, when he was able to express some enjoyment in eating his
food:
Before I had properly entered the room, Suraj was already talking
to me, saying, “This is cheese!” brandishing his cheese-string with
great relish on a fork. I said hello to him and sat down in my usual
place. He grinned at me, pointing at his cucumber sandwich and
saying, “Cucu”. I nodded and he pointed at it again and said, “Sand­
wich!” He grinned at me, bending his head slightly shyly/coyly to
his left, and munched his sandwich. I smiled. . . . [Observation 21,
3 years & 7 months]
On another occasion his mother had cooked a special traditional snack.
She offered me a piece and asked Suraj if he might like some too.
Suraj said yes, he would have a piece. When his mother came in a few
moments later and asked him whether he liked it, he told her that he
still had some left on his plate and would she please not take his plate
away yet? His mother took this as a sign of appreciation and was very
pleased. Suraj was now able to accept that his mother had something
good to offer him.
110 anjali grier

Separation
As I mentioned, Suraj found separation a particularly painful issue,
and initially this was reflected in his inability to acknowledge my
departures. However, on one occasion when Suraj was very absorbed in
playing with his play-tent I said that it would soon be time for me to go:
Suraj stuck his head right outside the tent and said “No!” very
loudly and firmly. I said that I would be back next week. He then
asked me to give all his bricks back to him. When I had done so,
he shut the door-flap again. I got up and said goodbye to him. He
responded from within and said bye-bye. [Observation 9, 3 years
& 3 months]
This was the first time that Suraj had said goodbye since I had com­
menced the observations. It was very poignant that he was able to do
so on this occasion, from within the protective “shell” of his play-tent.
As we have seen, he had often seemed to experience separation as a
violent ripping apart. Being enclosed within his play-tent, however,
appeared now to function both as a barrier defending him from the pain
of separation and as a protective container, enabling him to acknowl­
edge my departure.
Subsequently, Suraj would frequently protest when it was time for
me to leave and then attempt to take control of the ending by inform­
ing me that I could go after he had completed a particular task—for
instance, tidying away his toys or eating his food. Then he would trium­
phantly say, “Now you can go!” (Observation 20, 3 years & 7 months).
His mother initially complained that Suraj was still in nappies and
refusing to cooperate with toilet training. To be toilet-trained demands
a capacity to let go of the phantasy of keeping and not losing one’s
urine and faeces into the lavatory. It seemed that as Suraj found ways
of tolerating the pain of separation, he was also able to overcome his
anxieties in this area. By the time he was 3 years and 5 months old, he
had succeeded in becoming toilet-trained during the day.
He still had difficulty getting to sleep at night and wouldn’t go to
sleep until his parents were ready to go to bed. Apparently he still slept
in his parents’ bed and had steadfastly refused either to sleep in his own
bedroom or to share a room with his brother. Although his mother felt
uncomfortable about this, his father tended to give in to his wishes. This
might well have made Suraj feel quite powerful, and it also may have
fuelled his oedipal phantasies.
 observation of a young asian child with feeding difficulties 111

Oedipal development
When I first met Suraj, he wanted to make exclusive claims on my atten­
tion, and he found it difficult to share me with his mother. I wondered
whether he might be splitting, by idealizing me and denigrating his
mother by pushing her out. His mother conveyed that she felt excluded
from the close attachment between Suraj and his father. I described
some of the entangled and fused battles between Suraj and his mother
that erupted over food, and also how Suraj would frequently break
into his mother-tongue, Gujarati, while speaking with me. This often
happened when he wanted an intimate, dyadic relationship with me,
perhaps a replacement for his primary maternal relationship. In these
situations Suraj appeared to have difficulty in tolerating a triangu­
lar relationship without feeling threatened by it; simultaneously he
appeared stifled by the exclusively dyadic relationship with his mother.
It sometimes felt as though these difficulties were exacerbated by his
father’s absence during much of the observations—despite my often
reminding his mother, it took several months before my meeting with
Suraj’s father took place.
It felt significant that the first time that Suraj communicated with me
consistently in English, which he knew to be “my” language, was on the
first occasion when both his parents were present. At this time, the pres­
ence of his father appeared to enable him to participate in a triangular
relationship without feeling either excluded from or threatened by the
parental couple. The warm and affectionate attachment between Suraj
and his father was also evident. I was aware that Suraj was observing
the interactions between his parents and myself, which mostly involved
conversations relating to himself. It seemed possible for him to have an
experience of a benign parental couple who had space in their minds
for him (Britton, 1989). After this meeting between me and father, Suraj
rarely spoke to me other than in English.

Conclusion:
the implicit use of the observer to negotiate
some of the mother–child conflicts
In the relatively short space of time (approximately eight months)
during which this observation took place, there appeared to be a
marked development in Suraj’s capacity to take in and enjoy his food,
both concretely and symbolically. This seemed integrally related to
112 anjali grier

­ evelopments in his capacity to tolerate separateness and in his oedipal

d
situation.
In considering the different factors that might have contributed
to this development, I am aware of how much I do not know about
Suraj’s relationships outside my weekly observations—for instance,
the influence of his nursery-school life. I have, however, attempted to
consider some of the different ways in which Suraj and his mother were
both able to make use of me as an observer. I noted how, initially, Suraj
seemed to want an exclusively dyadic relationship with me. I thought
he set me up as an idealized object, splitting off and projecting his
more negative feelings into his mother, thus replicating the dynamic
between himself and his father, whom he similarly seemed to idealize
while denigrating his mother (Klein, 1946). However, this use of me
seemed gradually to shift, when he began to express more anger and
aggression towards me, accompanied by ravenously taking in food and
protesting and controlling my departures. Both mother and son seemed
able to use my presence as a containing object, to help them move out
from a locked-in, fused state of embattlement. Suraj’s increasing use of
English with me suggested his developing awareness of me as a sepa­
rate person, differentiated from a narcissistic object under his control.
These changes appeared positively to affect Suraj’s relationship with
his mother and vice versa. He lessened his idealization of me and his
denigration of his mother, now more able to accept that she had some­
thing good to offer him. He expressed this in his greater enjoyment of
the food she cooked for him. She reciprocated by feeling less rejected
by him and more appreciated. I wonder, too, whether his mother may
have been helped by my tolerant, observant presence, particularly my
capacity to bear Suraj’s anger and aggression and also my ability to
tolerate being an “outsider”, allowing her to be his mother.

Note
With thanks to my Young Child Observation seminar leader, Cathy Urwin.
CHAPTER SIX

Laurie and his cars:

a 3-year-old begins to separate
Claudia Henry

I
n this chapter I am going to explore the struggle towards independ­
ence of the little boy I observed. I started my observation when
Laurie had just turned 3 years of age. During the initial meeting with
Tania, his mother, she described him as an “interesting child” who had
an “obsession with cars”. He could name them exactly, including not
only their make, but also their model.
I will try to illustrate how cars, both real and imaginary, dominated
his early fantasies and how they represented an underlying preoccupa­
tion with becoming more separate from his parents. I will show how
he expressed in his play a clear move from a phantasy of being very
much fused and “entangled” with his parents, to starting to find a place
of his own.
About half way through the year of my observation, Laurie’s father
had a car accident. Fortunately he was not badly hurt. Laurie was only
able to explore this experience and his feelings about it when he became
more separate and was able to show in his play that he could represent
relationships between people rather than control them. A lot of Laurie’s
play took place in his parents’ bedroom at the beginning of the year. It
was interesting that there was a clear link between Laurie being able to
play somewhere other than in his parents’ bedroom and his emotional
development.

113
114 claudia henry

Laurie’s parents are both in their early- to mid-thirties. They had

been together for some time before Laurie was born. They live in a
small but comfortable two-bedroom flat. Jack, his father, and Tania are
both professionals.
At our first meeting Tania told me that she, Jack, and Laurie were
off to Florida for two weeks. During this holiday she and Jack were
going to get married. She hoped that Laurie would “just get bored and
ignore it”.
I started my observations just after the family returned from Florida.
When, during my first observation, I was being shown the wedding
photos, Laurie very quickly emptied out his crayons onto the floor
and proceeded to draw three circles. He seemed to be very intent on
representing the “threeness”. It seemed that Laurie’s observation of the
photos, as they were shown to me, might have provided an opportunity
for him to see and experience himself with his parents in a new way. I
wondered about his anxieties concerning the introduction of a fourth
one now that his parents were married. Would there be another baby?
How was he going to fit into this new situation and, indeed, into this
new situation with me?
Tania told me that Laurie was having great difficulty in separating
from her when she left him at nursery. She said he cried and protested
when she left, but, according to the teachers, he was fine once she had
gone. Tania also said that she sometimes asked Jack to take him, as she
found it very difficult leaving him when he was so desperate. She went
on to tell me that Laurie had recently been wetting himself. I wondered
how much difficulty she herself was having with separating from him
and how that might influence Laurie’s experience of starting at nursery.
When I arrived for my first observation, Laurie was on the toilet,
and Tania led me into the bathroom. I was immediately struck by the
different issues that arise for an observer when walking into the life
of an older child and the contrast with Infant Observation, which had
been my previous experience. (This difference arose at many other
points during the observation.) I was about to meet a child who was
already at an age where issues such as privacy and personal bounda­
ries were both important and integral to his development. I was quite
conscious of not wanting to seem intrusive and so said “hello” quickly,
then left the bathroom and waited for him to come into the living room.
Mum had obviously prepared him for my coming and said to him when
I arrived, “Do you remember I told you that Claudia was coming?”
When Laurie appeared shortly afterwards in the living room, I was
struck by his beauty. He has very intense blue eyes, with long dark eye­
 laurie and his cars: a 3-year-old begins to separate 115

lashes that contrast with his blond hair. He has a warming smile and is
quite small and slight in build. He observed me from the comfort of his
mother’s arms for much of the first observation as I observed him and
seemed to be working out in his mind who I was and what I was there
for. Tania explained that I had arrived just after a tantrum. She seemed
quite relieved that he had calmed down before I arrived. As the obser­
vations progressed, it became clear that Tania was quite uncomfortable
when Laurie had tantrums in front of me. She often spoke to Laurie in
a baby voice, which contrasted quite sharply with Laurie’s knowledge
of cars and his keen interest not only in their make, but their model
and number. One of the questions discussed in the seminar group was
whether Tania was struggling with a wish to keep Laurie as a needy
baby rather than being able to see him as a sometimes difficult and
aggressive little boy.
As Laurie started to move from his mother’s side during the first
few weeks, he quickly became aware that wherever he went I would
follow. He would run from the bedroom to the living room, looking all
the time over his shoulder to see if I was coming and smiling when he
noted that I was. My feeling was that he was testing me out, wonder­
ing whether I was there to be entertained or invited in and enjoying the
control he had over where we went. During the third observation Tania
told me that Laurie was convinced that I lived upstairs. She said that he
had heard a noise upstairs one day and had asked if it was me driving
around. I was a little confused by this account as, from the very first
meeting, a ritual had been set up that was to continue right through the
year. At the end of the hour Laurie and Tania would come out to the
front door and wave to me as I drove off. This was a time of moving
back close to mummy. During a period when Laurie was not allowing
his mother into the room while I was there, it was a comfort to me to
see him cuddled up against her and them waving goodbye as I left. The
goodbye was so pronounced that it seemed strange that he also had the
fantasy of me living upstairs. I wondered if it was that maybe as yet I
could not exist if I was anywhere too far from his immediate surround­
ings. In keeping me “upstairs” no anger had to be felt at my going away.
It was the beginning of an indication of how much the feelings of anger
that Laurie had could not as yet be expressed. The goodbye ritual was
completely wiped out, and I lived upstairs. This denial of anger and
ways of managing such moments of denial were to be seen at many
other points during the year.
Laurie’s play during the first observations seemed to emphasize
his need to distance people when they left him. He started using
116 claudia henry

his parents’ bed as a central focus point. The games started off with
his mother playing peek-a-boo with him under the covers. However,
shortly afterwards his mother was quite aggressively banished from
her own bedroom. He would tell her to “go away” and then, when she
had left, he would repeat, “Where has that lady gone?” He seemed to
distance himself from any emotional need for his mother and or rela­
tionship with her as she became “that lady”. I wondered if in the nurs­
ery as well she became “that lady” once she had gone. A mummy who
existed somewhere else did not as yet seem to have been established.
An extract from one of the early observations is as follows.

Laurie, 3 years 2 months

Laurie hides under the bedclothes and says, “Can you see me?” I say
“Oh no, where has Laurie gone?” He replies, “I am not Laurie, I am
Tom.” Mother comes into the room with my coffee. Laurie comes out
from under the bedclothes and says to his mother “Go away.” Tania
goes towards the door and then stands there smiling and says, “He only
plays this game on the bed when you are here.” Laurie again shouts
in quite a frantic way, “Go away.” I feel very uncomfortable, and Tania
says, “All right, I am going, I am going.”
Laurie sits quietly looking at the door for a second and then says
“Where has that lady gone?” He does not give me time to answer before
going on to say “I am Tom, you are Tilly [two children’s television char­
acters]. I am going shopping, are you coming, Tilly?” I say gently but
firmly that I will watch him from where I am.
Laurie’s banishing of his mother went on for quite a few months
and often left me, and probably his mother too, feeling uncomfortable.
I wondered about his play on the bed just happening when I was there,
and whether his initial play with his mother on the bed was too intimate
and disturbing and he then needed to tell her to go away. I often felt
that I was being pulled into his oedipal phantasies and that at that time
he did not want there to be three of us. Adamo and Magagna describe
in their chapter how the observer can be confronted with very power­
ful oedipal feelings in Young Child Observation. When thinking about
Laurie’s play, perhaps he became the one forming a couple with me and
thus projected any feelings of being left out and/ or rejected into his
mother as she was banished from the “couple’s bedroom”.
As in the extract quoted, Laurie would often say things such as, “I
am Tom, you are Tilly”, and would then invite me to be the other half
 laurie and his cars: a 3-year-old begins to separate 117

of the Tom and Tilly couple and to come on the parental bed to play
at hiding under the “duvet house”. I was always quite firm about not
joining in this game and said that I would watch him from where I
was sitting. It may be interesting to note that “Tom and Tilly” are two
children’s television characters who live on a canal barge. It is unclear
if they are a couple or brother and sister, but what is clear is that Tom is
the one who drives the barge. He is the one in the “driver’s seat” while
Tilly stands by him as the passenger.
In the observations, the bed slowly became an elaborate car (never
a barge) with a passenger seat, which, he insisted, was for me to sit in.
I had to repeat week after week that I was going to watch him from
where I was sitting, and he gradually accepted that this passenger
(myself) was going to stay where she was. His invitations onto the
parental bed, however, continued, although gradually less persistently,
right up until the end of the observations.
I only met Laurie’s father twice during the year. The first occasion
was on my second visit. He seemed quite affectionate and demonstra­
tive with Laurie, although he was also quite preoccupied with his work
on both occasions. Laurie seemed to identify with his father and would
quite often play at daddy going off to work in his car. The bed became
a car, and it had a “steering wheel bit” and “the radio bit”. There was
then the “passenger bit” in the back, and this at first was always left
empty. A steering wheel made out of a plate or a round place mat was
often placed on the steering-wheel side. Over the course of the obser­
vations these steering wheels started appearing in all sorts of places
that, in Laurie’s imagination, had been transformed into cars. During
one observation I was introduced to five cars, one on each bed, one
on the sofa, one on a chair, and one hidden under a blanket, which
was revealed to me towards the end of the hour. His favourite “car”,
however, continued to be his parents’ bed. At first this “car” was often
a Lada, the car his father had. It was interesting to note that the word
“Lada” was similar in sound to the sort of word a very small child
might say, which may have been part of its attraction. Laurie would sit
in the “steering wheel bit” and turn around and wave goodbye to me
as he drove off to work.
I felt that this was one of Laurie’s ways of exploring his feelings
about separation. He became the one going to work, the active one,
rather than the passive one who was being left behind. However, if
Laurie dealt with the separation by becoming daddy, then what hap­
pened to his identity when this was happening? Laurie seemed to be
118 claudia henry

part of both his mother and his father in a way that was represented
by his getting into the “big body” of his parents’ bed. Could he stay in
their mind and they in his and still be separate?
The cars, which kept on appearing, seemed to represent aggressive
and powerful feelings that could only as yet be seen in the cars and not
be owned by Laurie. Except when Laurie was telling his mother to go
away, he was generally quite gentle in his movements and play. He often
played, however, with a toy “cookie monster” (a character from Sesame
Street), an aggressive cookie-eating monster that had a growly voice and
seemed to represent feelings such as anger and aggression that as yet
Laurie found hard to own. It may have been that he was scared that if
he got really angry, it might be unbearable for those around him and
might drive everyone away. It could be that his play with the cookie
monster was his way of splitting and projecting his oral aggression, a
part of himself thus projected into the monster and lodged there.
Laurie would quite often confuse the gender of characters in books,
almost as if he were still unaware of a separate mummy, a separate
daddy, and a separate Laurie. “Mr’s and Mrs”, as he called them, all
became one. Perhaps this was also related in some way to uncertainty
about his own identity and the stability of others. After hiding under
the duvet one day, Laurie shouted out, “I have gone, where am I?”
This sentence puts across very strikingly the feeling of temporary loss
of one’s own identity that accompanies projective identification (Klein,
1955). Laurie knew he had gone, but he was not sure where. How
could he find and own certain parts of himself without it feeling too
overwhelming?
Jack’s car crash happened five months into the observation. Jack was
not badly injured, but the car was quite badly damaged and sat outside
the flat for a few weeks. It was clear that the vision of this smashed-up
car had quite an impact on Laurie. During each observation I was led
by the hand to look at it. However, the only explicit remark that Laurie
made initially about the implications of the accident was that daddy
was going to get a Rover Mark 3 litre engine or a Golf GTI Cabriolet,
the implication being that anything broken could be mended by getting
a new and better one. Laurie seemed to use his knowledge of cars here
as a way of hiding behind or masking any worries or depressive anxie­
ties (Klein, 1935) that he may have been feeling. David Simpson (2004)
writes of children with Asperger’s syndrome as tending “to “know”
in the sense of accumulating knowledge, not of learning creatively”.
It seemed that at first Laurie used his “knowledge” of cars to “know”
in a manner that somewhat resembled Simpson’s description. It took
 laurie and his cars: a 3-year-old begins to separate 119

some time before he was able to play more symbolically and learn more
“creatively” from the experience of his father’s accident.
I learned during this time that Tania herself had quite a strong fear
of cars. She hated being in them and was adamant that she did not want
to learn to drive. This perhaps contributed to Laurie’s preoccupation
with cars. He may also have been taming the projections of his mother’s
fears by knowing all there was to be known about them.
Just before the crash Laurie had started to allow his mother back
into the room when I was there. At the same time, he started to develop
a preoccupation with the “passenger seat” in the car, speculating on
which cars had them and which cars did not. It was as if he was trying
in his mind to find a place for a third person. It could be speculated
that Laurie’s beginning to explore a place for a third just prior to his
father’s crash was a fortunate development. The murderous feelings
that it could be imagined he had towards father because of his oedipal
feelings were maybe tamed slightly by a move towards more depres­
sive feelings. This, in turn, may have left him a little less full of guilt
that he had really caused the crash. I wonder whether the gentle but
firm boundaries upheld in relation to not joining him on the parental
bed had in some ways helped towards this development, in a sense
providing a paternal boundary. When thinking about the differences
between baby and Young Child Observations, issues around bounda­
ries and how to gain the right balance become much more prominent,
and the need not to act but think on one’s feet and with the support
of the seminar group in mind is central. If such play had occurred in a
different setting, one might well have had quite a different response. It
was the nature of Laurie’s specific phantasies that make me feel that I
needed to hold my ground.
A few weeks after the crash, the main place where Laurie chose to
play moved from his parents’ bed to his own. I wondered if his mother
talking to me openly about her fear of cars had shifted some of the anxi­
ety from Laurie. It was without doubt a very important change for him.
It seemed that the earlier obsessive play had been a way of controlling
his anxiety. I now observed that much more fluid and free play started
to develop. The play could incorporate actual toy cars being moved
around rather than Laurie moving around inside a car. Laurie was still
interested to find out which car had a passenger seat and which one
had a boot, but the people in the cars now started to have different
names, in contrast to when Laurie had played all the different roles.
An extract from an observation during this period is as follows; we are
in Laurie’s room.
120 claudia henry

Laurie, 3 years 6 months

Laurie says, picking up a van, “This is a sweetie van. The ice cream
van only has a driver seat. Oh no, it has a passenger seat too. The
sweetie van has a passenger seat, has this one got a passenger seat?”
He picks up another van and continues, “Yes there is a Mr Duck in it
with a green head and a Mrs Duck with a blue head and a baby with
a green head.” He laughs and says, “can you see them?” Laurie then
picks up another car and says, “Has this one got a passenger seat? No,
this one has, though it is a Citroen 2 CV. Granny and granddad are in
it.” He continues, “Look, here is a police car. It has a passenger seat.
Who is in this one? There are two misters in the front and a Mrs in the
back.” Laurie then moves the different cars around his bed, making the
various people sitting in them stop in order to buy things at shops. He
then picks up a black taxi and says “This one hasn’t got a passenger
seat in the front, look can you see?” He seems quite saddened by this.
I say “Yes, I can see.” He repeats, “It hasn’t got a passenger seat, there
is only room for one mister in it. There is a lady in the back.” He then
continues moving the cars around the bed.
Although the characters Laurie imagined were not played with
independently from the car play, when he said who was in the cars,
they had names and were constant. Laurie seemed to be starting to
explore his feelings about who went where, with whom, and who was
left out. His play did not represent his need for an exclusive twosome
anymore as the passenger seat, or third person, started to be allowed
in. In his play I also observed Laurie’s interest in how things get inside
and where they come from. Another shift was that Laurie started play­
ing quite regularly with a big, colourful soft cushion that was in the
living room. (It was one of the first occasions in which his play did not
involve a car.) It was quite a large cushion, and it became a vending
machine out of which all sorts of “goodies” came. He would often ask
me what sort of drink, cake, or ice cream I would like and offer me a
whole range of flavours. Sometimes these “goodies” would taste good
and sometimes bad. I wondered about his phantasies about what was
inside mummy’s body.
There had been some exploration in the seminar group of the idea
that the cars might have been used in a somewhat autistic fashion
providing something hard to hold onto. The obsessive play with them
seemed in a way to lend itself to thinking about them as “hard armour
suits” (Bick, 1968) or a skin that could protect him from feeling vulner­
 laurie and his cars: a 3-year-old begins to separate 121

able. I was therefore relieved when he started to play with this very
soft, large, colourful cushion.
During the summer I did not see Laurie for four weeks. Before this
Tania had been unsure of how she was going to fit my observations in as
she was starting a different job, which would involve her working more
hours. She was anxious about what she was going to do with Laurie.
There was a feeling of there not being enough room. I left for the sum­
mer break feeling quite unsure about the continuity of the observations
and aware that Laurie might be feeling the same. We were, however,
able to organize a time on a different day.
I arrived at the first observation after the summer holiday to find a
very excited Laurie. He named all his toys and then asked me to repeat
all the names. It felt that he was testing to see if I remembered and
whether I was thinking of him during the break. An extract from this
observation describes what happened next.

Laurie, 3 years 9 months

He picks up a small car and then a big one, saying, “This is an ambu­
lance.” He then ploughs it into the standing people. His voice is very
loud, louder than I have ever heard it, and his play is quite aggressive
and angry. He grits his teeth as he knocks over the figures. He then
asks me to stand them up again, which I do, and he again ploughs into
them, knocking them over. He laughs, saying, “The Mr is laughing.”
I ask, “Are they hurt?”, and he says “No.” He then stands them up
again and again ploughs into them. This happens over and over again.
Sometimes one of the figures gets hurt, but the main emphasis seems
to be the knocking over and the not caring of the “Mr” who does it.
Later on in the observation the naughty “Mr” got a fine for being
naughty. What struck me was that Laurie had made contact with his
aggressive feelings and could now express them symbolically in his
play. It also seemed that this bit of play was the beginning of an explo­
ration of his feelings about his father’s accident. He seemed for the
first time to be expressing feelings about a father who “stands in the
way”—perhaps the “Mr” who he felt was responsible for my absence
during the four weeks when we had not met. It seemed that an oedipal
situation was being played out. His anxieties about this had probably
made it very difficult for him to work through his feelings and thoughts
about the accident, or even to think about it. It seemed that until he had
moved away from his parents’ bed and found out where he was, this
122 claudia henry

exploration was too difficult to embark on, and, as I suggested earlier,

he may have used his “knowledge” (Simpson, 2004) of cars as a defence
against his anxieties. I wondered if the summer break had given Laurie
the space to feel some anger at me for being away. It may have felt safer
to be angry with me than with his mother, and so something that up
until then had not been owned could start to be allowed in.
Laurie used the hour I was there to explore his phantasies and feel­
ings and was helped along, it seemed, by having focused attention on
him during this time. As time went on he found helpful ways of using
the space and regularity of the observation times. The year that I spent
observing Laurie was a fascinating journey for me. At the beginning of
the year, both Laurie and Tania were quite entangled with one another,
neither one of them really wanting to let go. Within the year, however,
a space for separation seemed to be found, and it came as little surprise
to me when Tania told me, during my last observation, that she had
just found out that she was expecting another baby. It seemed clear
that many more emotions could also be allowed in. Anger, sadness,
love seemed to be part of the vibrancy that surrounded the news of the
baby, mixed in with the ending of my visits. An extract from this last
observation is a fitting conclusion:

Laurie, 3 years 11 months

Laurie drives a chocolate car along the floor and bangs it into the Lego
brick. “It has crashed.” He picks it up and brings it to me and says, “It
can’t get better, it has broken”. He then gets some more cars and lines
them up. It is nearly time for me to go, and I explain this to Laurie,
repeating that I won’t be coming every week any more. Laurie appar­
ently ignores me and gets on with lining up the cars. I say to Laurie,
“Do you want this one”, handing him back the broken car. Laurie says
“No, I want you to have it.” I say, “Thank you, I will take it home with
me.” Laurie says, “Yes, this is my home.”
I wondered if Laurie’s saying that something had broken and could
not be mended was recognition of loss and change. Something was
going to change, but maybe someone could help to hold some of the
damage, and Laurie did have his own home.
CHAPTER SEVEN

The day Captain Antonio’s balloon burst

Sharon Warden

To see a human being reveal really exceptional qualities one must

be able to observe his activities over many years . . .
Jean Giono

T
he title of this chapter is taken from an observation at the allot­
ment in which our main character cast himself as Captain of
a ship, while he sat singing upon a tall silver conical climbing
frame. He was reliving his experience of a boat trip to Egypt on a
recent family holiday. Clinging onto a side railing below, his father
played a foot passenger and was instructed on and off the boat at will
and reminded on one passage how he narrowly avoided plunging into
the sea.
The observation reminded me of another imaginary Captain, “a
small miracle whose name was Captain Antonio Corelli”. I chose to
call the young hero of this piece “Antonio” after Louis de Bernières’s
legendary Captain, whose love of life and music wins him the hearts
and minds even of those whom his forces occupy—a man whom de
Bernières described as winning battles “armed with nothing but a
mandolin”. It is my fantasy that the two Captains shared similar child­
hood experiences.

123
124 sharon warden

The chapter, broadly speaking, falls into two halves. The first section
is more descriptive and introduces Captain Antonio and his parents
with some reference to relevant observational material. The second
half focuses on discussing excerpts from the observations. As so much
of the material is occupied by the Oedipus conflict, I have organized
it around three themes. These are: observing father and son and the
oedipal rhythm of their relationship; pre-oedipal anxiety and “the cel­
lar of doom and despair”; and, finally, “the day the balloon burst” as a
metaphor for oedipal knowing.

About Captain Antonio

Antonio is an only child; he was born at home on 26 April 1995. His
father Ian proudly described the process in our first observation. He
said Antonio’s mother Louise and he both felt it traumatic enough to
be born, so Louise had the idea of introducing the world gently. She
gave up driving her car in the later stages of pregnancy and did not go
out for about five weeks after Antonio was born. The two spent time at
home, with Ian bringing in the food. In the first months they took baby
Antonio outside into the back garden, then later to the front, and later
still beyond. Ian concluded, “In fact, I don’t think she went to the local
shops for about six months! Then one day she felt they were ready, and
off they went to Bradford to visit Louise’s mum!”
Antonio’s relationship with his mother and how they were cocooned
in the house for some time after the birth, not leaving until ready and
then only in small steps, was reflected on in the first discussions of
the family. We were reminded of Winnicott’s “Primary Maternal Pre­
occupation” (1956), with father dealing with reality and the outside
world, hunter-gathering or “bringing home the bacon”, while mother
is allowed to identify strongly with her child and his needs and to
suspend her need to relate to the outside world. There was a sense of
a mother in tune with her child and her body, and a sense Antonio has
benefited from this depth of thought.
Antonio is now 4 years old. Ian thinks he is tall for his age, but I
consider him of average height and stout build, though, like Corelli, he
has an uncanny knack of seeming larger than his stature. He has a halo
of neatly cropped dark blonde hair sitting in a line above bright sea-
green-blue eyes. His skin is pale peach; his face round, with cheeks rosy
from life lived outside, and he has a gentle smile that reliably melts all
arctic hearts. His favourite garment is a grey cycle helmet from which
he is rarely parted. Antonio seems to consider all other items of clothing
 the day captain antonio’s balloon burst 125

incidental. They rarely match, are often missing, but somehow never
clash and always have a habit of looking extremely comfortable.
Antonio is very quick, smart, and in tune with his environment. He
is master of his own space. He seems thoughtful and sensitive. From the
first observation he strongly identified with the observer when towards
the end he sat in a chair watching, taking it all in. In the third observa­
tion, the only one to date with Louise, Antonio said to the observer
half-way through that “we are working, and you are watching”. He
climbed down the ladder, picked up a square of Perspex, and moved
around looking at the observer and room through it. He seems to enjoy
being observed. He greeted the observer with a delighted expression
in Observation 5, saying, “Hello! You’re coming every day now”, and
two minutes later, when his father tried to engage him in a cake-making
task, Antonio marched upstairs seductively, telling the observer to fol­
low. Ian inquired what Antonio was going to show me. “Everything!”
was his reply.
The Oedipus conflict appears healthily alive, beating its rhythm in
Antonio’s soul, a rhythm of fixation on the size and potency of father’s
“tools” and a desire to interrupt and possess his mother’s music les­
sons. However, his parents seem to have an instinctive understanding
of their child. They enjoy him and accommodate his needs. Like the
stars for ancient mariners, they provide security in a timeless system
of navigation through space and turbulent waters.

The oedipal stars

Antonio lives with his parents, their German lodger “Mary”, and two
black-and-white cats, in an unusual cheese-wedge-shape of a stone
terraced house. It is in a constant state of transformation. Recently, a
dividing wall was taken down to extend the kitchen because Louise
wanted Antonio to have space to play and talk to her while she was
cooking in the kitchen. She said she hated it when women were alone
in the kitchen preparing food, cut off from people because there was no
space to sit and talk. A new stone floor and fireplace awaiting a wood
burner have followed the alteration.
The house seems a fitting metaphor for the family. A full house, full
of music and related objects; children coming and going for lessons. A
welcoming, comforting environment, enveloping and nurturing to the
extent that after the first observation, the observer felt sure she wanted
to move in and live there herself! The fullness goes upwards too: the
two large bedrooms on top of each other above the front room and,
126 sharon warden

below, the cellar. Toys, people, food, music, activity, bicycles, and furni­
ture abound. Yet there is a sense of space; everything has its place, from
Antonio’s orange aeroplane swing in the kitchen arch to the cats’ food
shelf in the hallway. All are catered for without obsession. In Observa­
tion 6 Antonio explained his sense of space in the place used to secure
the family’s bikes on the front wall. He gave the running order: first
Louise’s, then the tandem (his father’s including his seat), and then his,
all attached to each other. He seemed in tune with the oedipal order of
his life and environment at present.
Ian and Louise are in their late twenties, both tall, slightly plump,
and each with short dark-brown hair and pale olive skin. Louise, like
her son, has crystal-clear green-blue eyes and diamond-white teeth.
Ian’s features are similar but less striking, and despite his obvious
industriousness, he has an air of disorganization about him. Both par­
ents share the same casual relationship to clothes as Antonio. They are
music teachers and run a small business together. Ian teaches guitar
and reed instruments, his speciality being the saxophone, and Louise
teaches brass and piano. Although entwined in business and love, both
parents have a separate life outside the house. Louise is training to
become a Steiner teacher. Her training demands frequent weekend trips
to London, on some of which Antonio accompanies her.
The observations gave a sense of people with a strong and profound
sense of community and sharing, the pivot of a wider family. Ian and
Louise are thoughtful people deeply committed to a certain ecological
lifestyle—there are few concessions to modern technology. They do
not own a car or television; they travel on bicycles, buses, and trains.
They have an allotment where Ian grows organic vegetables and have
a sense of rhythm with the earth and their part in it. The depth of this
quality was commented on in initial group discussions about the fam­
ily. They consider all aspects of life, yet the ideology does not appear
to be “spray-on”. It has genuine depth and clarity, and they pass it on
to their son via everyday life. Antonio is given a lot of space to think
and explore. He is frequently invited to offer ideas and solutions to the
task at hand. The emphasis is on sharing and involvement. The group
thought about what this meant for Antonio, “a little boy swimming in
a rich containing painting”.
Virtually all the observations of father and son took place while Lou­
ise was teaching a young boy called Jack the tuba. Jack’s adroitness on
the tuba provided the backdrop to Antonio’s development throughout
the observations.
 the day captain antonio’s balloon burst 127

The oedipal rhythm, observing father and son

As a qualified civil engineer who used to work in construction, Ian
loves building things at any available opportunity. He does most of the
work on the house himself. He values his building skills and is keen
to pass these on to his son, through experimental learning. Antonio is
allowed to use all the tools, with assistance if necessary. He is consulted
each step of the way. The talk is of “what’s your plan? . . . show me
your idea, little man . . . do you have a cunning plan? . . . what do you
think?” and so on. Antonio is given a choice of tools—does he want
the big hammer or the little hammer? The big saw or the little saw? He
inevitably chooses the bigger items, not wanting to be associated with
smaller ones. Antonio tries out his ideas and solutions, but Ian offers
opinions on these and vice versa.
Antonio adores his father and emulates him. In the second obser­
vation, while searching for some glue down in the cellar, Antonio was
quick to point out his father’s shelves. He climbed up onto one and
proudly pointed to an impressive array of building tools. He said the
tools were all Ian’s. He took a very large drill bit, pretending to drill the
bench to show me what it did. Clearly the cellar was Dad’s territory,
and there was no mistaking it, father had a lot of tools. Big ones. The
themes of tools, their size and power, building, mending, fixing, and
linking have permeated all observations.
Father and son have a pleasurable relationship. It is very man-to-
man, a sense of the “boys together”. For example, in Observation 18,
I arrived at the allotment to find father and son standing in a pile of
manure. Antonio told me they were moving the “smelly hay”, which
he said was “cow poo”. Ian disagreed, saying he thought it was horse
poo, while filling his wheelbarrow, then his son’s toy wheelbarrow,
with manure. Antonio looked me up and down and said he was in the
smelly hay and I could not come down because it was a bit dirty. Ian
agreed, saying I had smart clothes on, not the sort you would want
covered in manure. Antonio looked at his garments, then at Ian’s, and
decided aloud they were okay to get a bit muddy. In that instance I
noticed father and son had identical clothes on: sweatshirt, jeans, and
wellington boots all the same colour and style, with one small but
poignant difference. Antonio’s wellingtons had a picture of Padding­
ton bear on the side. The duo climbed out of the pit of manure, took
their respective barrow loads, and headed for their allotment, tipping
the “smelly hay” over the edge into a pile. They repeated the ritual a
number of times. This was “man’s work”, not for girls in clean clothes.
128 sharon warden

The observer was the woman–mother watching the boys getting dirty
together and working the land.
A competitive rivalry as to who is bigger and who is being observed
abounds. Ian addresses Antonio as “little man”, emphasizing he is big­
ger and exposing his son’s immaturity. Antonio resents being reminded
of his youth. For example, in Observation 12 Antonio ran into the
kitchen and said, “Look! We’re making apple juice!” He picked up a
sharp knife. Ian entered the room, grabbed the knife, and said, “Not
with that sharp knife!” He gave Antonio another. The latter protested
vehemently and threw the new knife across the table at his father.
Ian looked cross but said to Antonio he was not going to use a sharp
knife because it was for older people. He told Antonio he could choose
whether he wanted Ian to cut the pieces or cut them himself with the
knife he had been given, and he handed it back to his son, who rejected
it, saying he wanted to use the “real” knife. Ian thought he could cut
well with the one he had been given. Antonio tried cutting a piece of
apple and protested it was not sharp enough. Ian asked if he wanted
him to cut the apple with the real knife. Antonio agreed, passing the
pieces to Ian, but then criticized Ian’s cutting saying the pieces were too
big to fit in his press to extract the juice. Ian re-cut a piece and asked if
it was better. Antonio agreed but added, “Louise did proper pieces!”
Antonio wants to use a sharp knife to demonstrate his maturity,
particularly in front of the observer, but Ian exposes his vulnerability,
giving a “you need protecting” message. Antonio’s response is to retali­
ate with “a shot across his father’s bow”: Mother did proper pieces of
apple!
Later in the same observation, Antonio asked if I could hear the
tuba. He said, “That’s Jack on the tuba!”. Ian made us all tea and, as
usual, asked, “Do you want to give Louise her tea, little man?” Antonio
nodded, taking the cup and carefully giving it to Louise in the front
room. Once in the room, he examines Jack’s tuba, peering under his
chair to see it all. Ian leads him out of the room, but Antonio’s eyes are
firmly fixed on Jack’s instrument. Back in the kitchen Antonio trium­
phantly tells me, “I saw Jack’s tuba, and it was upside down and went
right down to Jack’s feet under his chair.” The sound of a tuba rever­
berates through the house, and Antonio says it is like church bells and
imitates the sound, giggling and finishing with a jiggle of his body. He
then said he was hungry and wanted something to eat.
Later still, in the bedroom above Louise and Jack, Antonio bangs on
his keyboard full volume, telling the observer that in Peter and the Wolf
 the day captain antonio’s balloon burst 129

the wolf gobbled up the duck. Ian pushes the volume button down.
Antonio moves it back up and proceeds through all the special effects
on his keyboard. He seems to be showing the observer more than just
“his machine”. He is jealously interrupting the lesson below and bat­
tling with his father for control of the volume key!
The group discussions of this observation commented on Antonio’s
spying on Jack’s tuba to satisfy his curiosity. He is excited, wondering
what his mother is doing in there with that boy? Antonio’s feelings of
inadequacy after being reminded he is little are heightened. The tuba is
big, and Antonio is consumed with adoration, resentment, and jealousy.
He seems in touch with very difficult “wolf-like” feelings and then feels
hunger, as if to compensate for the feelings of missing something. His
parents have an understanding of Antonio’s jealousy. He is allowed to
take the tea into the room to Louise followed by Ian, a space between
the two. However, despite this thought for Antonio’s feelings, there are
inevitably other feelings the family struggle with and consign to the
“cellar of doom and despair”, such as those related to breaks, disagree­
ments, and separations.

Pre-oedipal anxiety, sailing to Egypt, and returning to the cellar

of doom and despair
It is impossible to escape those monsters that devour from the
inner depths, and the only way to vanquish them is to wrestle
with them like Jacob with his angel or Hercules with his serpents,
or else ignore them until they give up and disappear.
Louis de Bernières, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin (1994)

I mentioned earlier the observer’s enchantment with the family after

the first observation, embodied in an initial idealized wish to move in
and so too be enveloped by the nurturing, thoughtful environment.
This wish began to dissolve on reconnecting with the family after a
month’s break, when there appeared to be an avoidance of feeling. No
mention of gaps and separation, Ian in particular becoming very con­
crete, immediately engaging in detailed civil engineering explanations
about building work on the house. Antonio, on the other hand, said to
the observer,
“. . . I have been on holiday in an aeroplane!” “And a boat”, his
father adds from behind.
130 sharon warden

“Yes, a very big one, bigger than this [he extends his arms as far
apart as possible] and bigger than my house, even bigger than all
our house!”, Antonio exclaimed, with eyes wide like saucers.
“That is big”, I agreed.
“Yes it was very big and we went to Egypt in it! We saw the pyra­
mids; one was bigger than the other”, he added, nodding his head.
I was compelled to be impressed and reiterate, “Egypt . . . the pyra­
mids, gosh!” Antonio looked at me, smiling with satisfaction—the
mirror image of his father’s face behind him. Ian resumed the detail
about the current rebuild of the house’s cellar, and Antonio reiter­
ated it was now rubble so they had to completely rebuild it.
Antonio had explained to me in Observation 6 that the house had two
cellars. He had pointed to their whereabouts under the floor. Ian had
added that they were cold and disorganized, and I remembered they
were also his territory. He said he called them “the cellar of doom and
despair”. At that point, Antonio chipped in that the name was because
the cellars were cold and wet and there was a chimney falling down
that needed special work to hold it up.
In the same observation, after a disagreement between Louise and
Ian,
. . . . Antonio ran into the kitchen, picked up a tea towel, and told
me it had his trains on it. Realizing it was upside down, he turned
it round and said it had a broken corner. I said I could see. He pro­
ceeded to tie the towel to the table leg and cellar door handle and
started pulling the table round, asking Ian to help. Tea towel con­
nected, Antonio moved the table. It seemed a lot of effort, but he
explained he could open and shut the door with the table. A table
leg became stuck on the carpet, and Ian intervened, unsticking the
leg. Antonio continued opening the door, but shutting it proved
problematic. Another leg became stuck. He asked Ian to help. The
latter came over, unstuck the leg, and quietly shut the door. Antonio
looked up, noticed the door was shut, smiled, and said, “There!” Ian
smiled and agreed the door was shut. Antonio moved onto playing
with a large plastic bag, getting inside and covering himself with it,
and looking at the observer from his place on the floor.
Antonio’s behaviour becomes very intense, as if he has to take Ian’s
mind off the disagreement with Louise. Perhaps picking a tea towel to
mop up after it? The object has a corner missing: it is imperfect, like
 the day captain antonio’s balloon burst 131

the family whom the observer now sees in a more realistic light—initial
idealized thoughts long gone.
In group discussions, we wondered about Antonio’s anxieties. He
comes home from holiday, telling the observer it was a very huge
experience to go in a plane and boat to Egypt, and returns to find the
foundations of his house unstable. In reality this must have reflected
his own deep-seated anxieties, a symbol of pre-oedipal fears. Is Antonio
frightened, deep down, that there are lots of things that need mending.
Perhaps he fears he could fall to bits like rubble? The observer becomes
anxious for his safety when he plays with a large plastic charity bag,
and the group wondered about the significance of this in relation to
Bick’s ideas about second-skin formation. Antonio appears to be in tune
with something wrong in his world and seems frightened. Was the play
alleviating his anxieties by providing a second skin? Is this how this
family deals with fundamental anxieties: angry feelings are shut out,
avoided, and left to the cellar of doom and despair?
Having thought about the inescapable anxieties of “wrestling with
one’s monsters”, I would like to conclude by turning attention to the
inevitable pains of separation involved in growing up and changing.

The day the balloon burst: the birth of oedipal knowing?

Every parting is a foretaste of death.
Louis de Bernières, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin (1994)

Observation 19 started 15 minutes later than usual due to the observer

having car trouble.
Antonio greeted me and asked if I could hear Jack playing the tuba,
and showed me a huge purple balloon. He pointed to where it was
tied, saying Louise had blown it up and tied it for him. He had
added the red shoelace dangling at the end. He tied this to a toy
truck and asked me what kind of petrol my car took (an often-asked
question). He seemed intent on this matter, ending by telling me that
Louise used the yellow nozzle when hiring a car on holiday that was
better, diesel, like his truck. He dragged the toy vehicle upstairs and
into his bedroom, leaving a trail of toy passengers strewn down the
hallway. He played with the truck, commenting on the knots in his
shoelace around it. He said there were lots of knots and looked at
me. I agreed, not wanting to get the hint. Antonio asked if I could
untie the knots because he could not, but then began untying a
132 sharon warden

knot. I said they did look difficult, but he seemed to be untying

them himself. Ian entered the room, took charge of the untying,
and handed the freshly liberated balloon to his son. Antonio took
the balloon, picked up a tape, and asked if I liked Postman Pat, and
could I put the tape on for him. Ian said he would do it, but Antonio
promptly put the tape in the machine and turned it on. Ian observed
aloud that he could do it himself anyway. Antonio danced to the
music, twirling around and around, balloon in hand bouncing on
elastic. He sent it back and forth, getting a little wilder each time.
He stopped, listened to the music, and commented on the noise
of the balloon, a loud rattling sound, then resumed dancing. The
sphere bounced on his head, which Antonio thought hilarious. He
exclaimed excitedly that he had nearly “Got you!” when the balloon
came within millimetres of my legs. He described ways the object
could move, up and down, almost to the light bulb, side to side, and
up high again. Antonio squealed with delight at the exercise, creat­
ing a huge amount of noise, leaving me wondering about Louise’s
lesson in the room below.
Antonio began jumping up and down. He jumped onto his parents’
bed to continue. He seemed more excited with each jump. He fell
to his knees, turned over onto his back, and kicked his legs in the
air like a baby while bouncing the enormous purple globe on his
tummy. He then stood up and continued jumping on the bed and hit
the wind chime by accident. He told Ian and me that he had hit the
chime and started to aim the balloon at it. Suddenly there was a very
loud bang as the balloon burst. Antonio collapsed in tears on the
bed, and Ian rushed over to embrace him. He was utterly distraught.
He cried for several minutes, asking Ian between sobs if they could
fix the balloon. Ian tried to explain it would not work, but Antonio
did not understand why they could not glue the pieces together. He
looked at the deflated threads of the balloon in his hand and moved
on to the idea of Sellotape. Ian said, “No”, and again attempted to
explain why. Antonio dissolved into more inconsolable tears, asking
why his father could not fix his balloon. Ian seemed lost for words.
He then noticed bits on the bed and told Antonio he was covered in
them and therefore needed to be taken outside in order to get rid of
them. Ian picked up Antonio, who told his father the bits were “only
millet”. Louise had put millet inside the balloon to make it rattle.
They returned, and Antonio sat on his father’s lap looking very sad,
head down, fingering purple balloon tatters. He began to cry again.
 the day captain antonio’s balloon burst 133

“Why can’t we fix it?”, he sobbed. Ian said it would not fix and sug­
gested they buy another one.
“But Louise blew this one!” Antonio replied.
“Did she?” said Ian, beginning to look puzzled. There was a brief
silence.
“Ian, will she notice? Will Louise notice the balloon?” asked Anto­
nio.
Ian thought she would, and Antonio started crying. Ian asked if
Louise had bought him the balloon. Antonio said she had bought
it in Bradford while visiting his Nana. He again asked if Louise
would notice, and Ian wondered why this mattered as he thought
she would understand. He tried to distract his son by talking about
his next birthday. He said it would be soon, and he would have lots
of balloons then. “You’re going to be four!”, he added in an upbeat
fashion.
Antonio dissolved into further tears, saying he did not want to be
four; he did not want to get any older.
“Don’t you want a birthday, Popsy? And presents?” tried Ian. “No!
I don’t want to be four”, wailed Antonio.
‘OK, then you can stay three then”, said Ian, drawing his son closer
and kissing him on the head.
The doorbell rang, and both of them got up to answer it. Upon their
return, Antonio approached me somewhat recovered and said Post­
man Pat was on his way to Inglenook. The tape told us Postman
Pat was indeed on his way to Inglenook. Ian entered and asked if
Antonio wanted to build a train set. “What do you want me to do
for you little man? Tell me what you want me to make”, he asked.
Antonio, seemingly recovered, sat down and instructed his father
on what to build for him.

The observation seems a humbling experience for all concerned. Anto­

nio is aware of the observer’s tardiness and asks about her car, the
petrol, almost to check who was filling her up, perhaps demonstrating
his awareness of adults needing to feed and look after each other. He
moves on to playing with his balloon: a huge, purple sphere filled with
millet by Louise. She has inflated it with her breath, an appropriate
word for Antonio’s mood of ecstasy, filled with the aura of love and
134 sharon warden

passion for his mother and her beauty. The millet-filled balloon is a dual
sexed symbol: a womb filled with seeds (or perhaps the seeds represent
imagined rival siblings). Antonio enters an erotic dance of celebration,
worshipping the balloon on his parents’ bed, while the observer and
Ian watch. He is captivated by the balloon, bouncing it like a baby, in
an almost fetishist manner. The toy seems charged with an aura of the
person he loves, his object (reminding us of Freud’s theories about
the castration complex and fetishism). It is a noisy dance, interrupting
mother and her pupil below. Then the balloon bursts, and Antonio is
devastated and asks his father to fix it as he has so many other things, to
put it back together again, but father cannot fix this. Antonio learns that
things cannot last forever. The balloon bursts, infantile omnipotence is
coming to an end, and despite his desire, he needs to treat his object
well and take responsibility or else he may destroy it. Ian learns he can­
not fix everything and has to tolerate the humility of feeling his son’s
impending maturity, the two tolerating reality together. Ian attempts
to console, with thoughts of more balloons and birthdays, but Antonio
knows that more painful reality comes with age and maturity: he does
not want to be four. He wants to retain his omnipotence. He grieves the
loss this impending knowledge brings and resumes the familiar rhythm
of building with his father, while Postman Pat drives away. And the
observer watches, also reminded of reality. There will be a parting here
too; the observations will come to an end.

An ode to the Captain

Captain Antonio sailed to Egypt under a blanket of oedipal stars,
he returned singing heavenly songs of Jupiter, Venus and Mars.
And of the ideal man and nasty boys who make lots of noise with
mother above the cellar of doom and despair.
And a kind father and son who love each other as one
and ride off to a place where,
the hay is brown and smells not quite as it should
and waterbutts are full of wood.
Then one day in the morning he is left without warning
in a mess of heartbroken distress
for quite by surprise he grows to realize
that all balloons burst.
CHAPTER EIGHT

The observed child, the observing child:

the complexity of a child’s response
to the stillbirth of a sibling
Simonetta M. G. Adamo

“Children find it difficult to leave their mummies, their daddies

and their teachers”, said the little girl thoughtfully. “Maybe
even me”, suggested the observer. “Yes, yes”, agreed the girl
immediately.

T
he above conversation took place just before the summer holi­
day, between a 4-year-old girl and the observer, who had been
visiting her house on a weekly basis for a year. The observation,
conducted within the framework of the Young Child Observation semi­
nar, would continue for another year, as is usual for Tavistock-model
training courses held in Italy (Adamo & Magagna, 1998).
The child, named Giorgia, seems to be reflecting on her own experi­
ences and, more specifically, on the separations and acquisitions that
this year has brought her. It has been a difficult year in many ways. Her
mother’s new pregnancy ended tragically with the death of the baby,
and this had a powerful impact on the child. However, these words also
show the workings of a mind that is capable of self-observation and
of sharing thoughts with a person of her own choosing. The observer
has been a discreet and sensitive witness over the year of the emo­
tional turmoil and upheaval faced by Giorgia as she navigates through
oedipal conflicts. The crossing proved to be a stormy one, due in part
to her internal equipment, which showed a mixture of vulnerabilities

135
136 simonetta m. g. adamo

and some notable resources. It has certainly been severely tested by the
traumatic event. During a later phase of the observation, the picture of
a boat in a stormy sea without sails or rudder appeared in one of her
drawings, and this seemed a very apt image.
The observer’s1 carefully kept records follow her difficult journey
and monitor the child’s gradual conquest of an observational stance
from where she can think through her mental states and their trans­
formations. However, the observer’s role does not confine itself to this
function but plays a more dynamic function, in encouraging the devel­
opment of the child’s own observing and reflective capacities.
Similar issues were discussed in a previous study (Adamo &
Magagna, 1998). There is, however, an important difference. In that
paper we were confronted mainly with the child’s struggles between
acting out her aggressive feelings towards the newborn and retreat­
ing into a “private space” shared with the observer, where she was
able to restrain herself from impulse to action and to symbolize her
feelings in play. In this case, by contrast, due to the tragedy of the
baby’s death, the focus is more on the inner mourning process as
reflected in the child’s play, drawings, verbalizations, and use of sto­
ries. Through them, we can follow the development of the mourning
process from its initial state, characterized by strong persecutory feel­
ings and depression, to the attainment of a more depressive state and
of reparative capacities.

A fragile psychic skin

Giorgia was 3½ years old when the observer visited her house for the
first time to meet her parents and discuss the possibility of observing
the child. The family includes the parents, who are both sensitive pro­
fessionals and have a good relationship, and another daughter, Gabri­
ella, who is 21 months younger.
The mother is pregnant again and will have a baby son in two
months’ time. It emerges during the first interview with the mother that
Giorgia has suffered from emotional spasms2 ever since her birth, which
lead to fainting at moments marked by strong emotional tension. The
first of these episodes, which continue to occur but have become less
frequent, took place when she was a year old; the baby had a spasm
while her nappy was being changed. Her mother remembers that she
wandered around the house, “holding the child who looked as though
she were dead”. A spasm occurred on another occasion when her
mother spanked her. Her mother informs the observer about a visit to
 the observed child, the observing child 137

a child neuropsychiatrist who had reassured her and excused her from
any blame, although he added that Giorgia was a “child that needed to
be at the centre of attention”.
The observer realizes the mother’s fear of a possible resumption of
similar episodes and the threat looming that they may be concealed
in apparently banal events and other problems. The mother’s sense
of guilt is almost tangible and, although calmed by the remarks of the
doctor, later becomes openly acknowledged when, in reference to her
recent bout of depression, she attributes it to her perfectionism and her
tendency to regard herself as responsible for anything that goes wrong
in the household, including her daughters’ lives.
Apart from being evoked by the forthcoming birth of another child,
these memories and worries have risen to the surface in the mother’s
mind through contact with the observer. The mother frankly expresses
her doubts about the observation: will it not be simply a further burden
in a period when she will be busy looking after three young children?
How will Giorgia react? How could she introduce the observer to her?
At an unconscious level, the mother may also be communicating her
anxiety that the observer may view her from a critical and judgmental
point of view, noting inadequacies and problems and accentuating her
sense of guilt. However, she shows the capacity to cope with these
conflicts and face them openly in a debate that takes place first in her
mind and then with the observer. Her eventual agreement therefore
seems to be the outcome of careful consideration rather than an impul­
sive decision.
In the light of these comments we can suggest that she may be
expressing the hope that Giorgia may benefit, during the delicate period
marked by the birth of a baby brother, from the special “attention” she
may receive from the observer. By referring to the neuropsychiatrist’s
diagnosis and comments, the mother may be tentatively considering
the possibility of alternative ways of approaching and understanding
her daughter. Perhaps the observer may be the person to offer a new
perspective.
It is certainly the case that Giorgia’s experiences, as recounted by
her mother, bring to mind similar descriptions of other babies (Miller,
Rustin, Rustin, & Shuttleworth, 1989) who had “a reaction of panic
and collapse” when their clothes were taken off, possibly because
their “mental skin was not strong enough to protect. . . . [them] from
overwhelming anxieties of disintegration”. These descriptions give us
an idea of the nature of the child’s experience but perhaps not of its
intensity. One needs to bear in mind that when the spasm occurred,
138 simonetta m. g. adamo

Giorgia was already a year old and not a baby of only a few weeks. Her
anxiety could not in any way be discharged by crying or movement
but had provoked a sort of somatic short circuit: the emotional spasm.
We are not facing a child’s fear of dying, which, by means of a success­
ful process of containment, can be soothed and modulated by mother,
but, rather, a situation in which mother and child live through a shared
experience of “danger of death”.

Sorting through clothes

During the first observation, which took place in September, the mother
was with Giorgia and her baby sister among a pile of baby clothes.
“We’re sorting through the clothes for autumn”, her mother explains
to the observer.
“No, I’m doing it”, Giorgia corrects her.
The observer is immediately confronted both by the child’s abilities
(she is competent and precise when folding clothes) and by the denial
of her need for her mother’s presence and help. This denial lends a
defensive and pseudo-adult-like quality to her capacities.
Giorgia takes a plastic dog, puts it on the little table and covers it
with two jerseys, as if they were a blanket . . . Later on, she goes
and gets another dog—this time, a felt toy—with the aim of putting
them down to sleep near each other, but she immediately decides,
without even trying, that there is not space enough for both of
them. She changes the game and says, “No, now I’m going to make
a cinema.” She places a toy projector on the table, puts a few chairs
in rows, placing both toy animals and her sister on them. She then
asks her mother and the observer to be spectators.
“When everything is ready”, Giorgia says, “everyone be quiet. The
film is about to begin. Which one do you want to see?” No one
replies . . . so Giorgia says, “I’ll show you skis and snow.”
The film is over, and Giorgia moves towards the wardrobe where her
mother is busy sorting through clothes.
She picks up a pair of slippers made of material with a small
strap, like Chinese slippers. They are tiny and could be those of
a doll. She goes over to her sister and tries to force them on, even
though they don’t fit. Gabriella loses her patience, partly because
 the observed child, the observing child 139

she is being continually pushed by her sister and nearly falls off
the chair . . .
Giorgia then tries again with a large doll, which she prompts the
observer to hand her. Finally,
. . . . she gets a Barbie, takes off its adult clothes, puts on a nappy
and a dummy. She puts the doll in the pram and remarks. “She cried
last night. Now I will leave her with the Filipino maid and go out
for dinner.”
However, it is Giorgia herself who, immediately afterwards,
addresses her mother in a tearful voice, beseeching her, “Mummy,
stay here. Where are you going?” She says this on each of the two
occasions when her mother briefly goes out of the room.

Comment
What is immediately striking is the emergence in the material of a
theme, alluded to above in the description of the infantile trauma,
which will resurface regularly during the observations: the need to find
shelter and protection from exposure to a cold environment. Giorgia
introduces the theme in her game with the blanket and the two puppies
in which she also takes for granted the fact that the blanket “is not large
enough to cover both of them”.
Her experience of a container that is not large enough for two
resurfaces more evidently in a subsequent situation, when she becomes
anxious because her mother leaves the room for a few minutes. It is
as though she needs the continual concrete presence of the mother in
order to feel integrated, and that her mother’s absence, despite being
momentary, causes her baby self to re-emerge, a self that cannot cope
on her own.
However, the blanket that cannot cover the hard plastic dog and
the soft fluffy puppy may be also interpreted as a representation of her
self, of a psychic skin that cannot embrace different and split aspects
of herself: the competent part and the soft and vulnerable baby part.
We witness Giorgia’s repeated violent attempts to put the doll’s shoes
on her little sister as if she wanted to free herself, through projective
identification, from her baby self.
Her game with Barbie, who was deprived of her clothes and her
adult identity, seems to throw light on the dynamics of this process.
Giorgia seems to be saying that it is not at all safe to abandon a pseudo-
adult identity and be revealed to be small and dependent, since this
140 simonetta m. g. adamo

automatically implies, in her inner experience, exposure to abandon­

ment and cruel rejection: “She cried last night; now I’ll leave her with
the Filipino maid and go out to dinner.”
At a psychic level, the activity of sorting through clothes, decid­
ing which ones still fit and which can be discarded and given to her
sister, is not as simple as Giorgia initially supposed. In fact, it involves
important questions inherent in the difference between abandoning
clothes representing mental states because they have been outgrown
or integrated, and the desire to free herself of them, forcing them onto
someone else. As soon as the filter of her inner reality makes her take for
granted the inadequacy of the external and internal container, Giorgia
immediately starts to “make the cinema”. The theme of cold resurfaces
but now seems to be approached through detachment, control, and the
manic defence of transforming exposure to the cold into an enjoyable
sporting activity.

Puppies in the cold

During the seminar presentation that took place two months later, we
learn that the baby was stillborn. Following a routine check-up, during
which everything seemed to be going well, the mother had gone into
labour, the heartbeat of the baby could no longer be heard, and the
baby, as it was later discovered, had already been dead for several days.
During a lengthy telephone conversation, the mother talks with the
observer about the difficulty of finding words to tell Giorgia the news
since she had really been looking forward to having a baby brother and
had already chosen a name for him,
“My husband decided that, before I returned home from the clinic,
he would tell Giorgia the news. He told her that her baby brother
wouldn’t be able to come home because, despite mummy’s and
daddy’s efforts to convince him to stay with us, he had insisted on
returning to heaven and now lives on a little cloud.”
The observer asks the mother whether Giorgia said anything about
this, to which she replies, “Nothing at the moment, apart from the
question she asked me when I came home: ‘Will my baby brother
have a blanket on the little cloud to keep warm because it is so
cold?’”
During the following observation, Giorgia plays with a doll that she
covers in one of her sister’s blankets and takes for a walk.
 the observed child, the observing child 141

When her little sister comes near their mother, Giorgia stops playing
and asks her mother for a cuddly toy. Her mother gives her a very
beautiful kitten and says to her, “Did you tell Emanuela who gave
you this lovely new kitten?”, to which Giorgia replies, “Granny!”
The mother then turns to the observer and adds, “Since Gabriella
had taken possession of Giorgia’s old one, my mother brought this
new toy kitten for her the other day.” Giorgia interrupts, correcting
her, “Mio Mao is Gabri’s and this one is mine.”

The observer looks at the white kitten, and it suddenly reminds her of
the cartoon The Aristocats, so she says,

“She looks like one of the Aristocats.” And mother says, “Yes, it’s
true, she looks like that kitten . . . Oh, what’s its name? Minou, I
think.”
The observer confirms this. Giorgia then asks her mother, “Do you
remember, how they all cried when they were out in the cold and
the rain?” There is silence. Then Giorgia continues, “I’d like to see
The Aristocats, but it’s probably better that Gabriella doesn’t because
she’s afraid of storms.”
With extreme determination, Giorgia gets up and goes straight to
the television and nags her mother to see the film, reiterating that
it would be better for her sister not to see it because she would be
frightened. The cartoon begins, and both sisters watch it. Suddenly,
Giorgia goes and sits on the observer’s lap, as if by accident.

Giorgia’s naturalness in the way she does this really surprises the
observer; she simply took the opportunity to get up, push her sister
away, and then, as if she was going back to her original place, came to
sit on her lap.

The observer puts her hands round the child’s waist to hold her
close, and they stay like this for at least ten minutes. It is the part
of the film where the kittens are abandoned by the evil butler in an
unknown place in the rain.

After a missed session, the observer encounters a very different

­Giorgia. The girl is with her grandmother with whom she behaves
in a demanding and controlling fashion. The grandmother complains
to the observer about Giorgia saying that she has been very difficult
recently.
142 simonetta m. g. adamo

At the same time as holding a plate full of biscuits on her lap,

­Georgia’s right hand is placed over her nose and mouth with her
palm facing outwards. She appears to be sucking her middle finger
but is actually rubbing her hand almost imperceptibly up and down.
Giorgia is cold and dismissive towards the observer. She doesn’t say
hello and goes and sits far away from her in front of the television. The
television once more becomes the sole focus of Giorgia’s attention, and,
once again, there are puppies in danger.
Giorgia is watching 101 Dalmatians, and when the scene approaches
where the Dalmatian puppies escape in the snow, she starts to dis­
play signs of unease and asks her grandmother to fast-forward to
the next scene. Her grandmother refuses and tries to reassure her
that the story has a happy ending. But Giorgia seems totally unable
to cope with exposure to certain images, and her voice turns into a
sort of plea: “Please, Granny, I don’t want to see the snow and that
cold.”
The observer’s spontaneous reaction is to say that perhaps she is
afraid that the puppies may die with so much snow. Giorgia looks
at her and nods. Subsequently, Giorgia repeatedly tries to get the
remote control in order to skim over some of the scenes, but her
grandmother doesn’t let her. Giorgia therefore takes grandmother’s
hand, puts it between hers, and asks her to keep close. The scene
comes where a puppy is left behind and cannot move due to the
cold. Giorgia continues to plead with her not to see this bit and
even cries a little. She cheers up, though, when the puppies arrive
safely in the cowshed, and asks to see the scene again, but her
grandmother again doesn’t let her have her way and says that she
doesn’t know how the video works. The reappearance of Cruella,
who is chasing the puppies, makes her frightened again, “Look
how ugly and evil Cruella is. She looks like a ghost!” Giorgia takes
hold of grandmother’s hand once more and only lets go at the end
of the film.
When the observation is over, Giorgia seems to be worried about being
separated from the observer.
In a weak voice, the child asks her where she is going. Her voice is
strange, tearful, and subdued—completely different from the agi­
tated voice she uses when she desperately wants something. These
two different voices seem to be the exact opposite of each other.
 the observed child, the observing child 143

Comment
These observations are very sad, and they powerfully convey the
feelings of loss within the family provoked by the death of the baby.
Following this event, during a lengthy telephone conversation with
the observer, the mother tells her about the tragic death of a previous
partner of hers. An earlier image resurfaces in our mind of the time
when she described Giorgia’s first emotional spasm, and mother wan­
dered around the house holding her daughter “who looked as though
she were dead”.
The image of the “child on the cloud” seems perhaps to refer
not only to father’s attempt to find “the right words” to tell Giorgia,
but also to mother’s need to find shelter from the raw details of the
baby’s death. At the start of the next observation, spurred on by her
mother, Giorgia greets the observer with a surprised smile as if she
didn’t really believe she would see her again. No one refers explicitly
to what has happened, but there are constant reminders. The new toy
kitten given by her grandmother seems to be a symbolic substitute,
which implicitly alludes to the child that should be there but is not.
It also signifies the adults’ concern for the suffering that the elder
child is going through. They seem to be trying to avoid any appro­
priations of feelings of softness or vulnerability by the younger child,
even though we later witness Giorgia’s attempt to attribute them to
her ­little sister. She says she wants to “protect her” from watching
the film; however, in reality she wants to inflict her fear and suffering
onto her sister.
It might be asked whether the hardening defence that results from
the splitting and projective identification of her vulnerable parts may
also underlie Giorgia’s failure to give a name to her new kitten: “Mio
Mao is Gabri’s and this one is mine”. It seems as though Giorgia, who
had thought of a name for her baby brother, wanted to protect herself
from the recognition of the personal bond and special attachment that
the giving of a name implies.3
However, the loss, while not spoken of directly, is approached by the
symbolic mediation offered by the observer, through her spontaneous
association to the story of the Aristocats, the kittens that the evil butler
wants to get rid of because of his jealousy and the fear of not being
the sole beneficiary of his mistress’s will. The impossibility of naming,
expressed by Giorgia, seems to correspond with the difficulty voiced by
the mother to find words to speak with her daughter about the death of
the baby. The spontaneous association of the observer seems, therefore,
144 simonetta m. g. adamo

to respond to a deep need in the mother–child relationship to fill this

gap and restore communication.
This seems confirmed by the immediacy with which they both pick
up the observer’s comments and use them. A new version of the loss is
now suggested through the story of the Aristocats, different from the
story of the baby who refused to stay with them and returned to his
cloud. Giorgia’s attacks on her sister, in attempting to remove her from
mother’s lap, make clear that the pain at the loss of her baby brother
is confused with the persecutory anxiety stemming from the desire to
eliminate a potential rival. The observer’s availability, however, seems
to offer Giorgia a different solution—the use of a substitute. It is by sit­
ting on the observer’s lap, securely protected within her arms, which
provide physical containment, that Giorgia can cope with seeing the
film.

Developments in the relationship to the observer

A different picture emerges during the next observation: two months
have passed, and mother has returned to work. Added to this fact is
a cancelled visit by the observer. The observer is immediately struck
by Giorgia’s desire for oral gratification and by the almost tyranni­
cal control she exerts over her grandmother, who puts up with the
situation, possibly for fear of another outbreak of emotional spasms.
Not only does Giorgia ask for lots of biscuits, but, for the first time,
autoerotic forms of satisfaction appear in her mode of sucking and
exploration of the tactile sensations caused by rubbing the back of her
hand against her lips. Giorgia ostentatiously ignores and maltreats the
observer, maybe to punish her for her absence. The subsequent events
show us, however, that Giorgia is capable of forgiveness. She looks
appreciatively at the observer when she realizes and verbalizes the
extent to which it might be painful for Giorgia to witness the scenes
where the Dalmatian puppies, pursued by the evil Cruella, risk dying
from exposure.
“Go, Go, Go—said the bird—human kind cannot bear too much
reality”, warns the poet (Eliot, 1944). When Giorgia asks her grand­
mother to fast-forward the saddest scenes with the remote control and
watch more reassuring and consoling scenes several times, she seems
to be expressing the need to regulate her exposure to reality and the
amount of anxiety she can tolerate. However, in the face of Giorgia’s
request, her grandmother’s inflexible response excludes any possible
modulation. Perhaps the difficulty that the grandmother expresses is
 the observed child, the observing child 145

also one that is central in this observation, as well as being crucial to a

child’s development: the ability to discriminate between a child’s needs
and her attempts to control others, in order to respond helpfully.

The prisoner in the castle

In the months before the summer, the relationship with father becomes
particularly important for Giorgia, as emerges from the following two
observations.
During the first one, Giorgia seems extremely excited by the pres­
ence of father. However, when he leaves,

. . . . the atmosphere changes, there is a sense of an immediate low­

ering of tension, as if there was nowhere to let off steam. . . . After
a momentary silence, Giorgia asks her sister to play at being two
women who go to buy things to eat. The observer is asked to play
the shopkeeper. Giorgia takes the whole basket of plastic fruit and
vegetables and empties it over her. She immediately wants to come
and buy something. Giorgia approaches the observer excitedly and
tells her that she wants some oranges, and then, without waiting for
her answer, she takes some. She then wants bananas and tomatoes.
She puts them all in a plastic bag and hardly gives her sister a chance
to buy anything.

Giorgia then suggests to her sister that they play Simba and Nala
(the two main characters of The Lion King). The girls crawl and slide
around the floor, partly attacking and partly embracing each other.
The observer feels that Giorgia is trying to eroticize the game. They
don’t speak, and Giorgia, in particular, roars like a lion. In a corner
of the room, she constructs a kind of den and goes inside and asks
her sister to do the same. She starts to make a sort of groan, which
frightens Gabriella, who leaves the den. Giorgia tries to bring her
back in, then, still on all fours, goes back inside, saying that she
has to hatch her eggs. She opens her legs wide apart and sits on
top of the dolls and says, “Look, my baby Nalas have been born.”
Gabriella watches her and seems uninterested in this performance.
Perhaps she is slightly afraid. She asks her sister, “Gio, will mummy
come soon?” Giorgia, in a rather irritated voice, replies, “Yes, she’ll
come later”.

The presence of the father causes great excitement, especially in

­Giorgia, but this excitement fades immediately after his departure.
146 simonetta m. g. adamo

During the game that follows, one can observe Giorgia’s change from
one mental state, where fantasies of total access to a mother–breast
over which she claims exclusive control seem to predominate, to
another in which she seems to identify first with the mother in the
primal scene, and then with mother producing babies.
During the greengrocer game, she initially moves with impatience
and greed, as if wanting to take full possession and deprive the shop­
keeper–breast of all her food, leaving nothing for the shopkeeper or her
little sister. She shows no respect for times or rules.
Subsequently, when she suggests the Lion King game and keeps the
part of Nala for herself, the intense enactment of her oedipal desires and
phantasies seems to prevent their effective containment at a symbolic
level. The game thus assumes an excessively realistic quality (Hoxter,
1977), which provokes unease in the observer and frightens her little
sister, to the extent that Gabriella asks for reassurance about the return
of mother who will be able to guarantee the restoration of parental roles
and prerogatives.
It is interesting to note how these themes re-emerge in later material
but in a different form—a drawing—and are the subject of an explicit
verbal exchange between Giorgia and the observer.
The observer arrives at Giorgia’s house and, even from outside, she
can hear her crying and saying, “I want daddy, I want daddy”. As
soon as Gabriella sees her, she says, “Giorgia is crying because she
wants daddy.”
The door of the girls’ room is closed, and Giorgia can be heard
sobbing. The observer, followed by Gabriella, enters to see Giorgia
sitting in a corner, beneath the window, with her head in her hands
and balanced on her knees. Without coming too close, the observer
asks her why she is so sad and angry. She doesn’t immediately
reply, partly because Gabriella interjects, “Because daddy has gone
to work, isn’t that it, Gio?”
Giorgia later expresses her unhappiness at not being allowed to go to
work with her father as she had done in the past and is able to put her
desire and hurt into words . . .
“Yes, it’s because little children want to be with their daddy and
mummy.” Gabriella echoes her words and says, “I want to be with
mummy.” Giorgia then takes the book of The Little Mermaid and tells
the story to the observer. The theme is rivalry: Ursula the Octopus
 the observed child, the observing child 147

steals the voice of Ariel, the Little Mermaid. Giorgia compares the
two and wonders who is more beautiful.

Then she wants to draw but decides to put her pyjamas on first. The
observer is struck by the way she undresses and puts on her pyjamas,
as well as by the peculiarity of her movements . . .
She seems to be “a real little madam” when dressing. She has a par­
ticularly complicated way of putting on her pyjama top and seems
to be imitating an adult who is dressing a child.
The observer had already been struck by something similar when . . .
Giorgia, in an attempt to control her anger towards her sister, takes
her hand and slaps it. The observer comments, “She reminds me of
a miniature version of an old-fashioned schoolteacher”, suggesting
that the nature of the identification with an adult role is projective
rather than introjective.
When she is ready to go to bed, Giorgia takes the observer by the hand,
and they go into the sitting room, where there are sheets of paper to
draw on. Gabriella wants to draw as well, and follows them.
The two girls both sit on the floor. Giorgia starts to draw a long,
narrow castle. She draws a girl inside the castle and points out that
she is not the princess. Outside the castle she draws a prince and
a queen, while, on the other side, she draws some shapes and asks
the observer to guess what they represent. She gives her a clue by
telling her that they are sweet. They have the shape of an upside-
down cup. She draws two or three of them. On top of each one, she
sketches a little doodle which looks like a kind of fringe. The colours
are extremely vivid. The little girl in the picture has dark hair, and
she looks like Ursula the Octopus pretending to be Ariel the Little
Mermaid. The queen has fair hair. Giorgia talks to the observer
about her drawing and explains, “I am the child, you are the queen,
and daddy is the prince, no, I mean mummy is the queen.” She then
writes on top of the sheet of paper: “mummy and daddy”.
When, a little later, the observer says to the girls that they will
be able to show their drawings to their parents later on, Giorgia
comments that she will show her drawings to her teacher as well.
The observer agrees and . . . Giorgia asks her, “Will you become a
schoolteacher?”
148 simonetta m. g. adamo

The observer is rather taken by surprise and imagines she is referring

to the reason why she is conducting this observation, so she tells her
that she will become a teacher although a teacher of children who aren’t
very well because they have problems.

Giorgia listens to her and says thoughtfully, “Children find it dif­

ficult to leave their mummies, their daddies, and their teachers.”4
She falls silent. The observer suggests, “Maybe even me.” The girl
immediately replies, “Yes, yes.”

Comment
The sound of Giorgia crying greets the observer and leads her towards
her hiding place where, closed in her room and half hidden under the
window, she sits all hunched up. This is the occasion when the little
sister shows for the first time that she is really growing up and can
put the distress of her elder sister into words. She can understand her
sister’s pain, although she doesn’t share it because, as she points out
in a subsequent series of remarks, she is too far away from the grief of
an openly oedipal conflict. When Giorgia explains to the observer why
she is crying: “Yes, because little children want to be with their daddy
and their mummy”, her little sister corrects her, contrasting her own
feelings: “I want to be with mummy!”
Possibly Giorgia’s sense of isolation has been added to by her diffi­
culty in communicating verbally with the maid, the only adult present,
who has a limited knowledge of Italian and can only express herself
in rather factual terms.5 This difficulty was noticed several times by
the observer, and the mother spoke about it at length in a subsequent
session. Giorgia’s need for her father’s attention, her intense hurt, and
her frustrated desire to share other spaces of his life seem to drive her
towards fantasies of projective identification with mother. The tradi­
tional theme “Who is the most beautiful girl in the kingdom?” surfaces
in the material about the Little Mermaid. Ursula the Octopus, through
deceit and magic, wants to steal the physical appearance and talents of
Ariel—both her beauty and her lovely voice—in order to win the love
of the prince. The observer’s sensitivity allows us to follow the changes
in the child’s feelings and her identificatory movements through a
range of forms of expression: crying, verbal communication, behav­
iour, drawing. The desire to escape from pain by means of projective
identification emerges not only in the story of the relationship between
Ursula and Ariel, but also in other details of Giorgia’s behaviour. The
 the observed child, the observing child 149

observer is reminded of a caricature schoolteacher, while the motions

Giorgia makes when she undresses call to mind the image of an adult
undressing a child.
However, the oedipal situation emerges in an even more complex
way in her subsequent drawing. We could say that Giorgia is not only
in oedipal pain but has the capacity to suffer it, and to reflect on and
analyse it. Her drawing shows a girl imprisoned in a long narrow
castle. The girl is depicted using lines and colour that echo the picture
of Ursula when she steals Ariel’s appearance. Of particular interest is
Giorgia’s clarification that the girl in the picture, although daughter of
the prince and the queen, is not a princess. Besides the pain of exclu­
sion, which makes her feel that she is unable to have any riches—food,
emotional bonds—Giorgia appears to be conveying an even more pain­
ful emotion, a feeling that she is dispossessed of her fullest bond: “The
child is the daughter, but she is not the princess.” In her drawing of an
upturned cup with a feather on top—a depiction of a breast with nip­
ple, a depository of goodness and nutrition—and of the couple formed
by the prince and the queen, Giorgia seems to be telling the observer
that her pain derives from a two-fold inaccessibility, that of the mother–
breast and that of the oedipal couple. At this point, it is worth asking
whether the death of her stillborn baby brother may have caused an
intensification of these anxieties at various levels, since the dead child
may be perceived as a secret rival in mother’s mind.
More specifically, we can observe the extent to which Giorgia
regards her mother as inaccessible because she is closed off in her grief
and sorrow. The space that the lost child occupies in the mind of the
mother may be more difficult for Giorgia to explore, control, and share
than that occupied by a living infant who permits, at least occasion­
ally, the consolation of an identificatory relationship. Following this
line of thought we can reconsider the previous material in relation
to the kidnapped puppies who are exposed to the cold, and wonder
whether the puppies might represent a part of Giorgia herself, a baby
self who fears that maternal warmth can be withdrawn from her as a
consequence of her mother’s icy depression? But, as has previously
emerged, the analysis of the material also shows the resources that
Giorgia possesses, allowing her to avoid being confined for too long
in the same state of mind. One such resource can be seen in the care
with which Giorgia explains her drawing to the observer, making sure
that she understands the picture. Here there is not only the desire to be
understood, but also this wish implying for the child a responsibility
to make a contribution that will help the other person to understand.
150 simonetta m. g. adamo

This aspect repeatedly emerges in the relationship between Giorgia and

the observer, and it implies the existence of an understanding object in
the child’s inner world.
It is also of interest that, following the expression in her drawing
of oedipal pain, Giorgia seems able to move on and to accept her child
status. She can then acknowledge the new relationships, such as that
with her teacher, that the growing-up process brings with it. An impor­
tant exchange with the observer takes place at this point. By asking the
observer what she will do eventually, Giorgia seems able to contem­
plate another way of growing up: a slower, more difficult development
“without magic”, as she subsequently termed it, that does not eliminate
the temporal dimension. This alternative path recognizes the difference
between past, present, and future, between being a child and being an
adult, and implies, as a corollary, the gradual acquisition of qualities
through experience, learning, and introjective identifications.

Oscillations: the baby under attack—the mourned baby

The renewal of the observations after the summer break is not easy,
however. Giorgia does not merely restrict herself to expressing her
hostility towards the observer verbally—“Go away, you’re bad”—but
also attacks her by spitting and kicking.
At school, as well, she is going through an extremely problematic
period. When she returned there, she found that space had been allo­
cated to creating a nursery for newborn babies and, according to her
teachers, Giorgia attacks them and shakes their prams. However, she,
in turn, is frightened by her classmates, by whom she feels threatened
and attacked.
Simultaneously, however, she starts to talk to the observer about the
sadness she feels about the death of her baby brother, since she experi­
ences it as a rejection by the expected child.
Giorgia plays with a pear-shaped musical box and laughs with the
observer, commenting on its funny shape.
. . . . Then, suddenly thoughtful, she adds, “You know, this was
meant for my brother; but he didn’t want to stay with us. There
was nothing we could do: “Go on, stay”; but there was nothing we
could do” . . .
She gazes out of the window. The observer then asks her where
he had gone, to which she replies, “Onto a cloud.” The observer
remarks that she imagines how sad she must be that he did not stay,
 the observed child, the observing child 151

and she replies, in a weak and plaintive voice, “Yes, I want him.”
They both remain silent for a few minutes. The observer feels sad
as well.

Comment
What seems to be especially interesting during this observation is the
space that provides the context for communication. Giorgia’s new bed,
designed by the father, seems to allude symbolically to her need to
find a “mental lap” in her father and the observer (Adamo & Magagna,
1998). It can function as a more containing space, at a time when the
maternal lap is possibly perceived as overburdened with feelings con­
nected to death. The child’s experience may have been provoked by the
fact that her mother could not tell her directly about the death of the
baby. However, it may also be fuelled by Giorgia’s problems in com­
ing close to her mother because of feeling weighed down by a sense
of guilt and persecutory anxiety due to her hostile feelings towards
the imagined baby. The observer thus becomes not only the silent wit­
ness, but also an accompanying presence in a developmental process
that gradually assumes a clearer and steadier orientation towards the
depressive ­position.

The fairy tale of the gorilla and the wise puppy

During a session around the start of February (Giorgia is now 5 and
Gabriella is 3 years 4 months old), both mother and daughters are pre­
sent. The mother informs the observer in private that she is expecting
another child, but the two girls do not yet know. The game played by
the girls seems marked by a calmer capacity for sharing, which is sup­
ported and mediated by the presence of their mother.
At the beginning, the observer finds Giorgia hunched up and almost
isolated. She is colouring a picture of a hand. This reminds the observer
of a nursery rhyme sung by the girls on the previous occasion in which
each finger of the hand corresponds to a member of the extended fam­
ily.6 The isolation seems to protect Giorgia from the conflict underway
between her mother and her little sister. Gabriella, who is now almost
the same age as Giorgia was when the observations started, reminds
the observer of her elder sister. It is Gabriella who now cannot bear
restrictions and frequently engages in fierce clashes with her mother.
In contrast to what previously occurred, mother’s temporary
absence or involvement with her younger sister does not cause G ­ iorgia
152 simonetta m. g. adamo

to stop playing immediately. She now quietly completes what she is

doing before joining in the game begun by mother and little sister.
When mother and Gabriella have quietened down and begin to play
with some animals, Giorgia initially finishes her drawing and then
asks mother to pass her the animals that her sister is not using at the
moment. When Giorgia wants something that her little sister has, she
negotiates for it rather than insisting upon having it or snatching it
away.
Even though it is not explicit, the theme of the new pregnancy is pre­
sent, anticipated by the symbolic preparation that mother introduces.

The mother moves to one side and builds a tree out of Lego, with a
cat at the top of it. She asks Gabriella to tell the observer what they
had seen the day before. Gabriella looks at it questioningly. Then her
mother reminds her of the fire engine that they had seen coming out
of a garage with the sirens blaring. Gabriella asks her, “Where did it
go? Did it come to our house?” Her mother replies, “No, luckily they
didn’t need to come to our house. Maybe they were going to rescue a
kitten that had climbed up a tree and couldn’t get down, like the one
in the tree I built.” Gabriella looks at her mother’s construction; and
Giorgia ceases to sort out her animals for a while and asks mother
to show her the cat that needs to be saved. Then she goes back to
what she was doing.
Using extreme tact and taking a round-about route via symbolic dis­
placement of the object—“the kitten”—and a place—“outside, not
here”—mother seems to be helping the girls to approach the idea that
it is possible to repair and reconstruct a space within the family for a
new child.
Both the implicit and hidden dialogue are taken up by Giorgia, who
reveals, in her game and the words that accompany it, the thoughts that
preoccupy her.

Giorgia collects up all the animals into a group and then organizes
them so that they are standing up and all face in one direction.
She then picks up the gorilla, the largest of all the animals, and
faces it towards the group. She talks in a low voice while she does
this and makes the gorilla say things that the observer is unable
to understand. She then goes slightly closer, and Giorgia asks her,
“Did you hear what I said?” The observer says no, so the girl asks
her to come closer while she repeats the gorilla’s words, still in a
low voice, “Now, everyone listen to what I’m going to say. One by
 the observed child, the observing child 153

one, come and tell me what you want and I will help you.” To start
with, she picks up an elk and brings it to the gorilla and says, in an
even lower voice, so low that the observer has to come really close
to hear her words, “I don’t have a mummy or a daddy any longer.
Will you help me, please?” Giorgia turns towards the observer and
asks her if she heard and whether she wants her to repeat it. The
observer tells her she has understood. She then picks up another
animal, puts it in front of the gorilla and makes it say, “I don’t even
have a single friend any more. I’ve lost them all. Will you help me?”
The gorilla then calls the puppy and mumbles something to him in
a made-up language. Afterwards she says that the gorilla wants to
make a declaration and states, “This puppy, who is here beside me,
has told me that you’ve said a lot of stupid things which aren’t true.
You, it’s not true that you don’t have a mummy or a daddy. That’s
nonsense. And you, it’s not true that you don’t have any friends.
That’s nonsense. Therefore I am not going to help anyone because
what you say isn’t true.”

Comment
The story of the gorilla and the wise puppy constitutes a crucial
moment in the intimate and private communication between child and
observer. The gorilla, which invites the other animals to tell him their
problems, probably represents a good maternal object that does not
evade its role as a container but welcomes it instead. This is probably
the role that, in the transference, the child has assigned to the observer,
who has performed this function by means of her constant and sensitive
presence and through her capacity for understanding.
However, the function of the gorilla-observer is not purely a recep­
tive one: he also has the task of re-establishing truth, a truth that must
be clearly recognized and “proclaimed”. This is possible since an inner
dialogue has been initiated. Articulation with another point of view
contributes to the chance of sorting out the truth.
The observation material therefore reflects the child’s gradual acqui­
sition of the ability to “move sideways” and to “observe a relationship
in which he or she is not directly involved”, which, according to Brit­
ton (1989), seals the elaboration of the oedipal situation and marks
the establishment of the self-observational capacity. “In mental life”,
notes Segal (1991), “this observing part is a necessary component for
the existence of insight and benevolent curiosity, and is the basis of a
constructive epistemophilic approach”.
154 simonetta m. g. adamo

The child shows now a new capacity to distinguish her actual loss
from a persecutory and depressive anxiety which extended, in her inner
world, to all her good objects, which were regarded as destroyed or
lost. It was this anxiety that made Giorgia regard herself as no longer
the acknowledged daughter of her parents (the girl in the drawing who
was not the princess) and made her feel isolated and persecuted by her
classmates. The child’s shift seems parallel to a healing process in the
mother. Not only is she full of new life—pregnant with a new baby—
but also, being no longer burdened by cumulative death experiences,
her capacity for communication with her children is restored, preparing
them for the new event through the symbolic play and the story of the
kitten’s rescue.

Everyone has their own witch:

the Wicked Queen and the others
During the next observation, the girls were still apparently unaware of
their mother’s pregnancy.
When she arrives, the observer finds them busy cutting out paper
silhouettes of cartoon characters. Giorgia goes through them one by
one, showing them to the observer.
When she finds Mickey Mouse, the main character in the Sorcerer’s
Apprentice, she stops and tells the observer that Mickey, convinced
he was a wizard, got himself into a “load of trouble”. Then she asks
the observer, “How did he get himself into such a mess?”
The observer tells her briefly about the episode from the film Fantasia,
in which Mickey plays the grand wizard’s assistant who, convinced of
his skills in magic, tries out without his master’s knowledge a magic
formula that makes the broom and water clean the house without any
effort on his part. When he is not able to stop them, the whole house is
flooded, and only the intervention of the real wizard puts things back
to rights.
The girls then decide to watch the film Sleeping Beauty. Giorgia fol­
lows it distractedly until the appearance of the Wicked Queen, who
engrosses the two children so much that they remain motionless in
front of the television.
Without taking her eyes off the film, Giorgia asks the observer,
“Why does the Wicked Queen get so angry?” The observer replies
 the observed child, the observing child 155

that she was not invited to the princess’s party, and Giorgia asks
again, “Because they had forgotten, or because they didn’t want her
to come?” The observer replies that she was not a welcome guest.
Gabriella then joins in and says, “Then the Wicked Queen was right
to be angry.” Giorgia says, “Yes, but she’s not in the right, you real­
ize that she will kill her when she is older!” Gabriella insists, “Oh!
But she’s right to be angry!” After a few minutes, Giorgia tells the
observer that, when her mother was little, grandmother always
used to shout at her in the mornings because mother was always
late for school. Then she says, “They made Snow White when granny
was little, Cinderella when mummy was little, and The Little Mermaid
when I was little.”
The film continues. When it gets to the scene of the meeting with the
prince in the wood, Giorgia says that she doesn’t like it when Sleep­
ing Beauty sings and dances with the prince. When the observer is
about to go, she hears Giorgia shout, “Quick, come here and watch!”
She goes over, but the scene has already finished. She asks her what
happened. Giorgia replies that she saw the cake made without any
magic by one of the good fairies. Since she was no good at making
cakes, the cake fell all over the place, and, to make it stand up, they
balanced it on a broom handle.
The observer and the girls all laughed before she left.

Comment
This observation occurred soon after the one during which Giorgia
secretly told the observer about the story of the gorilla and showed how
her thoughts are developing. Giorgia is initially busy cutting things out
of paper. This seems to correspond to intrapsychic work aimed at laying
down boundaries such as those that distinguish her from her mother.
It is this work that she is alluding to when she discusses the picture
of Mickey Mouse in the guise of the sorcerer’s apprentice. It is worth
stressing that Giorgia knows the story. What she wants to know is why
Mickey decides to steal the wizard’s magic by putting himself in the
wizard’s shoes. She is aware of the “mess” or chaos that such an omnip­
otent mechanism can cause and, indeed, has caused in her inner world.
She is seeking help to understand what lay behind this process. This
question remains unanswered until she indirectly indicates the answer
to the observer when she excitedly calls her to show her the scene of
156 simonetta m. g. adamo

the cake “without magic” made by the good fairy. The abandonment of
omnipotent mechanisms leads to a slower, more painstaking process,
marked by successes and frustration and mistakes.
It is worth while noting that Giorgia’s mind is now more interested
in the “whys” and the underlying reasons for behaviour rather than the
behaviour itself. The questions she asks the observer when the Wicked
Queen appears are intended to explore the reasons for her exclusion
from the party.
At this stage of her development, Giorgia is able, in contrast to the
past, to cope with the image of the witch and to think about the various
possibilities connected with the witch’s exclusion: Was she not wanted,
or had they forgotten about her? Even when the observer confirms the
intentionality of the exclusion, she distances herself from the punitive
and vindictive logic that is adopted by Gabriella, the younger sister,
who defends the reasons for the Wicked Queen’s anger. “Yes, but she’s
not in the right. You realize that she will kill her when she’s older!”
This is the achievement of Giorgia’s inner reparative work—despite
the extent of anger and the pain caused by exclusion, these feelings
cannot justify the desire to eliminate a rival. The reparative work not
only leads to the restoration of an internal family, but, by re-drawing
the boundaries, which have been confusingly obliterated by projective
identification, it becomes possible to put the generations into their right
place and to examine what, despite the inevitable differences, links
them together. This theme, already introduced in a previous observa­
tion when a hand was used as a metaphor for the extended family,
returns and is developed here.7 When referring to her own mother as
a child, who was reprimanded by grandmother, and later, in her com­
ments on the films, Giorgia seems to reflect that every generation has
its own witch. Every girl confronts the image of her mother as a witch,
but eventually has to accept the idea that, when she is a grown-up, she
herself will be perceived in the same way by her own daughter. This is
the script from which one cannot escape, even though there are obvi­
ously variations and good fairies as well.

The absent object in the internal world

In May, the girls get to know about their mother’s pregnancy. The pains
of growing up “without magic” resurface in one session where Giorgia
comes back from a holiday and tells the observer about “lots of children
who came near her bed in the evening and their stinky parents who
 the observed child, the observing child 157

did not obey her and didn’t want to go to bed”. She describes the scene
­vividly and concretely, as if she had really seen it, recounting what
seems to have been a hallucinatory experience.

During this observation, when her little sister decides to watch

Bambi, Giorgia protests because she doesn’t want to see the scene in
which the mother dies. She then gives in, although she turns away
from the television and goes into her room after beginning a draw­
ing. She draws a boat in rough seas, a boat with neither rudder nor
sails, and then runs to her bedroom. The observer follows the child,
but Giorgia doesn’t want her to stay and, in a voice close to tears,
tells her that she must watch the film with her sister, she must be
close to her.

When the scene of the death of Bambi’s mother is over, Gabriella calls
Giorgia, who comes and watches the film and sits next to the observer.

Giorgia starts to ask her questions, “But the dead mother still loves
Bambi, doesn’t she?” She then continues, “Of course, she is in
heaven, or maybe she isn’t; maybe she is in the hunters’ tummy,
since I have heard that they eat her”. Then she adds, “But when he
is sad, Bambi thinks about his mother, who still loves him although
she is not there anymore”.

Comment
What is fascinating about this observation, which has now lasted two
years and is close to finishing, is the chance to follow the child’s devel­
opment through the re-surfacing of related themes. This session shows
affinities with the one immediately subsequent to the loss of the baby
brother when Giorgia wanted to “protect” her little sister, who was
projectively identified with her more fragile self, from seeing the pup­
pies in danger.
Her mother is pregnant again, and Giorgia seems worried about
what will happen to the baby, to the extent that she once begged her sis­
ter not to cry, “because even this baby may not stay”. However, in con­
trast to the past, Giorgia manages to avoid unloading her anxiety onto
her little sister and acknowledges it as belonging to herself. Instead, the
contact with her own worries enables her to empathize with her little
sister and wish that she, too, may feel contained by the observer. This
is an experience that she has undergone in the past, but now she can
158 simonetta m. g. adamo

cope with her anxieties by herself and, subsequently, reflect on them

with the observer’s assistance.
The fundamental question that the child is asking concerns her rela­
tionship with the absent object in her psychic world. Is it a persecutory
object because one is responsible for its death, which torments us from
inside, or is it an object that is lost, loved, and mourned—a “living”
object in our inner world because it is linked to us by a relationship of
loving closeness? The fawn and the hunter would, in this case, repre­
sent two different aspects of the self and the persecutory or depressive
relationship with the lost object. This object would correspond, in psy­
chic reality, both to her dead brother and to her mother, who has been
mortally wounded by the loss of her baby. Maria Rhode (1984) suggests,
in an interesting paper entitled “Ghosts and the Imagination”, that the
ability to use one’s imagination freely depends on the characteristics
attributed in the inner world to one’s own “ghost”—that is, the absent
object. She argues that the difficulty of imagining depends on “the
extent to which the object is permeated by the homicidal revenge of a
dead brother”. The chance to think of the absent object as a good object
rather than a present bad object seems to be gradually gaining ground
in Giorgia’s mind.

Handed-down clothes
It is now June, and the observation will soon finish. The mother is at
home because her baby is due in a few months, and the themes of birth
and separation pervade the whole observation.
The observer is initially struck by Giorgia’s physical appearance.
She now appears significantly larger and taller.
Giorgia asks the observer to get her two baby dolls: one is com­
pletely naked, while the other is dressed in winter clothes. The child
wants the observer to hold the naked baby doll while she looks after
the other doll, which she undresses and then dresses again. While
she plays at being mother, she asks the observer if she will give her,
as a Christmas present, a baby doll called Ciccio Mio, which laughs
and cries. The observer tells her that she can ask Father Christmas,
and the child replies that she has already asked mummy to write
to him.
After a while, Giorgia curls up next to her mother, strokes her obvi­
ously pregnant tummy several times, and says, referring to the baby,
 the observed child, the observing child 159

“How tiny you are!” She says this through clenched teeth, as though
she was repressing a certain degree of aggression. Then mother and
child start to play a game that Giorgia thoroughly enjoys. Mother
asks Giorgia if she loves her. If she says “no”, Giorgia will undergo
the torture of being tickled. If she says “yes”, then they hug each
other. Giorgia, though, is torn between saying yes or no, since she
really enjoys her mother tickling her, so she alternates between the
two answers.
The question of the forthcoming holidays and the end of the observa­
tion is discussed.
Her mother is clearly moved as she describes how, the previous
week, she went to enrol Giorgia at school and started to cry at
the thought that her daughter was already about to go to primary
school. This is a moment of real emotion, which seems to be related
to the forthcoming separation from the observer.
Giorgia meanwhile decides she wants to change her clothes. She
opens the wardrobe and takes out a beautiful little light blue
organza dress with a white satin belt. She asks her mother if she can
put it on, and, after a short while, reappears fully dressed. Mean­
while, Gabriella tries on an endless number of shoes. Her mother
tells the observer that she had worn the dress at a relative’s wed­
ding when she was Giorgia’s age. The observer also notices that it
is very similar to the mother’s wedding dress portrayed in several
photographs.
The hour ends, and Gabriella comes over and gives the observer a
kiss, as usual. Giorgia waves goodbye, then, unusually for her, gets
up and approaches her to give her a kiss, too. Their mother also
gives the observer a kiss and closes the door behind her.

Comment
When the door closes behind the observer, one has the impression
of having witnessed a reciprocal journey. The family and the little
girl have accompanied the observer during her professional training,
allowing her to participate in their most intimate emotional experi­
ences and learn considerably from them. The observer has accompa­
nied the girl and her family through a difficult time in their lives, not
just participating in their pain but also witness to their capacity for
160 simonetta m. g. adamo

psychic growth. Almost like a mirror image, the story of this observa­
tion, which began with sorting through clothes, ends with the girls
trying on new clothes.
A sense of peace and reconciliation seem to characterize the final
observations, not merely horizontally, between the girls, but also ver­
tically, between the generations. The observer, whom Giorgia asks to
hold her naked baby doll, has been a witness to the moments of her
greatest vulnerability but also to the development and strengthening
of her psychic structure.
By asking the observer for a baby doll as a present, and later by
asking the mother to put on the dress that had belonged to her and
was so similar to her wedding dress, Giorgia is really asking permis­
sion to make an “anticipatory identification” (Alvarez, 1992) with the
begetting mother. The aggressiveness towards the “little one” and the
ambivalence towards mother can now be expressed and are mitigated
by the expectation of one day being able to become the begetter, having
re-established a creative couple in her own psychic world.
Within her inner world, as in her external world, she cries a little and
laughs a little, sometimes loves her mother and sometimes does not.

Notes
1.  I am very grateful to the observer, Emanuela Pasquetto, for allowing me to
quote extensively from her observation, which I supervised within the context of the
Young Child Observation seminar held at the Centro Studi “Martha Harris”, Rome.
2.  Emotional spasms are described in detail in the manuals on neuropsychiatry
dedicated to childhood: “A more frequent ‘cyanotic’ form has been identified which
occurs as a result of frustration or physical pain, accompanied by spasmodic cry­
ing . . . leading to apnoea, cyanosis, and to loss of consciousness . . . and a ‘mild’
form which happens more suddenly, preceded by fear or traumatism, without
crying or with a short scream, followed by loss of conscience. The development of
the symptom is entirely positive and disappears within the second to fourth year
of life without any consequences of an epileptic nature” (Di Cagno, Ravetto, &
Rigardetto, 1982).
3. “Poor slob without a name”—these are the words of the main character in
the famous novel by Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1959), who had led a
“wandering” existence since her childhood and, as an adult, justifies her “choice”
of having no emotional ties; she makes clear the extent to which the attribution
of a name implies the assumption of a special bond, in contrast to a pronoun or a
common name that conveys the sense of indifferentiation and interchangeability of
objects and relations.
4.  It is interesting here to appreciate the linguistic subtlety and examine its pos­
sible meaning. I refer to the two sentences that Giorgia uses in close succession: “Yes,
because little children want to be with their daddy and mummy” and “Children
 the observed child, the observing child 161

find it difficult to leave their mummies and daddies and their teachers.” Indeed,
I believe that, in the first sentence, Giorgia mentions first her father and then her
mother because this order corresponds to the classification currently occupied by
her love objects, whereas, in the second one, the order is inverted because Giorgia
works through the evolutionary sequence, which progressively goes from the pri­
mary object to the “discovery” of the father and other people who have important
roles, such as her teacher.
5.  The important and frequently undervalued role played by nannies and other
people who assist the mother as her child grows up has been analysed by Jeanne
Magagna (1997) in a paper based on observations of babies.
6.  The exact text of the nursery rhyme sung by the girls is the following: “This
is grandfather . . .”, and they touched their index finger; “This is granny . . .”, and
they touched their ring finger; “This is daddy . . .” and they touched their middle
finger; “This is mummy . . .” and they touched their ring finger; “the little one, who
knows?” and they touched their little finger; “and this is how the family goes . . .”
and they beat their hands on the floor. The precarious nature of the space occupied
by the “little one” is particularly striking; it may express the child’s fragility but also
the instability of the child’s identifications, which are changeable, both in the nature
and in kind of the object.
7.  In a recent paper, Sapisochin (1999) considers how important it is, in order
to solve the Oedipus conflict, to re-establish the position of the child in a tri-gener­
ational line, which includes the grandparents.
 PART III

Observing in a nursery

We include, first, in chapter 9, an observation in an inner-city nursery,

where the observer, Ben Yeo, was also able to make occasional visits to
the family home. This enriched his understanding of the child considerably
and makes this a good example of how valuable it is to build this into an
observation undertaken in a nursery.
Importantly, the little boy observed was probably particularly affected
by the regular presence of the male observer, as his father was absent
in Bangladesh throughout the period of the observation. The child’s play
­echoes the classic themes of boys’ tower-building noted by Erik Erikson
(1963). Ben Yeo integrates the Freudian perspective with one drawing on
Klein’s description of the construction of an inner world.
Chapter 10, by Elisabeth Dennis, records the struggles of a little girl to
cope with entering into the new world of the nursery school. The timing
coincides with the birth of a sibling, and Helena is thus very vulnerable.
This is a very frequent coincidence and arouses in these children deep
anxieties about being excluded and losing their place in the family. We
wonder whether, at a symbolic level, many children coping with this first
prolonged separation from mother feel that they can only do so if they split
off their baby self and leave it with mother at home, in order to be able to
face the new situation and its demands. Another possibility, which is also
shown in the observation, through the description of another little girl,
Jessica, is that of being totally identified with this baby part and of estab-
lishing a regressed relationship with teachers and the new environment.
The observer comments: “should she [the observed child] aim to be a big,
strong, flourishing Helena, or could there be a room for a weaker, not so
self-assured little girl?” This voices the child’s dilemma. Unfortunately, the
cultural attitude prevalent in the nursery school seemed to provide “few

163
legitimate opportunities . . . for the older children to have a turn at being
babies”. So the children’s roles become rather fixed and stereotyped. This
left Helena to express her desperate neediness through becoming physi-
cally ill. Fortunately, her parents understood what she was trying to com-
municate and responded by reducing her time at nursery.
Another striking aspect of this observation is the description of the deep
impact of the fragmented attention available from teachers. Helena was
pushed to move and talk at a “breakneck speed”. We have here a vivid
and powerful illustration of the conclusions reached by Bain and Barnett
(1980) in their research, when they write that fragmented attention is even
more disruptive for children than the repeated separations from attachment
figures that they have to cope with at nursery.
Transitions and separations are also the central themes of the two follow-
ing chapters, which further explore the issue of the relationship between
children’s needs and anxieties and the school’s culture and organization.
Chapter 11, by Elizabeth Taylor Buck and Margaret Rustin, focuses on the
problems of a little boy who has had to adapt to extensive time at nursery
from very early days. This early transition to group care has given rise to
a particular personality organization, which serves him quite well much
of the time, but which is vulnerable to shifts of external context since it
is highly dependent on external validation. His adaptation to group life
has been achieved at the expense of aspects of himself that might have
enriched his inner world if they had been in a dynamic relationship with
more available adults. The chapter also speaks to the need for support for
nursery staff, who are faced with the enormity of the children’s needs, the
inevitably limited human resources available, and the pressure on them of
the children’s emotional state. Often their training has not equipped them
well to respond to the demands of their task and leaves them exposed and
vulnerable.
In Simonetta M. G. Adamo’s chapter 12, children as a group prepare
themselves for the separation at the end of the school year and the depar-
ture of one child through imaginative play. “The house is a boat”—the
words of the observed child who is moving to another town and who is
therefore the group’s spokesman—echo the title of a poem by Robert Louis
Stevenson, “My bed is a boat”, the site of the child’s imaginative journey
in dream life. The loss of the taken-for-granted stability, of familiar points of
reference that help to orientate, the fear as well as the excitement of new
horizons are evoked and worked through by children in their free play. It is
most interesting to see how the feeling state is neither acted out nor split,
but is contained symbolically, led by the leaving child but developed by all
of them. This group of children do not have to hold themselves together to

164
compensate for feelings of abandonment by adult figures. Understanding
teachers are in the background. They seem to respect the children’s need to
have a separate space for dramatizing and sharing their feelings, but thus
help to sustain the process. This to and fro of adults between being more
central and more able to “stand by”, allowing both intimacy and separate-
ness, is crucial in facilitating the possibility of experiencing separation as
painful but not catastrophic or destructive. Good experiences can then be
gathered, like seeds or little plants, and treasured, with the hope that they
will take root and flourish in a similarly benign environment.

165
CHAPTER NINE

The work of playing:

a male observer gets to know a little boy
whose father is absent
Ben Yeo

O
bserving the fluctuations between strength/vulnerability and
building/collapse in the first few weeks of a Young Child
Observation, I worried how I was going to make any sense
of Faizul’s play. I wanted to define him as either vulnerable or confi­
dent—how else, I feared, would I be able to write a coherent narrative?
As time went on, I realized it was precisely these fluctuations that are
the building blocks for the healthy development of a young child.
Waddell captures the rhythm between different states when she refers
to the “constant interplay” or “immediate to and fro” between devel­
opmental phases more generally (Waddell, 1998, p. 8). Just as Faizul’s
internal object was “under construction”, so was my understanding of
the complexities of child development.

Faizul carefully positions coloured wooden building blocks on top

of each other. He starts by placing a small blue cube on the table and
then positions larger yellow blocks on top. After four blocks, the
emerging tower becomes unsteady and tumbles down. Undeterred,
Faizul begins building the tower back up again, using the same
smaller base block. The cycle of building and collapse is repeated
several times, with Faizul managing to build the tower slightly
higher each time. [Observation 1]

167
168 ben yeo

This passage of play was my first encounter with Faizul, who had just
turned 4. Alvarez suggests that “everything we need to know about
the patient is contained in the first session, if only we had the wit and
understanding to see it” (Alvarez, 1992, p. 15). From my experience of
observing a young child in his nursery over the course of one year, I
now think this also applies to Young Child Observation: the symbolism
of this opening sequence gave many clues to what I would observe of
Faizul over the ensuing months.
Faizul was a prolific builder of towers during the time that I
observed him. Towers came in many different forms, sizes, materials,
and shapes. I came to understand that the construction and collapse of
these towers was to some degree symbolic of a boy grappling with his
own sense of potency (Erikson, 1963). The nursery was a “building”
site for his internal world. The small block he placed at the bottom of
the tower revealed his lack of a solid “foundation”; like many children
around him in the nursery, his internal parental object (Klein, 1958,
p. 238) was very much a work in progress. Significantly, after each col­
lapse, he kept working to build the tower back up, showing resilience,
hope, and determination in pursuit of strength. Just as the towers grew
taller, so Faizul’s internal object appeared to become more robust over
the course of my observations.
Faizul was a British Bangladeshi child, from a Muslim family, like
the majority of the other children who attended the nursery. I am a
white British male observer with several years’ experience of work­
ing in the British Bangladeshi community. Most of my observations
took place in the nursery that was part of a large primary school in
a deprived inner-city area. The nursery had two classrooms, which,
though large, sometimes felt cramped because of the large numbers of
children. There was also a fairly large outdoor concrete play area. Chil­
dren could choose freely to participate in a variety of activities, which
were spread out in different areas throughout the nursery.
When I arranged the observation with his mother in the nursery, we
agreed that I would also observe Faizul at home during the school holi­
days. In these home observations I learned that Faizul had two older
brothers—one 7 years old, and one at secondary school.

“Under construction”
Immediately after my first encounter with Faizul, he moved to another
area of the nursery, where there was a plastic box full of Lego bricks:
 the work of playing 169

Faizul works hard to search for the same width of Lego bricks,
which he fits together. He attaches the bricks together so firmly that
I see his fingernails go white as he pushes. He then attaches a larger
brick (more than double the length) on the end of the column of
smaller bricks. He holds his contraption by the longer brick, which
acts like a handle, and uses it like a gun. He points the gun towards
the wall, takes aim, and pretends to shoot. Faizul gets excited and
speaks words that I cannot quite make out. [Observation 1]
After the continual building and collapsing of wooden building blocks,
Faizul’s choice of a new building material was significant. Lego bricks
could be more firmly attached together, and Faizul made sure of this by
squeezing them in place. Rather than a fragile small brick at the base,
he attached a larger block to the end of his construction, perhaps repre­
senting a parental figure. With the bricks held firmly in place and with
parental stability at one end, Faizul’s potency and creativity grew, and
he picked up the construction to use as a gun. In identification with the
powerful role of the man with the gun, Faizul’s excitement grew, and
his words got lost. Faizul appeared to be using the more solid structure
and identification with the gunman to give him greater solidity in the
nursery.
Like Donald Trump, it was vertical towers that really seized Faizul’s
interest, not the bulky or different-shaped constructions that I saw
from other children. But without a solid base, the higher Faizul built,
the more unwieldy and unstable his structures would become. Towers
came crashing down or split into different parts. The same dynamic
was evident in Faizul in the first few weeks of observations: he strived
to be bigger, stronger, and older—but this was often checked by periods
of fragility and collapse:
Faizul runs around the playground making punching movements
like a boxer and repeating a word that is, I think, linked to the chil­
dren’s cartoon “Power Rangers”. As he runs, he puts the hood of
his jacket over his head and places one arm out in front of him, like
Superman. He runs to different parts of the playground quickly. His
movements are punctuated by pauses where he looks ponderous
and slightly lost, almost like he has run out of ideas. At these times,
I feel he is more conscious of my presence, and he looks at me with
a nervous glance, scratching the back of his neck. [Observation 2]
In this excerpt, Faizul moved around the playground like a superhero,
but his bravado was interspersed by moments of anxiety. His superhero
170 ben yeo

swagger had an omnipotent quality to it. Klein argued that omnipo­

tence could be seen as a manic defence (Klein, 1935, p. 278), and per­
haps Faizul was trying to “mask” his vulnerability. Just as Superman
became Clark Kent, so Faizul’s vulnerability and “smallness” would
be revealed. At the end of this passage Faizul scratched the back of his
neck: he had a minor skin condition that looked like eczema. Over time
I came to understand that his scratching often coincided with periods
of anxiety and fragility. Bick proposed the idea of a “skin container”
(Bick, 1968), and Faizul’s eczema could be a clue to the lack of internal
resources and containment he felt inside. Just as his towers came crash­
ing down, so his vulnerability would come “leaking” out of his skin.
Faizul’s building projects were often done in competition with other
boys.
In my third observation, Faizul stood at a picnic bench with another
boy on the other side, both building towers out of blocks. As each
child’s tower became bigger, they exchanged various boasts of “I have
a big one” and “mine is bigger than yours”. The towers then became
“swords” in their imagination, and they ended up play-fighting with
each other. The rivalrous building projects would often see Faizul
glancing nervously at his competitor’s tower with a customary scratch
of his neck.
Another dimension to this rivalrous play was revealed in my first
home visit (Observation 9). In this visit, I first met Faizul’s brother
Nazmul, who was three years older. Huddled around a stereo, the boys
were listening to music. Nazmul described the music to me, telling me
about the “Bangla” beat and melody. A split-second later, and like a sti­
fled echo, Faizul tried to repeat what his brother had said but stumbled
across his words and fell into silence. This happened several times dur­
ing the observation; it felt like his older brother’s words were too big
and cumbersome for a boy three years younger. The sibling interaction
revealed the ambivalence of Faizul’s relationship with his older brother.
On the one hand, his brother played a big role in Faizul’s language
and cognitive development. On the other hand, the older brother was
a rival who reminded Faizul of his own “smallness”. Mitchell argues
that more attention needs to be given to sibling rivalry, proposing that
it is a crucial and often overlooked dimension of the oedipal struggle
(Mitchell, 2000, p. 23). Sibling rivalry certainly seemed to be in evidence
in this observation; big brother Nazmul projecting littleness and impo­
tence into his younger and smaller brother Faizul, while Faizul makes
every effort to rise to the heights and greater capacities of his older
 the work of playing 171

brother. Additionally the brothers would often battle and try to outdo
each other to “win” my attention as observer.
The home environment was quite bare, and there were few toys for
the children to play with. This contrasted starkly with the stimulating
environment of the nursery. Yet Faizul still used the resources around
him in an attempt to assert his “bigness”. At one point, he clambered up
onto the dining room table and towered above both me and his brother.
Just like the superhero swagger of the playground, there was a fragile
quality to this display of strength. Indeed, with Faizul perched precari­
ously on the table and with mother in the other room, I felt obliged to
break the observational stance by asking him to come down from his
position.
My second home visit (Observation 13) revealed a vital motivation
for Faizul’s construction projects. The boys were taking me on a tour
of the house, and we had reached the main bedroom. Faizul’s brother
Nazmul showed me the bed, saying, “this is where Mum sleeps . . .” and
then, after a pause, “ . . . alone”. He proceeded to tell me that their father
was in Bangladesh. This snippet of information gave Faizul’s obsession
with building towers a new context. Perhaps Faizul was trying to make
sense of his father’s absence, his construction projects an attempt to
restore an elusive paternal object. It was perhaps also the case that he
and his brother were displacing their rivalry with their father onto each
other in his absence. Feelings stirred in me to take action when faced
with Faizul’s precariousness on the table perhaps suggest a pressure for
me to step in as a substitute father.

Building back up
Though Faizul’s states of fragility or “collapse” were frequent in the
first couple of months, he had a capacity to build himself back up again.
Faizul used the resources of the nursery to help him: both the physical
building blocks of the nursery equipment and the emotional building
blocks of staff and other children.
I arrived early for my sixth observation to arrange a home visit with
Faizul’s mother over the Christmas holidays. As Faizul entered the
nursery, he clung closely to his mother, and he started sobbing when
she left. Minutes later,

Faizul has stopped crying; with tear-soaked eyes, he ambles towards

the “home” corner. A nursery nurse settles him onto a table where
172 ben yeo

children are stringing small different-coloured bricks onto a piece of

string. There is a knot on one end of the string, which prevents the
blocks from falling off the end. The nursery nurse begins to thread
a block on the string and encourages Faizul to follow her lead. He
does not respond, but the nursery nurse is patient. She asks him
what colour building block he would like her to put on—Faizul
is hesitant. She picks a colour and asks him what colour it is; he
mouths it quietly. Then something seems to shift, and Faizul begins
to participate in the activity; taking hold of the piece of string, Faizul
begins threading his own blocks on, at which point the nursery
nurse moves away. When the nursery nurse leaves, Faizul begins to
hum to himself and continues with the construction. He scratches
the back of his neck, and at one point he says “oww” quietly, indi­
cating that it hurts. [Observation 6]

In this excerpt, the nursery nurse played a crucial role in helping Faizul
recover after his mother had left. Wandering towards the home corner,
perhaps in an attempt to re-establish a link with his parental object,
Faizul was in a state of emotional collapse. The pain of his skin condi­
tion revealed just how much anxiety he was experiencing. The nursery
nurse provided a “containing” function (Bion, 1962a, p. 90). She held
and tolerated his anxiety as she gradually coaxed him into the activity
of stringing the cubes. Faizul then seemed more able to bear his feelings
and to gain strength as he began to thread the blocks himself. This activ­
ity seemed perfectly designed for Faizul in this crisis: the string and
the knot linked the blocks and enabled Faizul himself to feel gathered
together. Once the nursery nurse left the scene, he was able to draw on
his own resources by humming to sustain this feeling.
Later in the same observation, and with Faizul more settled, he felt
able to explore the theme of separation further:

Faizul goes over to the carpet area and picks up a small bright and
shiny red ball. He holds the ball in his hand and then lets it drop
to the floor. At one point he mouths the words “disappear” and
closes his eyes, and then his eyes open again as he looks up at me.
He then releases the ball so it rolls in front of him and he lets it roll
away before he walks over to fetch it; he does this several times. He
seems far more relaxed in this passage of play, and he lies down on
the carpet. [Observation 6]
Reminiscent of Freud’s description of his grandson and the cotton-reel
game (Freud, 1920g, p. 15),1 Faizul seemed to be making sense of the
 the work of playing 173

comings and goings of an absent object. In the immediate context of

this observation, he may have been negotiating the painful separation
with his mother. Perhaps Faizul was also making a connection between
me and an absent father as he looked directly at me while saying the
words “disappear”.
Buoyed by the containing function of the nursery nurse earlier in
the observation, the quality of this later play was far more relaxed and
exploratory. He seemed to be exploring the comings and goings of the
object in a playful way, rather than feeling persecuted by them.
In my tenth observation, Faizul showed how he used different
aspects of the nursery to help “build” himself back up. At the beginning
of the observation, he sat alone on a carpet where lots of children were
milling around. He looked drained, with a sad look on his face, and I
wondered if he was ill. One of the boys on the carpet began to build
a tower from large square Lego bricks, and other children joined him.
Faizul’s face began to change, and I described him having an “intense”
look on his face, like a “man on a mission”. He energetically began
to search for bricks and joined the group in creating the tower. Faizul
gathered strength from the children around him in the nursery; in this
way the children were working together as a functioning group (Bion,
1961, p. 143).
Later in the same observation, Faizul went outside to the play­
ground, where several soft play mats had been placed together in a
large rectangular shape. There was a large ramp-shaped soft brick
positioned on the mats.
Faizul takes great delight in taking a running jump up to the top
of the ramp and landing on the mats below. He repeats this many
times. Each time, he seems to be more expressive and confident.
When he jumps down, the mats cushion his fall. He rolls dramati­
cally onto his back, with his arms and legs sprawled out. One of the
boys says to Faizul that he is pretending to be dead. [Observation
10]
In this passage of play, Faizul used the equipment in the playground to
help him explore the oscillation between his internal states of strength
and collapse. At the top of the ramp, Faizul was all-powerful, and on
the mats below he collapsed and played dead. Rather than feeling per­
secuted by his vulnerability, Faizul used the equipment to explore the
ebbs and flows of his strength in a playful way.
At the beginning of this section, I showed how Faizul had been
struggling with the separation from his mother. But his resilience and
174 ben yeo

strength had grown noticeably by the third month, and he was able to
manage this separation in a more playful and powerful way:
Before his mother leaves the nursery, he points at his face and ges­
tures for her to give him a kiss. He looks so happy, and I feel he has
mastery over his mother. The nursery feels like a happy and bright
place for him. [Observation 12]
In the seventh month, and with an increasingly robust internal object,
Faizul helped other children manage the transition from home to nurs­
ery at the beginning of the school day. He helped a vulnerable-looking
boy get settled into a drawing activity by guiding him with comments
like “here is a stencil” and “you will need paper”.
In Observation 20, Faizul began to build a tower from blocks. I sud­
denly realized that his preoccupation with “growth” and “collapse”
had been absent for several weeks: this was the first tower he had built
for some time. Perhaps a broadening of his “horizontal” relationships
with the children, staff, and equipment in the nursery had given him
sufficient internal resources to move away from the cycle of building
and collapse involved in his “vertical” construction projects.

Relationship with observer

In the fifth month of observations, Faizul looked at me thoughtfully and
declared, “you are not a teacher . . .” and, after a short pause, “. . . you
are the looking man”. In this section, I chart my relationship with Faizul,
showing how his statement was testament to how our relationship had
evolved. I also consider the particular aspects of being a male observer.
Initially, I struggled to find my place in the nursery, and this seemed
to mirror Faizul’s experience too. In my first observation one of the
nursery staff mistook me for the “ICT guy” who was coming to fix the
computer! In the same way, there was confusion as to exactly which
Faizul I was observing. There were at least two different boys called
Faizul, and one of the teachers asked me, “which Faizul are you observ­
ing?” This reflected the sometimes hectic atmosphere of the nursery; at
times it felt there were not enough staff to attend to large numbers of
little children, many of whom were vulnerable.
In the earliest weeks, and with Faizul often in a state of “collapse”,
my gaze felt as if it had a persecutory quality:
In the playground Faizul walks over to the climbing frame. He looks
behind his shoulder pensively. I make a conscious effort to keep my
distance, worrying that I am an inhibiting presence. Every time we
 the work of playing 175

make eye contact, he looks uncomfortable and looks around the

playground, looking slightly lost. [Observation 2]
In these vulnerable moments, I often looked away to “dilute” my gaze.
As an adult male observer, I sometimes felt I added to Faizul’s sense of
feeling small. I had to be sensitive not only about where I looked, but
also where I positioned myself. When Faizul walked past me, he would
often show signs of discomfort—either an exaggerated swagger, or he
would make some kind of repetitive sound, perhaps in an attempt to
bolster himself.
I longed to be able to use my seniority and experience to reach out
to Faizul and help him settle down into an activity in the nursery. This
was a challenging position for me to be in, and I had to work hard to
maintain the observational stance.
As the weeks progressed, Faizul began to grow in strength, which
manifested in his relationship with me as observer. He declared with
some force in Observation 6 that “you are late!” Once a persecutory
force, Faizul had now taken charge, and he let me know I had become
important to him. The nervous glances had evolved into something
altogether different:
Faizul gets up and walks away, and before he is out of my sight,
he looks back as if encouraging me to follow him. [Observation 12]
My feelings towards Faizul were affected around the time I discovered
that his father was in Bangladesh. Some boys gathered together in the
playground,
Another boy joins the group, and the conversation turns to fathers.
The boy is making a car out of the bricks and says, “My Dad has
a Jaguar, and it makes a loud noise.” He makes a low grumbling
noise. The other boys then contribute with stories about what their
Dad does: “My Dad calls me a Muppet.” . . . “My Dad bites me in the
face.” Meanwhile Faizul continues to piece together his Brio blocks.
My mind wanders back to last week at home, where I discovered
from Faizul’s brother that their Dad is in Bangladesh. Faizul sits
quietly but then joins with “my Dad . . . “, but his words immedi­
ately change into “my Mum”. He then begins to say something but
runs out of momentum and is lost in the chatter of the other boys.
[Observation 14]
I felt enormous empathy for Faizul during this exchange. His voice
was lost among the other boys as he tried to make sense of an absent
father. With a predominance of Muslim families with traditional ­family
176 ben yeo

values, home life for most children in the nursery would typically
feature both a mother and father. Faizul was in a rare position to have
a single carer at home. At the end of the observation, I noticed how I
found it very difficult to say goodbye to Faizul and leave the nursery. A
parental function had been awakened in me; in my mind I had come to
represent Faizul’s father, who was going to abandon him. Perhaps this
feeling was shared by Faizul: in the previous observation at his home
he seemed concerned to know where I was going after the observation
and hung his head out of the front door to watch me walk away down
the road.
Our relationship was further explored at the sixth-month point of
the observations. Faizul was spending much of his time at the “arts
and crafts” corner, where he would make pretend wrist watches out of
pieces of coloured sugar paper. Children were encouraged to choose
pictures to stick onto the paper watch straps to symbolize a watch face.
Faizul would continually choose a picture of Ben 10 (Ben 10 is a televi­
sion cartoon character that was very popular with young boys in the
nursery). He would become engrossed in making, and then wrapping/
unwrapping, these “watches” around his wrist. Perhaps he was making
a connection between his relationship with observer Ben (me), and an
absent father: the wrapping and unwrapping of the watch strap may
have been symbolic of the comings and goings of a male observer and
his father, and the resulting feelings of containment/lack of contain­
ment. I subsequently watched the Ben 10 cartoon, and it was interesting
to see how the watch is a transformative device that allows Ben 10 to
turn into alien creatures; perhaps Faizul wished he could transform
himself into an observer/father figure in an attempt to avoid feelings of
abandonment. Indeed, one week he had skilfully secured the “watch”
around his wrist with Sellotape and felt the paper strap with satisfac­
tion while he sang a repetitive line: “I am a big man, I am a big man, I
am a big man.”
Into my sixth month of observations, on a rainy day with all the
children crammed into the nursery, Faizul used my presence to create
some quiet space for himself. Waiting for me to follow him, we went
outside into a covered veranda area, and he played in my watchful
presence for 20 minutes, working alone on a jigsaw puzzle. By this
stage, I felt that Faizul was actively using my presence to make up for
any imbalance in numbers between children and nursery staff. I had
become an additional resource that Faizul was garnering to build up a
strong internal object.
 the work of playing 177

It had become clear by later observations that I was being held in

mind by the nursery, and the staff seemed better able to hold Faizul in
mind. Towards the end of my observations, a nursery teacher greeted
me warmly and said they had noticed how much more confident and
articulate Faizul had become in recent weeks and wondered aloud if it
had anything to do with my observations.

Conclusion
My understanding of Faizul developed gradually and was supported
by the people and structures involved in my training. Similarly, Faizul’s
emotional growth was not achieved in isolation: the nursery was a
building site full of equipment, children, staff, and an observer—all
of which Faizul used as “scaffolding” to strengthen his internal object.
Sometimes this support came in the form of “containment”, and I expe­
rienced the hard emotional work involved in fulfilling this function. At
times of collapse, it felt as if Faizul would sometimes project his anxi­
ety into me. Being a retaining wall was not easy, but I learned to digest
and survive his fears. At other times, Faizul used people to assert his
potency through rivalry—rivalry with an older brother, which took the
form of battling for my attention as observer; rivalry with classmates,
which usually involved a competition of who had built the biggest
tower or sword.
I have described Faizul’s towers as construction projects, but they
could also be interpreted as a survival of destruction. The collapse and
growth reflected the cycle of destruction and restoration characteristic
of moving between Klein’s paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions.
With his father in Bangladesh, Faizul could not only have been trying
to restore an elusive object, but perhaps he was also wrestling with his
own capacity for destruction—did he blame himself for his father’s
disappearance, and/or was he trying to reconstruct an internal object
at risk? Klein is suggestive on these points,
Constructive activities gain more impetus because the child uncon­
sciously feels that in this way he is restoring loved people whom he
had damaged. [Klein, 1959, p. 259]

Living under the threat of internal/external instability, Faizul’s con­

tinual building (and rebuilding) of towers might be understood as a
somewhat manic defence against his destructive feelings. But Faizul’s
construction projects also seemed to have a real, grounded, and
178 ben yeo

­ ersistent element. He seemed to be practising his potency; following

p
every collapse, he would build himself back up, his internal “cement”
becoming stronger over time. Faizul showed he could recover from his
own destructive impulses and that the good object could be “regained
time and time again” (Klein, 1957, p. 187). As the weeks progressed,
he was drawn to building materials that could be stuck more firmly
together, like Lego or Brio, which also coincided with him showing
more confidence around the nursery. Alvarez is helpful in pointing out
the distinction between a manic defence and something more construc­
tive:
It is important to know when obsessional mechanisms are being used
defensively against an experience of a more living, free, less control­
lable object or feeling and when they signal perhaps the very first
attempt, or at the very least a renewed attempt, to achieve some slight
order in the universe. [Alvarez, 1992, p. 113]

If the nursery was a building site, it contained “men at work” and “boys
working through”. Masculinity seemed to be an overarching theme
of my observations—building phallic towers, groups of boys playing
together, the loss of an absent father and Faizul’s interactions with me
as a male observer. The object relations I witnessed seemed to have a
very specific gender twist. My presence as a male observer may have
been a constituent factor in the picture I came to have.
As the months progressed, I noticed that Faizul’s preoccupation
with construction/destruction projects waned. This seemed to coincide
with a growing confidence, and engagement with a wider range of
activities and children in the nursery. In my final observations, Faizul
shared with me his trepidation about moving up to his reception class
the following year. Based on what I had witnessed over time, I felt
confident that, barring any huge seismic shifts, Faizul had created solid
enough foundations to face the challenges ahead.

Notes
I would like to thank Wendy Shallcross and fellow students in my Young Child
Observation seminar group for providing the “fertile ground where ideas/seeds
have a place to germinate”.
1. Freud witnessed his grandson playing with a cotton-reel in his cot, throwing
away the cotton and reeling it back with a pleased “da” [here] Freud (1920g). Freud
interpreted this as his grandson managing the comings and goings of his mother.
CHAPTER TEN

Seeing beneath the surface:

an observer’s encounter with a child’s
struggle to find herself at nursery
Elisabeth Dennis

H elena was 3¼ when I met her for the first time at her house. She
is a little girl with light brown skin, with black curls cascading
around her face. She has big brown eyes and a big mouth with gaps in
her front teeth. Helena’s parents are a mixed-race couple. Her mother
is 6 feet tall, a well-built white woman, extremely friendly and outgo­
ing. Helena’s father is youthful in appearance, more slight in build,
and looks as if he could be Asian. He was friendly but more reserved.
When I arrived, Helena told me to take my shoes off, as I mustn’t
dirty the new blue carpet. She then took me into the front room. I
noticed some pictures of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the hallway. The
house was comfortable but not affluent. Helena’s father was sitting in
an armchair cradling the baby, and I sat on the settee opposite, with
Helena’s mother. I recall feeling that the baby was taking up everyone’s
attention. While Helena’s mother spoke to me, Helena was playing
behind an adjacent settee, which meant that I could not see her. Her
mother spoke to me about Helena as though she wasn’t present and
brought me some of her drawings to see. She told me that Helena was
used to “being studied”! She had been observed once before for a Baby
Nutrition study. Towards the end of my visit Helena came into the mid­
dle of the room bringing a whole pile of toys with her. It was decided
after some discussion that I would observe Helena at the nursery.

179
180 elisabeth dennis

The nursery
The nursery that Helena attends is a Montessori school. Most of the
activities are time-limited and structured. There are four fully trained
staff and a number of assistants and trainees who stay at the school
on brief placement and seem to come and go. The staff–child ratio is
good, and each age group has a teacher. Group size is a maximum of
eight children. Varied and impressive projects line the walls and are
changed regularly, displaying the range of activities offered to the chil­
dren. Despite this, the nursery has a slightly deprived and bare feel. It
is based in a Victorian house, with all the downstairs rooms used for
different educational activities. The front room doubles up as an art
room and dining room and has a carpeted area at the back for story­
telling and a Wendy House corner. There are 15–16 children present at
any one time. The age range of the children is from toddlers up to 4½
year olds waiting to go to school. The nursery is multiracial and prides
itself on its anti-racist and anti-sexist philosophy. It is privately run,
and fees are high.

The observation
I warmed to Mrs Klein’s ideas when I read, “No mere description, I
feel, can do justice to the colour, life and complexity which fill the hours
of play analysis” (Klein, 1932, p. 64). In a minor way, I faced a similar
predicament in trying to convey my experience of Helena over the
year’s observation, an experience of her as a lively, complex little girl
struggling with the painful realities of her life.
Helena’s sister, Alice, was 6 months old in September when Helena
began attending full-time at the nursery. Helena was therefore well
aware that her baby sister was at home, occupying the nest. She was
looked after alternately by her granny and her father while Helena
herself was away from home. This major encroachment by Alice on
Helena’s family relationships was one of the principal themes of the
observation. Helena had had the experience of being the only child in
the family until relatively recently. She now faced in the nursery a big
empty space around her, which she describes in a series of drawings
done during the first observation.
Inside each border on every picture, Helena drew a zigzag line over
a short distance and then drew a big H with considerable flourish
and said, “‘H’ for Helena” to herself. I noticed that Helena made a
few faint half-hearted marks on the paper under the zigzag.
 seeing beneath the surface 181

The key issue for Helena appeared to be how to exist in this vast space?
Could she still be in the picture at home? Above all, should she aim
to be a big, strong, flourishing Helena, or could there be room for a
weaker, not so self-assured little girl?
In this first encounter with Helena, she seemed fascinated by the
writing on my hand (I had made a note to myself). Would such writing
provide a way of ensuring that she made an indelible mark—one that
would never disappear? In a subsequent observation, Helena noticed
that the writing was no longer on my hand—it had been washed away.
Helena felt the need to make a strong impression when other children
were present and especially so when babies were in evidence. . . . In
my first observation:

Helena looked into my face intently and smiled. Somehow her look
felt as though it had got memorably lodged inside me, making a
deep impression on me.

On another occasion:

The head teacher suddenly came in, apparently showing a mother

around the nursery with a baby in her arms. . . . I saw Helena glance
up at the mother and baby and turn her face away. She then looked
at me and smiled her most ravishing and seductive smile. . . .

One day she told me, “You know when you go away, I miss you.”
I thought that she might be working out whether she was missed
when absent from home.

In a reading session with her teacher, Emilie, Helena read the

word “mist”. She told the teacher that was what she felt when her
mummy went to work each morning. . . .

My presence at the nursery stirred up thoughts of Helena’s home expe­

riences, since she knew that I had been to her house. Helena wanted to
know where I went when I left the nursery. She asked me, “Do you go
to work, or do you go home? Are you a mummy?”
It was clear that Helena had experienced that special intimate close­
ness that she longed for. In the first observation, the drawing of her two
hands close together evoked her need for close contact, which was not
fully available with the nursery teacher. It was the experience of being
singled out from the other children and drawn close, which Helena
craved and which she feared that she has lost to the baby at home. The
nourishing experiences she had had at home appeared to hold her in
182 elisabeth dennis

the hurly-burly of the nursery to some extent, and to counter both her
fear of being forgotten and subsequently even the fear of being left
behind, as the family began to make plans to emigrate to New Zea­
land. In particular, the exquisite care that was obviously taken with her
clothes and her general effects seemed concretely to remind her that
she was cherished and evoked a tender recollection of that care. I was
never sure whether this particular loving attention was the province of
her grandmother, her mother, or both.
Helena with great care and tenderness picked up her pink knitted
cardigan. I wondered if it had been specially knitted for her. She
successfully put it on. Emilie praised her and enquired whether
someone had knitted it for her? Helena replied, “Grandma did, and
my mummy paid for the wool.” . . . Emilie encouraged her to do all
the buttons up and showed her how.
On another occasion, when Emilie was telling the children about
germs and the need to carry tissues, Helena was eager to tell the
group that it was important to have a tissue in her trouser pocket. . . .
As a result of her home experience—especially in practical areas—
Helena had an assumption that it was possible to ask for help and make
use of it when it was offered by the staff at the nursery. The problem
for her was that it required considerable effort to ask for it and that in
all likelihood the special contact with staff could be interrupted at any
moment, particularly by “baby” invasions, at the nursery.
In a lesson a nursery assistant came in and held a sleeping baby in
her arms. . . . She said to Emilie—“He’s gone off to sleep finally . . .
he’s very grumpy.” . . . Helena cursorily looked up and glanced at
the baby and looked away again. I found myself feeling interrupted,
as though we hadn’t been able to finish things off properly. Perhaps
I was feeling something similar to Helena. . . .
As a result of these interruptions at the nursery and now similarly at
home, Helena appeared to put herself through her paces at breakneck
speed. Whenever she read her sounds and her words, and indeed when
doing most things, she seemed ahead of herself, and early on I noticed
her lack of physical coordination. It seemed that her head and legs were
not in sync and that she might keel over.
On one occasion at the nursery, I observed the Head testing Helena
on her knowledge of numbers. At one point, Helena skipped one, and
 seeing beneath the surface 183

I wondered if the Head would notice. The undivided attention that she
gave to each child was precious, and the mood in the room felt very
quiet and contained.
Nonetheless, the nursery environment with the constant parade of
visiting mothers with babies in their arms and the regular attendance
of children as young as 18 months of age inevitably aroused ambiva­
lent feelings in Helena. These younger children were often carried
by the staff. They were held on their laps at story time and when the
nursery children gathered to recite nursery rhymes on the carpet in
the art room. On these occasions there was a sense of the generations,
and it seemed that Helena’s place was as one of the “big girls”. Some­
times, when the babies and the other children impinged on her, she
would resort to an omnipotent frame of mind and had an apparent
capacity to obliterate the painful sights that she did not want to see.
She seemed to seal herself off in a world of her own, and others just
ceased to exist.
Helena was totally absorbed, not paying heed to the other children
and their activity. She made use of what she needed, taking crayons
and paper at will, attending to the others hardly at all.
Her stealthy forays into her neighbour’s “property” subsequently may
have been more conscious, but she did seem to have developed a
defensive capacity to cut herself off from the other children at will.
Her loneliness and longing for contact were kept at bay by frequently
talking to herself in the play area so that she did not feel so alone. At
times she held herself in a sort of narcissistic cocoon where she was at
the centre of things, making a show of her hilarity and having a great
time under her own steam, which gave the lie to the empty space in her
heart and all around her.
Helena chose a truck with a small skip on the back hitched to the
truck. She circled around and around, and I was struck yet again
by the sense of a wide empty space around her. She created wide
circles with her truck, tossing her dark curls as she drove it, laugh­
ing uproariously as though she was a member of the royal family
or at least a small Jackie Onassis expecting to be photographed. . . .
She circled around numerous times, looking out at the other chil­
dren from her vehicle. I thought she hankered after a response and
seemed lonely, although she gave the impression of having a whale
of a time.
184 elisabeth dennis

Contact with other children

This apparent manic flight from her intolerable feeling of need meant
that she was quite overcome when she actually made contact with
another child or a member of staff, and once again it seemed that her
slender frame could ill support her excitement. The heady experience
of connecting with others just overwhelmed her, and she would become
so speedy and voluble that her words just tumbled out pell-mell. On
occasion she would shout out incoherently, which put others off and
made it doubly hard for her to get the attention she craved.
At one point Helena told a member of staff that she was going to
bring her some chips. She was now “the mummy” as she ran off tre­
mendously excited, running as though her thoughts were carrying
her away from her body. She ran back to the member of staff, who
didn’t seem particularly interested and responded desultorily to
Helena’s enthusiasm, and yet her semi-response seemed to enthral
Helena. She rushed over to Rikaya (another little girl) and shouted
out excitedly into her face that she was off to the shop to bring back
fish and chips. Rikaya said to her, “Stop shouting, Helena!”
On another occasion when she had made contact with Junelle (another
little girl), Helena was beside herself:
At last she was making contact! Her eyes sparkling, all animation
now, she entered into the chase. The two girls sped around—Helena
seemed to have difficulty in slowing down her natural speedy pace.
She wanted to go full pelt. She slowed down at the teacher’s request
in a somewhat contrived fashion for a few moments before picking
up speed.
Whereupon her playmate chooses to play with another child:
At one point Junelle said to Helena, “Let’s sit down”, which Helena
did for a few moments, but then Junelle began to chat with Helena’s
neighbour, a blonde little girl with blue eyes who seemed engaged
in quieter play—wheeling a turquoise pram. Immediately Helena
jumped up and jumped back on her steed.
Was she perhaps rushing away from intolerable feelings?
It was important for Helena to shut out the other children’s expres­
sions of grief. Jessica seemed to have the knack of stirring up conflict
situations with other children and staff in the nursery and often ended
up wailing:
 seeing beneath the surface 185

Jessica cried harder and called out for her mummy, standing pit­
eously by the drainpipe. . . . Among all the commotion and the
“dodgem”-like traffic, Jessica kept on crying. . . . Helena started
bouncing on the trampoline which stood on one side. She seemed
disturbed and appeared to want to shut out Jessica’s wails. The
atmosphere felt frantic and unprotected. The other children passing
by Jessica occasionally lashed out at her.
Helena’s omnipotent denial of reality surfaced in a drawing in which
baby Alice was the one who was floating in space:
Helena did a matchstick person with a big tummy, arms and legs,
and a round head. In response to Emilie’s questioning, Helena said
this was mummy. She then drew a smaller person next to the mother
figure and an even smaller one floating above the two figures some­
what at a distance from the two. . . .
She also attempted to shut out her peers’ achievements when they
surpassed hers and cut herself off from them, or she resorted to ideali­
zation of her own work.
One or two of the children succeeded in constructing pyramids,
which was a struggle for Helena. I noticed that Helena seemed to
cut off completely from their endeavours and fixed her eyes on the
chimneybreast instead, or on the ceiling. Emilie told me that Helena
was always very proud of what she had produced and that once
she’s accomplished a task she seemed content to watch the other
children in their work without making any attempt to develop hers
any further. . . .
There appeared to be few legitimate opportunities in the nursery for
the older children to have a turn at being babies. When Helena or one
of the other children tried to climb into the toddler seats, which were
sturdy enough to support them, they were told promptly to desist by
the younger members of staff. One of the teachers, Carol, did seem to
understand the children’s need and made allowances. However, when
Helena made up the word “Dada blue brick” to vent her aggression
towards some of the other children in an acceptable way, she was told
to stop using baby talk. Jessica was the only older child who frequently
managed to get the staff to pick her up, and, inevitably, as Helena’s
conflicts began to overwhelm her, the spectacle of Jessica being picked
up aroused considerable torment and hostility in her. The two girls
began to clash.
186 elisabeth dennis

Hidden aspects of Helena’s character

In the period leading up to March it seemed very hard to keep
Helena in focus. Frequently, more compelling and vivid children such
as Rikaya, Nerissa, and co. would hold my attention, and Helena
would be lost from view. For a long while, I put this phenomenon
down to my failure of attention to Helena, until I began to speculate
on Helena’s hiddenness and to wonder to what extent she herself
was adept at keeping from sight those aspects of herself no one was
supposed to see. I recalled the time of my first visit to her home and
Helena’s play behind the settee. On one occasion recently she told
me, “You’ve been to my house, and you were wearing a green suit!” I
had to rethink and concede that we had been observing one another.
Helena herself at times chose to be concealed, however much at other
times she actively resented being eclipsed by baby Alice or some of
the other children.
The ethics of the nursery (or was it particularly Helena’s teacher
Emilie?) did not apparently recognize the legitimacy of signs of aggres­
sion or hostility in the children. When incidents erupted in full view
of the staff, the children were immediately told to “kiss and make up”.
Jessica, who at this time incurred all kinds of mixed responses to her
more openly challenging behaviour, was often ostracized. Perhaps
this frightened Helena. In the third observation it seems that Rikaya’s
outstanding creative contributions provoked such envy and attack
from Jessica that Helena’s response was to make sure that she did not
expose herself to a similar fate. The Lego construction that she built
was utterly bland. . . .
Rikaya looked at her board and then declared “It’s a birthday
cake. . . .” Jessica snatched some of the pieces off Rikaya’s board,
and she said, visibly excited, “I’m having a piece of cake, I’m having
some of your cake!” Rikaya now became obviously upset and indig­
nant. . . . The board was near Helena. She took the board and placed
a number of plain upright rods on it, which looked like pylons. . . .
One of the keys to Helena’s behaviour was her attempt at paring
herself down. Outwardly she adapted herself to others and often
imitated blindly more powerful leaders in the playground. Likewise,
her aggression had to be disguised or hidden. As mentioned earlier,
she had developed a subtle, charming way of managing her antisocial
behaviour with others in such a way that she generally aroused little
antagonism from staff or from the other children:
 seeing beneath the surface 187

Gently and unobtrusively Helena removed a few cubes from Chel­

sea’s pile. I expected some kind of fracas, but she had removed
them so softly that the latter did not protest unduly. . . . Helena had
developed the knack of covering her tracks in such a way that she
caused few ripples.
She was generally viewed as a “good girl” in the nursery and made
strenuous efforts to ensure that this view prevailed. At times she
assumed a monitor role, acting almost as one of the staff! She gently
chided other children and reported their behaviour:
Helena spotted a Lego piece in their box, which did not belong in
there. She immediately informed Emilie, who put it on the next
table. . . .
Around Christmas, the staff told me that Helena was to be Mary in the
nativity play. . . . It seemed that there was little outlet for her aggressive
and hostile feelings. The emphasis on structured activity at the nurs­
ery throughout the day allowed Helena little time for free expression.
When she did get the chance to engage in more aggressive play, Helena
was barely able to contain her emotions physically.
However, on a number of occasions I glimpsed a different side of
her. This was usually in response to the babies:
I saw one of the teachers with a young child in her arms. Helena
looked up at them in the playground and made sudden sharp
aggressive swerving motions with her handlebars. Each went in a
different direction. Helena pulled the handlebars backwards and
forwards violently and swiped at the branch above her, which
apparently stood in her way.
Helena’s desire for control over what was seen of her behaviour by
the adult world made my recurrent presence increasingly problematic
for her, since she was so convinced that closeness and love were con­
ditional on her good conduct. The fact that she was aware that I might
be seeing other aspects of her for a while turned me into a frightening
figure. Initially, she resorted to obliterating me from sight. She just
“didn’t see” me when I arrived. I watched her eyes go blank. She then
became hostile and began to ask me: “It’s you again, why are you here
again?” A frown appeared on her face when she saw me arrive, replac­
ing the earlier ravishing smile:
Helena took a small pile of bricks and, looking at me, she clanged
the bricks together . . . she selected some green bricks, a long
188 elisabeth dennis

r­ ectangular one and a small green one, and began paring it down
fairly aggressively. I was aware that I was wearing green. . . . Seeing
me looking at her, Helena appeared to change her movements to
something a little softer! She told Emilie, “I’m cutting cheese Emi­
lie, I like green cheeses”. Emilie queried “green cheeses?” Helena
added, “and yellow cheeses”.

Underlying anxieties
As time went on, Helena became steadily more anxious about the
nature of my involvement with her and my witnessing her apparently
unacceptable aggressive actions:
On one occasion in the playground Helena noticed a ladybird on
the ground and alerted one of the staff. No action was taken. A
small boy came up in his vehicle and deliberately tried to run over
the ladybird. I intervened and tried to lift the ladybird onto a leaf,
in vain. Helena came up and said peremptorily, “Don’t touch it!” I
told her I didn’t want it to get crushed, not certain whether she’d
heard me properly. . . . She cycled away and returned and rode over
my foot. Covertly she looked at my shoe, and I saw a small look of
pleasure on her face. . . . It seemed that I was the one who should
be crushed.
Her increasing worry at the loss of her more familiar sense of being able
to hide things about herself due to my presence at the nursery led her
to ask the staff and her mother whether I came to the nursery to see if
she was “naughty”. Her mother’s response was most helpful in what
had become a charged, potentially persecutory situation for Helena,
and she was able to reassure and calm her down.
Around this time, Helena’s parents began to make plans to emigrate
to New Zealand. Helena’s fears of exclusion from her family and the
fear of being left behind by her parents surfaced in her play.
Next she assembled flat pieces of Lego together as in a trailer, and
in this way she fitted two separate trailers in parallel. She used her
little length of yellow plastic to prise off the small compartment
and said “chop-chop” as she chopped them apart. She seemed
delighted at this action, ending up with one small compartment
and two lots together. I thought I had heard her mutter under
her breath that one of these long trailers was “mummy”. I was
informed that I could chop mine up too (and be a fellow con­
 seeing beneath the surface 189

spirator). . . . Helena’s response to the crisis was to determine who

would be left behind.
I thought that she was becoming overwhelmed with feelings of grief
at her loss of status and exclusion from home. The feeling of jealousy
of the new baby meant that a “naughty” Helena held the frightening
possibility of a loss of love and being left behind.
Would it be a choice between her and the new baby? Did one of
them have to be crushed or excluded?
On one occasion Helena could not get all her dominoes in the box.
Emilie assisted her and gently took them out and helped the little
girl get them all back in so that they all fitted in neatly. Helena’s
relief was palpable. Everyone had a place in the box.
One of the questions for Helena was the issue of her skin colour.
Baby Alice is white, whereas Helena is mixed race in appearance. On
several occasions it seemed that Helena was grappling with whether
she or Alice would be preferred according to their colour. This ques­
tion preoccupied her and seemed to prompt her enquiry to me about
which colour I preferred, and her evident pleasure at my response. Her
interaction with Nerissa over her own mixed colour butterfly painting
versus Nerissa’s single-colour picture was an instance of her need to
assert that she was just as beautiful as her blond, blue-eyed playmate.
Earlier in the observation, Helena was keen to claim that she and Ner­
issa were the same, since they both had the same colour aprons on, but
Nerissa shook her head gravely and said “No, we are not the same”.
She seemed to be making a distinction based on their colour.
Towards Easter, Helena’s efforts to keep herself from acknowl­
edging her painful feelings seemed to flounder increasingly, and she
became ill. I was told that she suffers from mild asthma. She was
away from the nursery repeatedly, suffering from chest infections and
swollen glands. Her parents became concerned at her constant state
of exhaustion after nursery, and eventually, after the Easter break, her
full-time attendance was decreased to three days a week. At the nursery
Helena, visibly flagging in energy, needed help and was asking for it
weakly, but seemed to lack the necessary vigour to ensure that she got
it from the staff or from me as I witnessed her struggle:
After requesting my help to build her a tower like Nerissa’s, and my
refusal, Helena looked down at what she was making and picked
up two huge plastic hands . . . she placed one on each side of the
column, then she took them off again.
190 elisabeth dennis

In this observation it seemed she might feel that the huge bouncing
baby at home had taken everything away from her. She appeared
depressed, all the life-energy drained out of her. Around this time, I
saw Helena place a small brick on her neighbour’s gigantic construc­
tion, and everything collapsed. . . . Helena herself seemed shaky and
falling. She didn’t have the liveliness to grab the attention of play­
mates or staff.
In an earlier observation Nerissa had created two wicked witches,
which fascinated Helena, but she could not rally enough energy to con­
nect with Nerissa:
Helena said, questioning almost to herself, “two wicked witches!”
but didn’t get much response from Nerissa and let the subject drop
and once more resumed her desultory handling of the Lego bricks,
picking them up and dropping them gently on the table. There
seemed a melancholy air about her activity. She then quietly said to
me, “I need to go to the toilet.” She could not attract staff attention
to get help to go to the toilet.
Unfortunately the moment was missed by the staff, and Helena did not
get the help she needed in time:
Once more I noticed her strangely knock-kneed walk, as though she
might catch her feet and trip over. Her omnipotent defences were
on the verge of total collapse. On her return to the table one of the
toddlers tried to usurp her place. Helena said to me, “can you move
that”, and placed her arms on either side of the toddler.
As she sat down on the carpet with the other children who were each
doing a turn in the middle of the group, Helena watched Rikaya
declaim her nursery rhyme with perfect diction. I noticed that Helena
was clasping and unclasping her hands. I wondered if she was feeling
anxious. When it came to her turn, she stood again a little clumsily and
recited “Mary, Mary” in a rather small voice. . . . Another child, Nerissa,
recited her rhyme like a “big girl”, and again I watched Helena’s hands
wrung quietly on the ground.
At this point Helena’s anguish at her own predicament reached a
peak. Ultimately the situation was salvaged by Emilie, who provided
some belated assistance for Helena. This point in the observation
seemed a particularly poignant time for Helena. She was trying to
deploy her wings but just could not fly. This was the time at which her
parents fortunately intervened and reduced her attendance.
 seeing beneath the surface 191

Use of the observer

With the decrease in her days at the nursery and more time spent at
home, Helena seemed to renew her confidence in her parents’ love
for her and her place in the family. Helena’s depression lifted, and
her vigour gradually returned. Her physical co-ordination seemed to
improve a little. She seemed to have consolidated her sense of being
a “big girl”, particularly when demonstrating her powers in reading.
I saw her gingerly take part in some “animal” crawling on all fours
on the carpet, once she had satisfied herself that the older children
had joined in the melee. . . . She played with my key ring recently and
repeatedly enjoyed removing the sheath from a small key, exposing it
to view, and then concealing it again in the sheath. I wondered if she
felt a little more confident in exposing more of herself to me? She asked
me to take the small key off the key ring, which I did, as she played
for some time with the little key. She asked me then to replace it on the
key ring with the other keys. It look some time before I succeeded in
getting it back on as Helena watched, a little anxiously. Eventually, I
got it back on, and she sighed a sigh of relief. The little key was back in
place where it belonged. The terror of being removed was still around
to some extent, but it seemed that perhaps she could now withstand
some sense of separation. This little girl has battled and is still battling
with difficult issues but seems to have regained a sense of having a
place in her family and feeling loved in her own right. Quite recently
I heard her tell Emilie that Alice had sharp little nails and that she had
scratched her. . . . It seems that Alice is becoming a worthy opponent.
Helena’s response to Alice’s arrival evoked fears of loss of love and
hostile feelings, which were new and worrying for her. Her need for
closeness and approval produced all kinds of adaptations, including
manic defences and on occasion an omnipotent denial of reality. As
these floundered and her failure to obliterate and flatten her aggres­
sive feelings became apparent, she became depressed and physically
ill. Fortunately her parents recognized the need to decrease her days at
the nursery and helped her re-establish her trust in their love and her
place in the family. Helena now seems more able to withstand separa­
tion and seems generally more at ease with herself and others. The
change in her relationship to the observer is a striking record of her
struggles at this time.
CHAPTER ELEVEN

Thoughts on transitions between

cultures: Jonathon moves from home
to school and from class to class
Elizabeth Taylor Buck & Margaret Rustin

T
he observations that follow highlight one aspect of children’s
lives. Even quite small children often live in more than one cul­
ture of care—home and childminding, home and nursery, for
example. Within the family there will, of course, be a range of mini­
cultures: father and mother will themselves provide different styles of
care, grandparents, babysitters, older siblings, aunts and uncles, still
more new experiences. Young child observers are always mindful of the
picture of home in the child’s mind as a background to the response to
nursery, but it is more unusual to have an example of a child’s transition
within nursery school from one class to another. Such moves evoke the
earlier, more significant one at the start of nursery, but they also allow
us to study the micro-society of the nursery class and its impact on the
opportunities for personal development provided.
The intensity of Jonathon’s reaction to joining a new class, even
one that shared a large space with his old group and where there was
overlapping of some staff, is a vivid example of the way in which a
sense of personal identity and security is easily threatened at times of
transition.
Possibly, the observer’s ongoing weekly presence may have con­
tributed to the opening up of Jonathon’s personality to some of the
more troubling feelings, which he had been rather good at passing on

192
 thoughts on transitions between cultures 193

in Red Class, his starting point. The observer, of course, introduces a

new element into the child’s world—the presence of a reliable non-
judgemental figure in the background who watches with interest but
intervenes rarely, unless actively drawn in by the child. The continuity
of the observer’s presence may in fact bring into focus other disconti­
nuities that disturb the child’s equanimity. Let us now turn to the story
of Jonathon as it unfolded.

Jonathon
Jonathon was 3 years and 4 months old when I began my observations.
He is a slightly built white child who lives with both his natural parents
and his younger brother in a semi-detached house on the outskirts of
a large city. Jonathon has attended a day nursery for five days a week
since he was 6 months old, and his brother, who was 6 months old at
the start of the observation, now attends the same nursery.
Jonathon’s mother responded positively to a letter asking if I might
be able to observe her son in nursery. I spoke to her on the phone after
contact with nursery staff and arranged to visit their home. This visit
was quite difficult to arrange, as both parents work during the week.
Jonathon tends to be picked up from the nursery quite late, and his
Mum said there was usually only time for a bite to eat before his bed­
time. If Jonathon were to be involved in the preliminary visit, it would
have to be at the weekend. We therefore arranged for me to go round
on a Sunday afternoon.

Home visit
The following excerpt is from that initial home visit:
Jonathon’s mum shows me into the living room where Jonathon
is playing with an airport set on a coffee table. A short while later
his dad comes in, and I am introduced to him. He is carrying Jona­
thon’s baby brother Paul, who is 6 months old. Jonathon’s mum asks
Jonathon where Paul should be put. “In the chair”, says Jonathon.
“In this one?”, asks mum. “No”, says Jonathon smiling, “that one’s
mine”.
His mum asks me about the dissertation I will be writing. I explain
there will not be a dissertation, just a short written piece. Jona­
thon’s dad says that it would be interesting to read this, to find out
194 elizabeth taylor buck & margaret rustin

if ­Jonathon would grow into a serial killer. I say that normally it

is only the tutors who read the papers. Jonathon’s mum says she
knows an educational psychologist and asks about the work I do in
relation to this. . . .
Jonathon’s parents make frequent comments about how he is show­
ing off. He seems animated and talkative, but well behaved. The
airport set has been packed away, and Jonathon and his dad are
now doing a jigsaw of Jack and the Beanstalk together. His dad
asks him to offer me a drink, but Jonathon does not do so. His dad
tries again, but Jonathon refuses. I say to dad that I have just had
a drink, so he checks with the others, but only he wants a drink.
When he returns, he has some slices of pear and says to Jonathon,
“These are Daddy’s.” He then tries to get Jonathon to eat some of
them. “No”, says Jonathon. “No, what?” asks dad. “No thank you”,
says Jonathon. Parents tell me that Jonathon is a picky eater at home,
although nursery says he eats well.
From the outset it was planned that the majority of observations would
be at the nursery, but I had hoped that I would be able to do some at
home. However, it turned out that there would be very few times when
I might do this. Jonathon spends from 8.30 to 5.30 in nursery every
weekday, and (although his father is a teacher) attends throughout the
school holidays unless the family are going away. For these reasons it
has not proved possible to do any further observations of Jonathon at
home.
It is clear that Jonathon’s parents expect a good deal of him. They
express some anxiety about him (his “showing off”) and possibly indi­
cate concern about what the observer will see in their son, while father
seems to defend himself against such thoughts through his probably
mocking remarks about Jonathon’s future. The household feels well-
ordered and the play perhaps a bit “educational” in atmosphere, but
what most strikes the observer are the long hours Jonathon’s spends
at nursery. There is a hint that the Jonathon we know at home may
seem a different boy at nursery. The observer, who had hoped to do
some home observations, comes to share the deprivation of Jonathon’s
limited time at home. There is an expectation that children must get
on with life. “Jack” has to climb up the beanstalk and confront the big
world very early in this family. He must cope at nursery with the sort
of feeling evoked in most of us by the vast and overwhelming crowds
and activity of an airport.
 thoughts on transitions between cultures 195

Jonathon at nursery
When the observations started, Jonathon was in a class of 3–4-year-olds,
called Red Class. His classroom was in a freestanding pre-fab building
across the playground from the main building. Jonathon’s class shared
this space with the slightly older children in Yellow Class, who were
based on the other side of a low partition. After six months Jonathon
moved up from Red Class to Yellow Class, on the other side of the
partition. In Red Class, Jonathon’s closest ally initially appeared to be
Clarissa, who had moved up through the nursery with him. His other
good friend was Lee, who was slightly younger, and although Clarissa
moved up to Yellow Class with Jonathon, Lee was left behind.

Mummies and Daddies

When I first started observing Jonathon, he was in Red Class, where he
had already been for some time. It was commented on in the observa­
tion seminar that Jonathon and his friend Clarissa were treated pref­
erentially, like two elder statesmen. The following extract is from my
first full observation at nursery, when both the regular members of staff
were off sick:
It seemed to be snack time, and the two members of staff asked the
children to help them by clearing the tables. It was clear that the
adults did not always know where the various toys lived, and then
they would ask Jonathon and Clarissa. This gave me an image of
them as mummy and daddy. [Observation 1]
This was by no means the only time Jonathon and Clarissa were cast in
the roles of Mummy and Daddy:
Clarissa comes to the table where Jonathon is playing with some
plastic farm animals. She eyes me in a comically suspicious and hos­
tile way, so I feel like the other woman in Jonathon’s life. Jonathon
shows her the horse falling and tells her it banged its head. Clarissa
picks up a smaller horse and starts mirroring Jonathon’s actions.
Then she tries to get his attention, holding the little horse towards
his big one and saying “daddy, daddy”. [Observation 5]
Two weeks later:
Jonathon walks around the room and settles on a mat where­
Clarissa is. She gives him a large elephant, saying “daddy”. J­ onathon
196 elizabeth taylor buck & margaret rustin

says, “Let’s build a boat.” Other children arrive on the mat, and
Clarissa says, “Who can be mummy?” She chooses Lee, and gives
him another large elephant, keeping the baby one herself. She says,
“Jonathon, let’s go to bed.” Jonathon uses his elephant to knock over
a tower the other Jonathon is building. They both laugh. . . .
Mark arrives and tries to take the roof off a model building, which
is close to Clarissa and Jonathon. They say, in unison, “No, it’s our
roof.” Mark starts attacking the building with a billy goat. Jonathon
and Clarissa play with the horses, in and out of the building. There
is a small dog outside which they make the horses stamp on, saying,
“He’s not our friend.” Mark seems to want my attention; he tells
me the billy goat is sharp. Jonathon says the horse family are going
on holiday. Mark seems to try a rival attraction, inviting everyone
to a picnic. Jonathon and Clarissa decline the invitation. . . . (Later)
Jonathon and Clarissa defend their house from fresh onslaughts
from Mark. This time he has a pig with which he attacks the house
saying, “I’m a monster.” [Observation 5]
Here Jonathon and Clarissa seem to be taking on the role of a paren­
tal couple, defending themselves from intrusions. At the same time
their actions could be seen as a response to their shared experience
of the arrival of a younger child. Their play may have reflected a
wish to exclude their new siblings, or they might have been project­
ing onto Mark their own sense of exclusion from the mother–baby
couple. Certainly, Jonathon had continued full-time at nursery while
his mother was at home with Paul. She commented to me in our
initial meeting that he had not displayed any jealousy, except during
the three weeks they all spent away on holiday. In our observation
seminar we reflected that envious feelings might well have surfaced
for Jonathon during those three weeks, when there was a chance for
him to re-establish a full-time link with his mother, and so to feel the
pain of separation from her, and of having to share her with his new
brother.

Inclusion and exclusion

Throughout the observations there has been a theme of inclusion and
exclusion, an in-crowd and an out-crowd, goodies and baddies. When
Jonathon was in Red Class, he seemed to be very much part of the
­in-crowd:
 thoughts on transitions between cultures 197

Clarissa and Lee go to the water trough with Craig. Jonathon hesi­
tates for a moment and then goes to join them. They each have a
scoop. Jonathon pretends to drink from his, and the others copy.
Jonathon starts to take real mouthfuls and to spit it out. Nisa, the
nursery nurse, calls, “I hope that’s pretend spitting.” Clarissa says,
“Let’s pretend”, and exaggeratedly mimes sipping. . . . Clarissa gets
water in her eye. Lee starts rubbing his eye too. Jonathon is laughing
and enjoying himself . . . he and Lee jostle for space at the deep end.
(Later) The little gang of four are still together, they are tickling one
another, particularly Jonathon, who has both Clarissa and Lee’s
attention. Lee is both hugging and tickling him. He looks as though
he could eat him. [Observation 7]

As can be seen from some of the previous extracts, Jonathon had par­
ticularly intense relationships with Clarissa and Lee. For most of the
time he negotiated these with ease, but occasionally rivalrous feelings
were aroused:
Jonathon was playing with the Duplo alongside Clarissa and Mar­
tha. Nisa had Gilbert on her knee and was saying to him, “I really
missed you on Friday.” Shortly after this she went over to the mat
where Lee was. She said, “You can’t always play with Jonathon,
you have to play with other children too. He’s not the number one
child here. . . .”
It is striking that young children who spend long hours at nursery prob­
ably both have to squash into limited time at home the exploration of
the intense emotional upheavals of the early years and have to seek at
nursery opportunities to work out very fundamental issues. Jonathon’s
preference for a parental role as part of a couple with Clarissa may have
suited the nursery staff in part, just as his capacity to accept the role
of big brother has been expected at home, but we see how the nursery
group provides a chance for different aspects of his feelings to get a
hearing through the other children’s personalities and responses.

Nisa asked Clarissa if she still loved Jonathon. Clarissa said yes.
Then Nisa asked Jonathon if he loved Clarissa, and he also said
yes. Nisa asked, “Who else do you love in nursery?”, and Jonathon
said “No one.” Nisa asked Clarissa if she loved anyone else, and
she said, “Yes, Keisha.” Jonathon said he also loved Keisha. Lee had
wandered back to the table and sat opposite Jonathon. Jonathon
198 elizabeth taylor buck & margaret rustin

gave Nisa a kiss, and she whispered for him to kiss Clarissa, but he
didn’t. She asked again, but still he wouldn’t. “How come you will
kiss big girls, but not little ones?” asked Nisa. “When I’m bigger”,
asked Clarissa, “will you kiss me then?” Nisa got up to go, and Lee
mumbled under his breath, “I don’t like that Nisa . . .”. [Observa­
tion 15]
Clearly Jonathon and Lee had fallen out, and Nisa, rather than helping
them to deal with it, seemed intent on inflaming the rivalrous feelings.
It was as if she herself was in the throes of passionate feelings about
some of her favourites and was also stirring up these feelings in the
children she was caring for. The intensity of the feelings aroused meant
that it was hard for Jonathon to separate from his group and from Nisa
when it was time for him to move up to Yellow Class.
The relative immaturity of some of the young staff in nurseries is a
feature of the children’s experience. The staff members need emotional
support and containment before they can manage the subtle complexi­
ties of the children’s need for understanding.

The move to Yellow Class

This observation was the second in Yellow Class and, unusually, had
been rearranged from the morning to the afternoon:
Red Class and Yellow Class were both out in the playground when
I arrived. I went in to put my coat away and saw some blood on the
floor and a child wailing. I said “Oh dear” to Nisa who was there.
She said it wasn’t the girl wailing who was hurt, and indicated Gil­
bert, who had a split lip. Nisa was trying to elicit an apology from
the girl, who was in some way responsible.
Outside, I went over to Jonathon, who was tearing around with
the others, but after a while he seemed aimless and just wandered
about. He went and hid behind a shed; others joined in and made
a game out of it.
Jonathon continued to drift; I wondered whether my unexpected
arrival had thrown him. Some of the teachers noticed. Nisa, who
was sitting on the roundabout with Keisha, Clarissa, and Patricia,
called to him, but he did not respond.
Later Nisa got Jonathon to sit with her and Clarissa (by promising
that Clarissa would not try and kiss him). She asked him what was
 thoughts on transitions between cultures 199

wrong. She asked him if he still loved Clarissa and Patricia. Then
she took Jonathon, Clarissa, and Patricia into the garden area, and I
followed. She showed them some of the plants. She said to me that
she enjoyed being with them, it was like having her old gang back,
and she missed them. I wondered if it was the move, and sense of
loss, that was making Jonathon listless. [Observation 22]
As well as missing his gang, Jonathon also seemed to miss his elder-
statesman role. He looked small and uncertain in comparison to some
of the boys already in Yellow Class.
Here it seems as though Jonathon is struggling to find his place in
the new class. The older boys know the rules and use them to exclude
Jonathon, while his old friends Clarissa and Keisha make him feel left
out with talk of Barbie dolls and clothes. Jonathon tries to bolster him­
self and builds a big long train, but he is no longer treated as a favourite,
and Dora (Yellow Class teacher) instructs him to dismantle his train to
share the carriages around.
Gradually Jonathon seemed to learn the Yellow Class system and
establish a place for himself:
Jonathon had asked if he could play in the house from which
noises of energetic activity were coming. Linda (Yellow Class
teacher) said that it was five to ten and time for snack. She
showed Jonathon her watch. Jonathon also had a watch on, a plas­
tic one containing a little ball-bearing maze. She showed him that
hers had hands, not a ball.
Jonathon started to sort the dinosaurs into two groups. The children
were being told to go and get ready for snack. Clarissa ventured that
she and Jonathon had just washed their hands, but was told that she
had been playing since and needed to wash them again. Jonathon
remained behind, sorting out the dinosaurs. Linda said thank you
to him, and he told her that this group was goodies, and this group
baddies. [Observation 25]
However, Jonathon does not get the same preferential treatment he
enjoyed in Red Class, and this seems to unsettle him:
It is Rika’s turn to call out names for snack. Jonathon gets picked
early on, and gets up to go to the table. As he walks over he kicks
the house, which Rio had been making, and the pieces scatter. Linda
stops him in his tracks, holding both his hands, and says, “Jonathon,
that wasn’t very nice, was it.” Jonathon looks gutted; he walks over
200 elizabeth taylor buck & margaret rustin

to the table with his eyes welling up and sits down. He keeps his
head bowed and wipes the tears away. [Observation 26]

My relationship with Jonathon and the nursery

During the last eight months of observation, I have been struck by how
little Jonathon has tried to interact with me. While other children in the
nursery have stared, leant on, or questioned me, Jonathon has made
little direct contact:
Jonathon had seemed aware of me since my arrival, and he now
noticed that I had moved. He kept swivelling round in his chair to
look at me, which I registered by smiling and raising my eyebrows,
but he did not respond. [Observation 1]
I say hello to Jonathon when I arrive, and goodbye when I leave.
Jonathon sometimes responds with a wave or a goodbye but does not
always do so. However, although Jonathon does not often make overt
use of me, he seems to modulate his proximity to me:
The other children wandered away, leaving Jonathon and Clarissa,
who were opposite me. I reflected to myself that I was often too far
away to hear what they were saying, which was easily drowned
out by the background hubbub. Shortly after this Jonathon actually
moved round the table closer to me. [Observation 9]
Jonathon sat down at a table with some Meccano and started to use
a triangular piece as a saw. He began to work on a chair, as though
he was mending or dismantling it. He tinkered away and was joined
by the other Jonathon. He moved away from him and came round to
my chair and started work on that, sawing at the legs, and making
adjustments with a pretend spanner. [Observation 14]
He also seems to monitor what I am doing and notices anything out of
the ordinary:
Jonathon finished his snack quickly and got up, returning to the
dinosaurs. He chose the biggest from the goody group, The Daddy.
As others finished, they joined him, and the others at the table
looked on. Keisha got a smaller dinosaur and held it close to Jona­
thon’s, calling it Daddy. Riu took the group of baddies, saying she
wanted the baby dinosaurs. I was sitting close by, and Riu started
to try and involve me, at one point waving a dinosaur close to my
 thoughts on transitions between cultures 201

face, so I had to put my hand up to stop her. I got up to move, but

she continued to try to engage me. I crouched down and said that I
wasn’t really here to play with her. “Why not?” she asked. “Because
I am here to watch Jonathon”, I said. On seeing this interaction
Jonathon came straight over to me and asked, “What did you say
to her?” I told him I had said that I couldn’t really play with Riu, as
I was there to watch him. [Observation 25]
It seems as though Jonathon does not quite know what to make of me.
We discussed in the seminar how he did not seem able to use me as an
available adult mind, and how this might reflect his long-term exposure
to the nursery, where adults are in short supply. Perhaps Jonathon has
learnt from this to rely on, and make attachments to, the other children,
like Clarissa and Lee. His uncertainty may also reflect the ambivalence
felt by the staff towards me. Early on I had a sense of the staff in Red
Class feeling threatened by me, perhaps because I was identifying with
the children more than I was with them:
I arrived and went to put my coat and bag away. Nisa came after
me and asked if she could have a word about Jonathon, who
seemed subdued after my observations. She said he is normally
very chatty but seems quiet when I am there, and then gets clingy
and runs around a lot when I leave. She said they had wondered
if it would be better if I sat a bit apart from him, so it might seem
as though I was watching everybody. I listened to her and then
said that I thought Jonathon knew I was observing him, as I had
visited him at home. Nisa said she wondered whether he felt as
though everything he did would be reported to his parents. I
explained that I only spoke to his Mum if I was going to miss a
week. I also said I didn’t think it mattered if Jonathon was slightly
different in my presence, that was understandable, but that I was
glad they had told me. It was important to know. Nisa said Jona­
thon didn’t seem distressed by it, but they would let me know if
this changed. I felt put out by this conversation, as though Nisa
was flexing her muscles. [Observation 12]
One of Nisa’s difficulties with me might have been that I was intro­
duced by the manager, and it appeared that there was a certain amount
of resentment and hostility directed towards her. Nevertheless Nisa’s
“word” left me feeling vulnerable in my position as observer and keenly
aware of my impact on Jonathon, In terms of the earlier discussion, I
felt as though I was “a baddie” or intruder. Interestingly, however, after
202 elizabeth taylor buck & margaret rustin

this conversation Nisa seemed much more accepting of my presence,

even to the extent of rescheduling the timetable, or interrupting story
time to accommodate me:
Nisa called all the children over to the book corner to have a story
read. Over their heads she asked me if it was OK to have a story, as
she didn’t like to stop activities I was observing. I said it was fine.
Periodically, while reading the story, she addressed comments to
me—“They’ll never understand that word . . . I spend half my time
explaining.” [Observation 18]
When Jonathon moved up to Yellow Class, I, like him, had to get to
know a new staff group.

Discussion
Donald Meltzer writes,
what is at least clear now is that the individual does, and must, live
in multiple worlds. If he confuses the meaning, the values and the
modes of operation among these worlds he will fall into confusion
and perplexity, be attacked by anxiety from which he must seek relief
by mechanisms of defence of one sort or another. [Meltzer, 1984, p. 90]

In my observations of Jonathon, I have seen his mastery of the values

and the modes of operation in Red Class, to the extent that he was seen
as an elder statesman or daddy figure. I have also seen him slightly
flounder and then start to adapt, as he moved to the neighbouring
world of Yellow Class. He is, perhaps, what Meltzer would describe as
an “organization man”:
In terms of structure of the personality the organisation-man would
conform to that level of functioning which Bion identified as group
mentality founded on the operation of the Basic Assumption. . . . To
the organisation-man his status in the group constitutes his security
and the stability of the group is the foundation of his status. . . . The
organisation-man does not develop in the structure of his personal­
ity; he merely becomes more skilful in manipulating his group in the
interest of advancing in status and security. Obedience to the basic
assumption is the only virtue for the organisation-man. This means
obedience to those higher in the hierarchy and exacting obedience
from those lower. [Meltzer, 1984, pp. 100–101]

One aspect of group-mentality with the basic assumption “fight–flight”

is that there is a common danger or enemy (Stokes, 1994, p. 21). This
 thoughts on transitions between cultures 203

sheds an interesting light on the theme running through the observa­

tions, discussed earlier, of goodies and baddies.
Meltzer points out in his discussion on the impact of nursery on a
1-year-old child that we all have to learn to cope in organizations. Chil­
dren such as Jonathon have had to do so from a very early age, and it
may be the case that he is more familiar with the role of “organization-
man” than that of “family man”.
Lynn Barnett, in her discussion of nursery day care, comments that
“Some children in their most formative years . . . spend more of their
waking hours in the nursery than in their families” (Barnett, 1995,
p. 223). She and her colleagues from the Tavistock carried out research
in an inner-city nursery, which considered the impact of day care on
the children. “A major conclusion of the study was that exposure to the
day nursery was a cause of increased aggression and retarded language
development in children.” However, she adds, “On the other hand, the
research also indicated that it is possible for a day nursery to function
more therapeutically and with an educational role.” Barnett suggests
that this improved situation can come about when the emphasis in the
nursery changes from “domestic care (cleaning and minding the chil­
dren), to child care (understanding the behaviour of children and case
assignment)” (Barnett, 1995, p. 222).
It strikes me that Jonathon’s nursery falls somewhere in-between
the two, with the staff sometimes resorting to a “mop and bucket”
approach to child care when they feel under pressure, yet at other
times finding the space to think about, and try to understand, what is
going on for the children. Of course, care within the nursery also varies,
depending on the attitude of individual staff. Here, as an optimistic end
piece, is an extract from my most recent observation, where Jonathon’s
teacher is thoughtfully contemplating the play of the six children in
her care:
I arrive at the nursery to find Jonathon and a small group of his
classmates out in the playground with Linda. Linda tells me that it
is always Yellow Class’s playtime between 9.30 and 9.45, but I have
only seen them out once before at this time because of the weather.
She says to me that there are only six children in today, and they
are all playing together as a group. There are a number of different
games going on, she tells me, like Winnie the Witch and Sleeping
Beauty, but they are all getting woven together. . . .
(Later) Linda comments to me that there are no bikes or other
equipment out, and she is so pleased to see how they are all
204 elizabeth taylor buck & margaret rustin

t­earing around using their imagination, rather than fighting over

the toys.
Mark is standing at the top of the slide calling out that he is having
a tea party, and everyone is invited. Karin picks this up and calls
out “Winnie is having a tea party.” Clarissa, on the roundabout
with Keisha, asks, “Who can be the prince?” “I will”, says Jonathon,
walking over to them. “No”, says Clarissa, “because you won’t
kiss the princess”. Then they all go over to join in Mark’s tea party.
[Observation 27]
This observation provides an unusual opportunity to see a little boy in
three different contexts—the home/school context is added to by the
move into a new class and the necessity to deal with the pain of what
has been lost in moving on from Red Class, and to cope with feeling
small, unrecognized, hurt, and angry. Although the “organization-
man” aspects of Jonathan are notable, the range of feelings he is able
to express and the range of imaginative play he gets involved in might
be seen as evidence of a more rounded development. Nisa’s remarks to
the observer about the impact on Jonathon of her visits are interesting
to ponder on: might one wonder whether the quieter side of him—less
driven to hold on to his place in the group at all costs—gained some
support from her quiet presence and whether his longing for more
contact with the grownups (the “clingy” behaviour) was also made real
for him through her openness to his responses?
CHAPTER TWELVE

“The house is a boat”:

a group of children face separation
Simonetta M. G. Adamo

I
n this chapter I intend to describe how a group of nursery school
children lived through and coped with the experience of separat­
ing from school, teachers, and each other at the end of the year. My
aim is to show how, if teachers are sensitive and able to stand by and
provide a containing environment and relationships, children may find
additional resources in their reciprocal relationship. Through becoming
a group, they can discover support to help them face separations and
transitions.
This appears particularly important in those contexts where nurs­
ery-school classes are large and the ratio of children to teachers is far
from ideal. The teacher’s ability to guarantee a free and secure atmos­
phere, where the links between children can develop, can encourage the
mobilization of new sources of support. Children’s group relationships
actually enable emotional states to be shared and, through free play,
provide opportunities for expression and symbolic containment.
This example is taken from observations made over two years in a
nursery school and discussed in a Young Child Observation seminar,
which was part of the Tavistock Model Observation Course held at the
Centro Studi “Martha Harris” in Naples.1
The first observation was made in June near the end of term. For
the child who was being observed, Mario, these were his last weeks
in the school and the city. Shortly, in fact, he would leave for France,

205
206 simonetta m. g. adamo

his mother’s country of origin, to live there permanently. The teachers

were perfectly aware of the impact that such a separation would have
on the child and had discussed this at length with the observer. They
had pointed out to him that since the child’s mother spoke to her son in
French, he would lose contact not only with familiar places and people,
but also with the sounds and language of the country in which he had
lived until now. At the time of the observations on which I comment,
Mario was 4 years old.
On his arrival in the school, the observer found the children gath­
ered in the garden near a wooden house that had been built there.
It is a simple house, rather like those in children’s drawings, a door­
way and two side windows. Mario has a large broom in his hand
and is sweeping inside the house and brushing the dust outside.
There are three or four children who call his name repeatedly and
bring him leaves, asking him whether they are ok. With the broom
in his hands, he replies that they will do fine. He wears a light blue
shirt and shorts. He looks very awkward with the broom in his
hand, as it towers over him.
Without stopping sweeping, he comes out of the toy house, comes
towards me, and tries to hit me twice on the head with the broom. . . .
The atmosphere in the children’s group is not as chaotic as usual,
and the game is much more organized. Mario says that they are in
the middle of the sea and that the house is a boat.
Then, using the broom, he begins to brush the walls, saying, “Let’s
wash the windows now.” The children are very collaborative, and
the game seems to consist of creating this space—house-boat. Other
children gather plants and bring them to Mario.
He then goes inside the house and puts them on one of the window
sills, where various types of plants are arranged. The children say
several times that one of the plants is basil, even though this is not
true. Paper plates are arranged on the other window sill. . . .
Mario shows “captain-like” behaviour in this situation. . . .
Mario, who is about to leave the school for good, seems to have become
the spokesman for anxieties about separation shared by all children: the
captain, the planner, and the director of the game.
However, it is interesting to note that the children do not use Mario
to free themselves of their own anxieties and unload them onto him, as
they might have done if they had made him feel excluded and isolated,
 “the house is a boat” 207

but associate with him and try to represent their feelings in the group
game. With the end of school and the impending separation, there are
no longer any fixed points, and the important sense of stability offered
by the regularity of the rhythms and rituals of school life will cease. The
house becomes a boat, the separation, a journey. But these children have
clearly found, in their relationship with the teachers and the school
as a whole, a positive experience in feeling themselves recognized as
individuals and kept together as a group. “The teachers always man­
age to find the right thing to say to each one of them” was a frequent
comment of the observer. They therefore do not seem to experience the
separation in a catastrophic way. They build their Noah’s ark, which
can bring them to safety, and the first task they undertake is to clean
it. “But what do they have to clean?” we might ask. The experience of
separation always reactivates anxieties of being expelled, placed at a
distance, abandoned, and maybe a trace of these feelings can be found
in the sudden and apparently unmotivated gesture on Mario’s part
when he hits the observer on the head.
These feelings, however, are relatively marginal. The children’s cen­
tral experience seems, in fact, to be that of being able to separate, feeling
themselves to be contained and bringing with them supplies made up
of memories, emotions, and sensations—colours, familiar smells, basil
and other plants—experiences that can be transplanted, in the hope
that they will root and flower in other places as well, in other contexts,
with other people. There are also dishes that represent, symbolically,
the nourishment received by the children through their experience at
school, which they can take with them and which will help them to
manage the separation, with its losses and the unknown future that
will follow. Mario seems fully aware that there will be harder and more
testing moments to come which will prove a challenge to his capacities
and his courage.
After a while, he exclaims, “Who wants to cross the river with me?”
Initially no one pays him any attention, but then a few follow him.
The game consists in hanging from hoops or from an exercise beam
and clinging on. . . .
The next observation session, a week later, coincides with Mario’s last
day at school.
Mario starts walking and goes near the wooden house in the gar­
den. He walks with his head down. He looks sad, almost verging
on tears. He walks by himself disconsolately around the garden.
208 simonetta m. g. adamo

Near the wooden house, he picks some wild flowers that grow in
the garden. He holds a little bunch of them in his hand, he seems
rather awkward and doesn’t know where to put them. He makes
various attempts, and then puts them in the front pocket of his
dungarees. . . . He slowly comes towards the observer and looks at
him. . . . He stops at his feet and, bending down, picks up an unripe
hazelnut that has fallen from the tree. He puts it in his pocket and
continues wandering slowly round the garden while the other chil­
dren play. . . .
One of the teachers says to the observer, “Mario’s in a really bad
mood today; he didn’t want to come, and he came in crying.” . . .
Meanwhile Mario stops in the centre of the garden and crouches
down. He seems to be picking up something in the grass. The
observer is struck by the absence of his usual friends near him.
Two children who rarely play with him come towards him. One of
them caresses his hair; the other one imitates him and caresses him
too and then gives him slight taps on the head. Meanwhile one of
the teachers goes and crouches down near to him and says some­
thing to him.
Mario asks the two children to pick the same flowers that he had
picked beforehand. The children bring them to him, and he pulls
them apart, taking off the petals and making them into a little pile.
Bepi, his best friend, comes and asks him to play, but Mario doesn’t
even look at him.
After a while they gather together in the main room to eat a cake.
Mario is near to the headmistress, who explains that the cake is from
him; today he is leaving, and he wanted to say goodbye to everyone.
Mario holds the biggest piece of cake in his hand, the middle bit. A
short while afterwards the children go back into the garden. Bepi
sits down next to him and tells him that the cake was very good;
he asks him who made it. “I made it!” Mario replies emphatically,
arousing Bepi’s admiration.
A child comes up to him and says, “Are you going today?” and con­
tinues walking. Mario shouts from a distance, “Yes, and I’m never
coming back again!”
In the background, a group of children play at being tied up by
the teacher. As this is going on, Luca, one of Mario’s best friends,
comes towards him and says, “I don’t believe you’re going”, and he
 “the house is a boat” 209

goes away laughing, even when Mario repeats that it is really true.
Bepi, who has remained close to him, asks him if they have bought
a house. Mario says yes, and another child wants to know whether
it is a new house or one that they already had and that they had
done up.
When, later on, the children play at tag, Mario goes towards them
holding a small chair and says, “I’ll just watch”, and he stays seated
and watches the other children play.
The time is up, and the observer goes over to Mario and instinctively
runs a hand over his head and then leaves.

To part does not always mean to take leave. But in the situation
described, the children are helped to do it and to live fully the crucial
and painful experience of saying “goodbye”. And, as we can see in this
observation, the stronger the bond, the more difficult it is to separate.
The careful gaze of the observer records the unexpected absence
of the child’s closest friends and later on the show of indifference that
Mario displays towards them. “I can’t believe it”, is the reaction of one
of them, who walks away laughing in the desire to carry on in the con­
viction that it isn’t true and that it is all a joke.
At first, two schoolmates who are less close to Mario come near him,
after his long slow wander through the garden spent gathering, with
his hands, his eyes, and his mind, traces to take with him, relationships
to remember, such as that with the observer, whom Mario looks at for
a long time and at whose feet Mario picks up a wild fruit.
The other children help Mario in his profoundly symbolic activities.
There is a real parting in the tearing off of the petals—and probably
the game played by children when they are tied up by the teacher is
unconsciously aimed at containing anxieties of scattering and fragmen­
tation—but there is also the possibility of picking flowers and gathering
the petals together.
The sequence around the cake shows Mario next to the headmis­
tress, who supports him, almost physically, in this moment of official
recognition of his departure. This is also the point at which Mario can
“feed” his friends and teachers, giving back their affection and express­
ing his gratitude.
Leaving, as we have seen, is difficult not only for the person who
goes away, but also for those who remain, who may feel in their turn
abandoned and rejected. Bepi, his best friend, by appreciating the
cake, seems to want to emphasize to Mario and himself the goodness
210 simonetta m. g. adamo

of their relationship, of what has been exchanged between them. This

is confirmed by the subsequent expressions of concern for Mario, for
whom the children’s questions bring hope that he will find shelter and
protection in the new place that awaits him. One child is interested in
knowing whether his new house will be completely new (and therefore
quite foreign) or whether it will contain some elements of continuity,
familiarity, like a house that has been done up. In order to be able to
separate, one needs also to manage to set a distance, and this is what
Mario does right up until the end in choosing not to take an active part
in the other children’s game. However, his behaviour does not repre­
sent distance-taking through hardening or denigration. Rather, it is the
kind of distance-taking that occurs when one prepares to stop being
part of something, and to say goodbye, having taken care to gather and
introject as much as possible of it. As Mario says, when he sits down
in his chair near to the other children and remarks, “I’ll just watch”:
perhaps an echo of the observer’s activity.

Notes
This paper was originally presented in a Study Day on “Transitions”, held in Naples,
16 June 2000, as part of a Training Programme organized by the Project “Zero-sei”
of Naples’ City Council.
1. I would like to thank Dr Dario Bacchini for giving me permission to use some
extracts from his observations.
 PART IV

Applications

This part includes three chapters, all of which depart from the mainstream
educational aspect of Young Child Observation in the direction of the
observer functioning in some sort of therapeutic role.
Chapter 13, by Deborah Blessing and Karen Block, discusses a participant
observation conducted in a special needs preschool. Participant observa-
tion is defined by the authors as an intermediate area between observation
proper and clinical work. The observation in this case had been initiated for
training purposes, but it had, unexpectedly, an impressive therapeutic impact
on the child, a 5-year-old girl with autistic features. The chapter describes
movingly the evolving relationship between the child and the observer, the
initial, recurrent tendency of her falling from the observer’s mind, the pos-
sibility of representing in play the wobbly connections that dominated her
inner and outer world, and the gradual, growing duration and solidity of her
interactions. The conclusion of the chapter is very sad, with the uncertain-
ties it casts on the future of the child. However, the chapter also raises some
important issues: nursery teachers are increasingly worried by children who
are, broadly speaking, on the autistic spectrum. They often don’t know how
to reach them and are concerned by the children’s tendency to fall from
their minds, due in part to the presence of other children who express their
difficulties and needs in a more active and compelling way. Their parents
sometimes find it very difficult to recognize the psychological aspects of
their children’s problems. This happens particularly frequently with children
on the autistic spectrum, partly as a consequence of a past professional
tendency to blame mothers as if they were primarily responsible for their
children’s pathology.
Interventions such as the one described in chapter 13 are valuable, as
they show how it is possible to offer within a school setting help to children

211
who, for different reasons, cannot access specialist help. This kind of sup-
port can not only set in motion again the blocked emotional development of
the child but can relieve the sense of powerlessness of the teachers and the
uneasiness that other children can experience when confronted with a child
who appears so unaware of their presence. These creative experiments may
perhaps come to be included in the range of interventions suggested by the
authorities responsible for children’s mental health, as in the case described
in the following chapter.
This chapter, by Anne-Marie Fayolle (chapter 14), describes work under-
taken at home with a child suffering from a serious illness. Professionals who
work with children with chronic and/or life-threatening diseases know how
difficult it can be to help them through ordinary psychotherapy. Often parents
who have to cope with the physical survival of their children are too over-
whelmed by their pain to be able to fully recognize the impact that the illness
and its treatment have on the psychic state of the child. The difficulty of add-
ing yet another therapy to a daily life already full of medical procedures and
treatments can be a further obstacle. This stimulated a concern in the multi-
professional team to find alternative ways of supporting ill children and their
families, offering, for instance, the possibility of receiving counselling and/
or psychotherapeutic help within paediatric departments. This is not always
possible or the best solution—and this not only for practical reasons, such
as, for example, the distance of the hospital from the family’s home. What is
mainly needed sometimes is to share the child’s daily life, recognizing and
supporting the psychic aliveness expressed through play and imagination.
In this case, a home participant psychoanalytic observation was suggested
by a child neuropsychiatrist to help the child and his mother. Much happens
and is understood in this observation, very little is spoken out loud. There is
no possibility, probably no need, to make communications explicit. What is
really important is that they happen. Playing with dinosaurs allows Tom to
represent the primitive fight for life, against the deadly threats that menace it,
the parental concern for the safety of their progeny. The observer’s presence,
her attention often shared with the mother, offered Tom the possibility of
reducing his outer and inner isolation. We are left deeply aware of the pain
that the observer had to endure, of her courage in keeping her mind and
heart open, of her need of being herself supported by a supervision group
and convinced of the importance that similar experiments could have in
thinking about the emotional pain and needs of ill children and the planning
of innovative services able to meet them.
One of the aims of Psychoanalytic Observation seminars is to help stu-
dents to develop their observational skills in order to apply them in their
work. The presence, within the Tavistock Course, of a Work Discussion

212
Seminar, where students present a detailed description of a work situation,
helps them to practise their capacity for self-observation. The third and last
chapter of this part, by Mel Serlin (chapter 15), is a striking example of how
observational skills informed her work as a supervisor of parental contact
with a child removed from their care. Some of the anxieties always present
in a Young Child Observation are here somehow concretized. The parents’
fear of being judged and criticized by the observer, the anxiety about the
use she will make of what she sees, are in this case enhanced by the shared
awareness that her observations and her written reports will influence the
Court’s decision. The three components of her job, as the author says, are to
supervise, to support, and to observe; several examples in the chapter show
the sensible use she makes of her observation, in order to get a fresh under-
standing of the child’s psychic state and to give something back to the child
and his parents. Separation for this child is not just a developmental issue,
but a daily reality, and loss, abandonment, and disappearance are not only
anxieties but impending risks and actual experiences. The main focus of the
chapter is, however, on the child’s developing personal resources, namely
the support offered to him by a fictional character and by the adults’ under-
standing of the special meaning it came to acquire for him. Thomas the Tank
Engine, a bedtime story written by a father for his own young child, allowed
Paul to approach, through the safety net represented by this symbolic repre-
sentation, some of his anxieties and furnishes a good example of how good
cultural products for children can “give form to the experience of their inner
worlds” (M. E. Rustin & Rustin, 2001, p. 15).

213
CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Sewing on a shadow:
acquiring dimensionality
in a participant observation
Deborah Blessing & Karen Block

The Possible’s slow fuse is lit

By the Imagination
Emily Dickinson (1867)

I
n the interactive space between a mother and a baby, an infant
observer (and at some remove the seminar group) comes to have an
experience of watching relationships unfold and a child’s mind and
personality come into being. While always challenged by the task of
remaining in a non-initiating, non-intervening observational mode, the
observer has the luxury of being profoundly affected without having
to do anything more than the hard work of staying present to her own
feelings and to what is going on in the room. In clinical work we call
up the observing qualities of bearing powerful anxieties and attending
closely to the countertransference, but we also have something quite
particular to do with what we see and feel—through interventions and
interpretive work we strive to effect psychic change—to foster greater
reflective and emotional capacities.
In this chapter, we explore an intermediate area, that of a participant
observation. This application of a Young Child Observation was in a
preschool setting for children who had been unable to negotiate what
was required in a more ordinary preschool. We have come to see this

215
216 deborah blessing & karen block

intermediate area—neither pure observation, nor psychotherapy—as a

potential space where something transforming may take place. In this
case, nothing was set out as a goal; nothing, save additional experience,
was expected to happen, yet something unexpected did occur.
In this participant observation, Karen Block, a student in an Infant
and Young Child Observation programme, initiated volunteer work in
a classroom two mornings a week where she assisted the teacher and
interacted with the children. Her goal was to gain additional experi­
ence in working with young children. As she became immersed in this
endeavour, she asked me (Deborah Blessing) to help her make sense of
what she was seeing. Together we have come to think of her encounters
with a very floppy and withdrawn 5-year-old girl, Catherine, as having
something akin to some elements of Barrie’s tale of Peter Pan. As you
recall, Peter Pan enters unbidden through Wendy’s bedroom window
and asks her help to sew on his shadow. He entreats her to accompany
him to Neverland, a timeless place where he lives with a band of moth­
erless boys. Peter recognizes that he is missing something significant,
something that would grant him greater substantiality, a third dimen­
sion. It is a story of a child actively seeking someone to enable his
transformation and thus to enrich his capacities for development and
reduce his reliance on magic and omnipotence.
This is material from the encounters between Karen and Catherine
where Catherine, like Peter Pan, begins an engagement with an other to
help her to sew on her shadow. This child, presumed to be on the autis­
tic spectrum and described by her teachers as “not there” and “unable
to take in”, found in Karen a “live object” (Alvarez, 1992), someone
who elicited her interest. Over the course of a very short time—eight
months—Catherine came to inhabit a nascent three-dimensional self,
able to engage and play symbolically with a separate other. In describ­
ing this unfolding, we intend to highlight the active, reciprocal nature
of the containing process, underscoring the impact of sustained atten­
tion and the transforming power of moments of beauty in releasing
developmental possibilities and enlivening the self.
The setting is a classroom of eight chaotic 4- to 5-year-old boys,
where Catherine is the only girl. As a volunteer in the classroom, Karen
could only make use of what she saw and felt as a guide to what was
going on with the children. She had no access to the children’s histories.
Nothing was known about Catherine’s early days or what contributed
to the state that Karen first observed, nor can we attribute the changes
that emerged in this little girl solely to what transpired between Karen
and Catherine. The available information was that Catherine is the
 sewing on a shadow 217

older of two children born to professional parents, scientists of Euro­

pean extraction, and that Catherine speaks another language fluently
and plays the piano. Mrs A, the head teacher, offered her impressions
about her experience of Catherine’s parents. She commented that Cath­
erine’s father was nice and always made good eye contact with her
whenever they spoke. She added, “I find it curious, though, that after
talking with him, I often do not have any idea what he said.” Another
anecdote Mrs A supplied was that Catherine’s parents had asked her
for a book to help Catherine understand the death of her grandparent.
Although Mrs A provided a title, the parents decided instead to talk
to Catherine about the difference between existence and nonexistence.
Mrs A added that she has no idea what is going on with Catherine or
her family and that she would appreciate any insights Karen might
have. Karen describes her first day in the classroom:
I enter a brightly lit classroom; the children’s colourful artwork
graces the walls, and shelves and large plastic containers are over­
flowing with toys and materials. Eight quirky boys are shouting,
laughing, arguing, and falling on each other. The classroom seems
on the verge of chaos; tension runs high. The teacher sings to grab
the children’s attention. On the fringe of the commotion I notice
one thin, waif-like little girl with straight brown hair and somewhat
mismatched clothing sitting in a small wooden rocking chair. She
seems in a world of her own; her expression is flat, she is tapping
her feet, sucking her fingers, her body and gaze turned away from
the teacher. I look around and am shocked to discover that she is
the only girl. Activities begin. I get caught up in helping the teach­
ers. Later she catches my eye, skipping by herself on the edge of the
play area. I am startled by her presence—and by my having forgot­
ten the little girl whose presence had taken me aback only a short
time before. I have only begun to take this in when I notice that Mrs
A is seated at a table force-feeding a little boy who is refusing his
snack. She is adamant about his eating it. I feel disquieted by this
imposition of control. There seems to be little space to reflect on the
meaning of behaviours and what lies behind them.
Over the next weeks Karen brings her observations of the children
in the classroom to supervision. Catherine’s perplexing behaviour,
often solitary, more quiet than the boisterous little boys, captures
Karen’s attention in a deeply insinuating way. She notices how Cath­
erine slides away, never staying in one place for long—now melt­
ing into the floor, now busily rolling the end of someone’s shirt, or
218 deborah blessing & karen block

in a corner, mind adrift, rocking and sucking. Catherine often leans

up against firm surfaces, borrowing a spine from the wall, a chair,
the back of another child who has not agreed to serve this function.
She is unfazed by the protests and annoyance of the other children;
her interest is centred on their external properties. Her sticking her­
self onto things and others provokes involvement where little exists.
Catherine begins tentatively to seek out Karen in similar ways, posi­
tioning herself next to her or gently touching her arm before quickly
darting away. Karen tells us:
I enter the classroom on my fifth day there. The children are aligned
in a row with the teacher, their backs against the wall. I notice Cath­
erine sitting at the end of the row. She glances in my direction as
she jumps to her feet and hops towards me a step. She looks glad
to see me. I think she is about to greet me, and I happily anticipate
the contact. Then she does an about-face, twirling around until she
reaches the wall. She leans against it, facing completely away, as if
she is totally uninterested and rejecting of all of us present. I feel let
down and a bit foolish; perhaps she wasn’t intending to greet me
at all. I had felt recognized for an instant, and then invisible, oblit­
erated. I wonder if I am feeling what it is like to be her.
Later, I reflect on how much disconnection there is between Cath­
erine and other people in her world. I am aware of the mutual
dropping from mind that takes place in the classroom. An example:
at dismissal time, when Mrs A says goodbye and reminds each
child about something he has done that day, she often cannot recall
anything that Catherine has been up to and looks to me to fill in
the blanks. I have also noticed when a potential connection does
not materialize, when Catherine is not “picked up”. On Art Gallery
Day, while many parents are visiting the classroom and admiring
the artwork with their children, Catherine and I are sitting at a
small table. I notice a woman who has been looking at the artwork
alone. I wonder who she is. Mrs A then introduces her to me. She is
Catherine’s mother. I am bewildered that neither Catherine nor her
mother seems to have taken in the other’s presence or made any
attempt to get together. Have they even seen each other? I think of
the game of hide-and-seek and how joyful it is to be found—and
how painful it is when no one finds you. Is this akin to Mrs A’s
lapses and low expectations or my own disappointments with
Catherine’s responses? Perhaps they each have found it hard to feel
met by the other and now expect little in their experiences together.
 sewing on a shadow 219

Catherine’s mother says to me, “You don’t see me here too often.
It’s nice to see where Catherine spends her time. I have my life and
Catherine has hers—we are all so busy.”
From this detailed description of early moments of this participant
observation, we now fast-forward to a series of condensed vignettes
that trace the trajectory of a budding connection between Karen and
Catherine and the growth that flowed from it. Karen’s ability to stay
attentive and to withstand the many instances of not knowing what
Catherine’s interactions and communications meant could only have
resulted in change if and when Catherine could take in what was
offered—that is, only if she opened herself up actively to receiving
Karen’s mental and emotional nourishment. Something about Karen
and the atmosphere grabbed Catherine’s imagination. She desired this
engagement and also, it seemed, had the capacity to choose to take in
and benefit from Karen’s efforts and intentions, which was a change
from her usual position of being unreachable much of the time. To
return to the observation material:

Week 5
Catherine, carrying a large container of Lego pieces, comes and
sits beside me on the floor. I ask her what she is going to build. “A
castle”, she tells me. Gathering many pieces together, Catherine
begins to build. She puts one piece on a flat base, adds another, and
another, until she has formed a single wall. The pieces are not tightly
locked together; the wall leans. I feel empty looking at her castle,
and also anxious about the wobbliness of what she has constructed.
It is stark, lacking a form and people—a lifeless fragment. She sits
back, looks distractedly around the room. I wonder if I’ve lost her.
I move to draw her back to me by asking if there are people in the
castle. “Yes!” she says, but does not elaborate—gone again. I reach
out again: “Where are they?” She pulls a figure from the container.
I ask, “Who is it?” “Catherine!” she exclaims. Holding the figure in
one hand, she fishes out another. She initiates—“This is a person,
too!” She then tries to attach the figure to the top of the wall, press­
ing down hard. The unstable structure collapses. She tries to reas­
semble it, but once again the castle falls. “It won’t stay up—I can’t
do it”. This is a very painful moment for me. I respond, “Let’s see if
we can make it more secure.” I demonstrate how to link the pieces.
“Let’s do it together”, I say. We work together, rebuilding her tall,
grey wall, and when all the pieces are attached, she says, “There!”
220 deborah blessing & karen block

She then presses the two people down firmly into the base and
begins to build additional walls around them—the beginnings of a
castle with an internal space. Mrs A has been surveying our play.
She comes over, and comments, “This is incredible—she is playing.
She’s never done this before”.
Over the next two weeks, Catherine consistently seeks me out. One
morning the teacher asked me what I’d like to do with the children
that day. Catherine jumped up from her chair and shouted happily,
“I would like to play with blocks.” (My last name is Block).
Children with autistic or autistic-like impairments often lack a sense of
mutual, emotionally based curiosity about (or desire for) interpersonal
relationships (Alvarez, 2005). Catherine, a passive, indifferent, some­
times avoidant child, awakens to the “interestingness” of Karen. She
ventures into new territory with Karen, attempting to grasp something
of the to-and-fro between people.

Week 10
I am working with three boys in a small area. Suddenly Catherine
appears, holding two telephone receivers. With a quick motion, she
forces one receiver into my hand, puts the other to her ear, and says,
“Hello.” Feeling a bit surprised, I put the phone to my ear and say,
“Hello?” She is silent. I continue, “Is this Catherine?” She happily
answers, “Yes!” I struggle to come up with something to talk about. I
say, “How are you?” She answers, “Fine”, then takes the phone from
me and puts the receiver back onto its base. I feel dropped. What
happened to our connection? Moments later, Catherine appears
again at my side, and we replay the whole scenario. Once more I feel
pressure to say something interesting to keep her on the line. And so
it goes. We repeat this exercise with slight variations several times.
Karen picks up on Catherine’s difficulties in making transitions and
a continuing experience of being dropped. It is familiar ground, with
Catherine having the control. But this interplay also points to a devel­
opmental shift. Catherine seems to be practising taking turns in a
proto-conversation—she is recognizing how to engage with and to
make room for the other to respond, but she has not yet got the hang
of what goes in the middle and how to keep the conversation going.
Karen comes to experience the pain of not knowing what to say, as well
as the longing to keep the link alive for both of them.
 sewing on a shadow 221

In the next piece of observational material, Catherine’s fascina­

tion with Karen grows along with her awareness and enjoyment of
Karen’s thoughtful attention. Though only several months have passed,
­Catherine seems to take a significant step over the wall that had stood
between her and the outside world. She seems to be expressing a desire
to look into the insides of the one who has been looking at her.
Catherine stands by the shelf of toys. She picks up a large magni­
fying glass on the top shelf, looks at it, then puts it up to her eye
to look out. She approaches me slowly, looking at me through this
giant magnifying glass. She has a curious expression as she studies
me. She then stands right in front of me and looks at me through
the glass. She moves her face very close to mine and peers into my
eyes. I feel she is trying to look right into me, to see who I am. She
then removes the magnifying glass from my face, holds it right up to
her own eye again, and then gently leans over me, looking through
the glass at the top of my head, as if she is literally looking right
into my head. I am moved by her interest—her curiosity about me,
and by her gentle and tentative gestures. I try to stay very still. The
moment seems so delicate and fleeting. Catherine then hands me
the magnifying glass and walks back to her chair.
This was a moment of beauty—an awe-filled instance of joy at find­
ing and being found. Instances like this stimulate growth and signal a
more introjective process. Each of them is moved by the other (Alvarez,
1992; Meltzer & Williams, 1988). An aesthetic experience such as this
cannot be called forth, cannot be willed, but may arrive unbidden when
defences against knowing are surrendered and when the self is recog­
nized. It is an experience of coming together, yet also of being seen for
who one is. What Karen describes took place in a mere sliver of time,
yet seemed to be transforming. It is a culmination of many containing
experiences over time. In this participant observation Karen not only
sustained attention and struggled to understand Catherine’s anxie­
ties and projections, but she also reached into Catherine’s unplumbed
hopes and dreams and helped realize some of her potential for emo­
tional life. But Catherine acted as a co-creator of this experience. She
embraced a sense of Karen’s taking her in, drawing her out of the fog
of her withdrawal, and sparking the motivation to broach the possibil­
ity of a relationship. In the process Catherine came to acquire a more
filled-out self and to recognize aspects of the essential qualities of a
separate other.
222 deborah blessing & karen block

One final vignette

Four children are riding tricycles in the hallway. Catherine zooms
her bike up and down the hall, pedalling quickly. She is moving fast,
but clearly aware of her surroundings and careful not to bump into
anyone. Watching Catherine in the group, the teacher whispers to
me, “Catherine has become so much more related. She doesn’t look
so floppy anymore.” Travelling down the hall on her bike, Catherine
sees me, brakes with her feet, and says happily, “Hello!” I respond
in kind—“It’s nice to see you. Where are you going today?” She
shakes her head, “I don’t know.” She lingers, as if she is waiting for
me to continue. As she gets back onto her bike, I say, “Catherine, if
you pass a store on your way, will you pick up some milk for me?”
She says, “Ok! Goodbye” and rides away. A minute later, she returns
and says, “I went to the store, but they did not have any milk.” I say,
“No milk? Hmm. What will I use to bake my cake?” After looking
at me and thinking for a moment, Catherine says”, I am going to
another store to get the milk! Goodbye.” She zooms off, intent on
her mission. Seconds later, she is back, excitedly telling me “I got
the milk!” I hold out my hand to her and say “Oh thank you!” as
she puts the pretend milk in my hand. Catherine says, “Now I am
going to get you some chocolate!” “Great idea”, I reply. She smiles
and rides away. When she returns, she says, “Here is your choco­
late.” I thank her and say how much fun this is. She smiles and asks,
“What else do you need?”
Catherine indeed had gotten the milk! Here she seems like a more ordi­
nary little girl with an engaged imagination. Catherine seems to have
emerged from a long incubation in a cocoon. The depth of the changes
as well as the brevity of time involved (eight months) suggests that
Catherine has been found again, rather than being found for the first
time. We do not know whether it is the former or the latter, nor do we
know if these changes have been sustained. Nonetheless, this experi­
ence attests to the power of observation and the containing process.
The delight of so gratifying an experience has its shadow side in the
recognition that Catherine has lost a lot of important developmental
time, and a disturbing question about what would have happened
had Karen not been there—would she have found an object to draw
her out and receive her? We know that Karen’s recommendation of
psychotherapy for Catherine was rejected and instead consideration
was given to putting her on Ritalin, despite the changes she had made.
Will Catherine find an environment that can be more reflective than
 sewing on a shadow 223

reactive—where Catherine can be thought about and sense made of

her states of mind and behaviours, rather than simply trying to control
them? We end on the bittersweet note of recognizing the importance
of what has been gained, as well as feeling that potential found could
be lost again. We are grateful for all that Catherine has taught us. We
carry hope for her future as well as the pain of not knowing how her
development is proceeding.

Note
This paper was originally presented at the International Congress of Infant Observa­
tion in Buenos Aires in August 2008.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN

A participant observation with a boy

suffering from a chronic illness
Anne-Marie Fayolle

T
om was born on 29 March 2005; he is now 4½ years old. He is
the third child in the family. His older sister is 11, and his brother
is 8. His father is a technician, and his mother is a secretary. The
family get on well together. The extended family lives in a neighbour­
ing département.
Two days after Tom’s birth he was diagnosed with a mega-colon.
Tom had not evacuated the meconium, and he was regurgitating his
feed. After X-rays he was transferred to the University Hospital with
his mother. He was suffering from Hirschsprung’s disease. He was
operated on when he was 4 days old. He could not feed, because he
lacked the cells that normally line the walls of the intestines, so he was
fed through a parenteral line.
He stayed in the regional university hospital from April to Sep­
tember—that is, until he was 6 months old. During this time his
mother went to see him every weekday. His father went on Saturday
and Sunday with his sister and brother and members of the extended
family.
Following this, Tom spent a further three weeks in a hospital in
Paris, together with his parents, who were learning how to feed him
through the parenteral tube. His parents stayed in Paris throughout, as
they live 300 km away. He went home for the first time in October. He
was now 6 months 18 days old.

224
 a participant observation with a boy with a chronic illness 225

From the age of 4 days until he was 3½ months old, Tom was fed
from a drip for 24 hours out of 24. After this there was a gradual cycliza­
tion. The drip feed was progressively reduced to the point of 12 hours
out of 24. Since his return home, his parents put Tom on the drip in the
evening. He sleeps with his drip attached. In the morning a nurse and
his mother take him off the drip. Tom suffers from a particular form of
Hirschsprung’s disease. He will need to have a transplant from a donor
before he can be fed orally.
Tom was first seen in Child Psychiatry in November, when he was
9 months old. His parents had been advised to request an appointment
in order to support Tom and those close to him during the long course
of surgery, which was anticipated, and they followed this up.
Following the first appointment with a child psychiatrist, a partici­
pant observation in the family home was suggested. This was partly
because of Tom’s age, partly because of his illness, and partly because
mother had asked for help. To do this, I spent an hour weekly in the
family home. The format of the observation was on the model of Infant
Observation originally developed by Esther Bick. It became a “partici­
pant” observation, to use the phrase of Gianna Williams, as was needed
in this situation, in which the observer functioned as part of the thera­
peutic team in a carefully defined way.
Mother readily accepted this form of treatment. She said that life
had been difficult since Tom’s birth. She had now stopped work to care
for her son, and she felt confined to the house. It was simpler for her to
have someone coming to the home.
I met Tom and his mother on one occasion in the clinic before start­
ing to go to their home. He was a beautiful baby of normal size. He had
big brown eyes, which were very lively and alert. He took everything
in and was full of life. His mother was a very open, pleasant young
woman, who made good contact. She was prettily dressed in a modern
style. Tom was on the carpet, picking up objects and rolling from his
back on to his front. I explained that the idea of the home visits was that
we could be together close to Tom, paying attention to him and to how,
given his particular history, he was growing up. Mother was totally in
agreement with this work.
At the time of the first visits, when Tom was a baby, he was always
alert and ready to grasp everything around him. He was constantly
on the go, moving around or looking at new toys or making grunt­
ing sounds. He handled the toys with intense and lively interest. The
atmosphere in the house was marked by a sense of vital urgency. Tom
wanted to see everything, and for his mother everything had to be
226 anne-marie fayolle

organized and thought about to ensure that her family’s day-to-day

life ran smoothly.
Tom developed a very strong bond with his mother: he needed
her to be there and to help him all the time, and she understood and
anticipated all her son’s needs. During the visits mother talked at
length about her son’s health and her worries. It was sometimes dif­
ficult to think about Tom as a little boy who was growing up, as the
consequences and ups and downs of his illness quickly dominated the
picture. Life for Tom and his family was very dependent on events
related to his illness. He often went to the nearest University Hospital
for his many health problems—ordinary childhood infections, prob­
lems with his catheter, frequent nosebleeds—and he also had to go to
Paris for follow-up appointments related to his condition. Tom, how­
ever, recovered very quickly after each health scare. He was right back
on track as soon as he could manage. He wanted to make the most of
my visits. He devoted all his energy to seeking a lively, active link with
whoever was there.
Tom started walking in October 2007, when he was 2½. Then his
language began to develop. Tom did not pronounce his words well,
and only his mother could understand him. The intensity of his bond
with his mother made it possible for him to bear the procedures he
had to have, but it left little space for Tom to express and develop
his own feelings. However, when he was 3, his mother felt ready
to leave him in the care of a mother’s help provided for her by the
state and return to part-time work. The bond between Tom and his
mother loosened; there was more space for him to develop a mind
of his own. His language made considerable progress. When we met,
he began to play and tell stories. At first Tom reproduced exactly the
stories from the cartoons he watched, which he knew by heart. Then,
little by little, he made up his own stories. In September 2008 he went
to school for the first time. He integrated well and was interested by
the new things he learnt and the new experiences he had in class. He
could not join in playtime or in the group’s physical games. In Janu­
ary 2009 a pre-transplant check-up took place in Paris. Tom was then
put on the waiting list of patients in vital need of a transplant; his
liver was not functioning well.
The sessions I describe come from the time when he was detaching
himself from the very close link to his mother. This was the year he
was 4. One year later, in 2010, he was summoned for the transplant.
The operation went well, but some months later grave complications
became apparent. Despite the struggle he made to survive, he died one
 a participant observation with a boy with a chronic illness 227

year after his operation. He had kept almost to the end an immense
wish to live the life of a little boy. All the richness of the psychic life
that he had developed and that I had been able to observe continued
to provide him with support. The stories about dinosaurs, which are
recounted in the following pages, had proved to be a source of vital
psychic nourishment.

The story of my visits to Tom

Tom will be 4 at the end of March 2009. He attends school fairly regu­
larly from 10 to 11.30 every morning. He does not go to school if there
are contagious diseases around or if his classroom assistant or teacher
are not there. His mother works in the afternoon, and Tom goes to his
mother’s help, where he has a long nap. He is attached to his line from
7.30 in the evening, and in the morning he is taken off it and ready by
9.30.
Tom continued to be fed through the drip. His food passes into the
stomach and then into bags. The doctors asked the parents to get Tom
used to normal eating, but Tom did not like eating and did not want
to touch food. His liver was functioning very poorly, and this entailed
much nausea. However, he began to drink water in December 2007,
at 2½, at the time when his mother was planning her return to work.
Drinking water began after he had had a bad bout of gastro-enteritis
and must have felt very thirsty. He also began to speak at the same
time. Then, in May 2008, he accepted little experiments with food—to
lift it just to his mouth, to lick a little. In September, after two weeks
of school, he would lick chocolate cake and put food up to his mouth
without fear, but he did not eat. In parallel, he started to make more
aggressive sounds (“grr”) and could be naughty.
From October 2008, Tom wanted to play each time I came. He would
get ready for it in the morning or as soon as he was home from school.
If he did not go to school, he put the toys out on the sofas and waited
for me to arrive.
His play was always about dinosaurs, of which he has a large col­
lection. He uses stories from the cartoons he often watches. At first play
had to be totally directed by Tom and be, most importantly, absolutely
identical to the story of the cartoon. As the session continued, the play
generally became more Tom’s own, and he added fantasies that were
not in the cartoon.
Up to this point, feelings of aggression were expressed rarely or
were expressed only fleetingly, the dinosaur did not grunt much or
228 anne-marie fayolle

often show his teeth. I also had to take care not to use a loud voice or
make a sudden movement with my animal, as this would have fright­
ened Tom.
From November onwards, his play developed in a consistent way
without any regression, despite family events related to a difficult
period in the life of Tom’s older sister.

Visit in February 2009

When I arrive, Mrs C opens the door and asks me in. She subtly indi­
cates to me that Tom is hiding. I see that all the dinosaurs are ready,
waiting on the sofas. Tom is behind the glass door, but I pretend not
to see him, and mother plays along with this. (He must not be found,
as this angers him. You have to wait until he decides to come out.)
Mother says to me, “It’s funny, he was here 5 minutes ago.” I say
that I see the dinosaurs are there. I say perhaps he is upstairs in the
bedrooms, and mother replies that she doesn’t think so, because he
doesn’t usually go upstairs alone. She then says, “You can sit down
and take your coat off, he may come.” We talk a bit, and Tom comes
out of his hiding-place. He says he wants to play with the dinosaurs.
Mother gives me some news about his health. Tom is irritated and
repeats that he wants to play.
The game of hide-and-seek at the beginning of the visit becomes cus­
tomary. Tom’s life is made up of numerous waits: waiting to have the
line removed every morning so he can get up, waiting for people to
be ready to give him his treatment, waiting for doctors . . . he also has
to wait impatiently for my arrival and gets everything ready. Keeping
me waiting allows him to have just a little control over a part of his life
without it having serious consequences. This game almost certainly
hides an aggressive part of him that he was more able to express only
when he was more confident on his feet. He only managed to walk
unaided at 2½, and even then he was very unsure of himself, very fear­
ful of falling, and never taking any risks. He didn’t know how to go up
and down stairs unaided. He could not move around in a coordinated
way. Hiding behind the door gives him a sense of power and of supe­
riority, which is directed towards me.
Tom and I begin to play, and mother stays with us, watching, for a
moment. We play in the sitting room. Tom puts his animals on the
big low table. Around the table are two sofas; mother settles down
on one, and I usually settle myself on the other. The television is on a
 a participant observation with a boy with a chronic illness 229

piece of furniture in the corner opposite the two sofas. Tom reminds
me that I’ve got the daddy, the mummy, and the baby triceratops
(these are nice herbivores). The triceratops protect themselves by
pushing their enemy with their heads. He shows me what to do
and does it with the plastic animals (this was something we had
already played). It is important not to repel the enemy just with the
head. Tom has the tyrannosaurus, which is a dangerous carnivore.
He holds on to it all the time. He also introduces another dinosaur
with a mouth that opens and a tongue that moves. This dinosaur
has a baby. He puts them both on the sofa where I am sitting. I
have the triceratops family: the daddy and mummy protect their
baby, but the tyrannosaurus comes along growling and takes the
baby triceratops. I have to be a protective mummy and a protective
daddy, but I must not be too protective, or I would stop Tom from
doing what he has in mind. I mustn’t do nothing either, or he says
discontentedly, “You play mummy.”
Before playing he often gives instructions; these instructions are clear,
and Tom describes certain things in a way that means there is no
alternative. It has to be just as he says; it is a matter of life or death.
But is this really fear, or another way of having absolute control? It is
also striking that Tom is impatient to play: when he is ready, there is
no waiting. Tom puts us in touch with the urgent desire for life rather
than the fear of death.
That day we found a good compromise. Tom is delighted: he takes
the baby triceratops with his tyrannosaurus and throws it onto the
other sofa. I play the parents who are troubled but not distraught
and who tell the tyrannosaurus that they want their baby back and
that they won’t abandon him. Tom waits for me to speak and then,
very proud of himself, brings the baby triceratops back to me. He
repeats the scene several times over. Then he goes and puts the baby
triceratops not back on the sofa again, but in the kitchen. He hides
it among tea and pasta containers. Going into the kitchen, it is the
tyrannosaurus held by Tom who kidnaps and takes the baby off, but
it is Tom alone who brings him back to the triceratops parents. His
trip from the sitting room to the kitchen is quite long, but he walks
briskly and has an air of importance. He is full of energy. He then
goes back into the kitchen to pick up the tyrannosaurus again, and
it takes the baby again. The tyrannosaurus’ house is in the kitchen.
He then comes back close to me and takes the dinosaur with the
opening mouth and its baby, which had stayed on the sofa where I
230 anne-marie fayolle

was sitting. The baby plays at going down the length of its mother’s
back. Tom adds another baby dinosaur and the baby triceratops.
The three babies play together for a bit. As for the tyrannosaurus,
he is in his house. Then he says they are going to go to sleep. I put
the babies to bed, and Tom puts to bed the dinosaur and the daddy
and mummy triceratops that were near me. The tyrannosaurus
returns to steal the baby triceratops. Tom states very clearly that he
is stealing the baby. He brings him back, then his play loses life a
bit. Tom looks at the other dinosaurs in his collection and puts some
of them to bed. We are getting near the end of the hour. Tom talks
to his mother about a dinosaur which makes a noise, which grunts
and which he would like for his birthday. When I say that I have to
leave, he pulls a face. I say, see you Tuesday.
Parental figures continue to appear in Tom’s play. He no longer has
them uniquely “played” by me; he can also make them play a part in
his script. But are these good parental figures? In this part of the game
the triceratops parents are not very active. They submit to the tyranno­
saurus’ harsh law and can only call out. The dinosaur on the sofa with
three babies also seems to me to represent another passive maternal
figure. This dinosaur has a big mouth, but it does not seem to be of
any use to her. Sliding down her back is the babies’ only possible play.
Tom does not seem to be able to think of anything else. Tom continues
to struggle with what peoples his internal world.

15 October 2009
Yesterday Tom came back from the hospital in Angers. He had
an appointment because he was suffering from inflammation of
the rectum (proctitis) and a urinary infection. He had had nose­
bleeds again. I sat down in the sitting room with his mother, who
brought me up to date. Tom gets out a book on sharks and shows
them to me. There are sheets of paper on the sitting-room table,
and we draw sharks. Tom wants me to draw the teeth; he watches
and waits for me to do the teeth, asks details, and comments. He
then wants me to draw a hammerhead shark, and we look for an
example in the book. Afterwards he says in his usual way, in an
impatient tone: “Right, let’s play.” Then as always there is ­Little
Foot, the hero of the cartoon, who is a dinosaur child, and his
friends Sera and Gober. Gober is a carnivore, while the others are
herbivores. Gober, Little Foot, and Sera have lost their parents,
 a participant observation with a boy with a chronic illness 231

and they get together to play but also to fight together against
the dangers of dinosaur life. He goes to get me a big triceratops
mummy, as he often does. On that day he also goes to get Gober’s
daddy; he brings him to the sitting room and says he is dead. In
fact, he plays with him, but Tom says all the same that he is dead.
Then Sera also goes looking for her father. He brings Sera’s daddy
back from the study.
Brothers appeared in Tom’s stories a few weeks before. On this day it
was fathers who appeared.
Then the dinosaurs have to go for a swim. Tom busies himself put­
ting the little ones in the water, and it is left to me to bring the bigger
ones. The crocodile arrives, and we all run away. Tom initiates our
flight and everything else that happens, and I must follow, bringing
the rest of the dinosaurs. If I am a bit slow for Tom’s liking, he brings
me into line. I ask where we are going. Tom says to “La Blesse”. His
mother, who has stayed in the room, is wondering what this word
means, just as I am. We both try to think, and Tom repeats the word
several times, but to no avail. His mother then says, “Perhaps it’s a
word you’ve made up.” Tom agrees and explains that “La Blesse”
is behind the television.
I don’t know if he really made it up, but he seems relieved to go along
with his mother’s idea. Later we will understand that this is a very
important place; it is the place between the world of carnivores and
that of the herbivores. Only Gober, Little Foot, and their friends can
live there. Gober is not aggressive in “La Blesse”, even though he is a
carnivore. But this place, which is actually called “La Breche” [The Gap]
in the cartoon, comes under very harsh attacks from the outside. It is a
good place, but unreliable; it can break, and it can come under attack.
Actually he changes his mind and says the dinosaurs are going into
the “Mysterious Valley” where the carnivores eat meat and the herbi­
vores eat grass. We go to the dining room.
Perhaps the change of place is a way of Tom keeping “La Blesse” safe.
Tom sets up this scene on a low table; the herbivores’ food is on one
side, and the carnivores’ food on the other. He puts the animals around
their food, then he decides to go and get the egg thief (this is a smaller
dinosaur, which feeds on eggs stolen from nests). The egg thief, held
by Tom, comes and attacks the other dinosaurs. We run away once
more and hide in the kitchen in a cupboard behind the storage jars.
Tom has picked up his animals again and is talking very fast. He gives
232 anne-marie fayolle

a running commentary on the escape. The egg thief comes too; the
dinosaurs attack it again. Then all the dinosaurs get into the cupboard
behind the storage jars. Then the egg thief, still held by Tom, attacks
Gober and takes him off into the sitting room. Tom comes back to the
cupboard alone, saying we must go and look for Gober. We take all
the dinosaurs to the sofas, and we find Gober: he is in prison. It is the
egg thief who has imprisoned him. The egg thief goes to prison in his
turn, but he escapes and once again captures Gober. Tom then speaks
into each dinosaur’s ear, saying that they have to go into “La Blesse”,
beside the television.
“La Blesse” is always around the television.
The egg thief launches a new attack. A pebble falls onto the egg
thief’s head, but he doesn’t die and attacks Gober again. Gober dies
this time; he has to be taken care of, and this means finding the night
flower. We have to go to another place. We go into the kitchen, but
under a table, where we have never been before. He takes a cool­
box that is there (it is, I think, the coolbox that is used to carry his
pouches of food) and finds a small object which a bit of a game,
which becomes the night flower. Tom says “I’ll be back in fifteen
minutes.” His mother, who is eating her lunch, says, “That’s exactly
what I say when I’m at the hospital with Tom and I go off to get a
sandwich.” When he comes back, Tom asks me if we still have some
time left to play. I tell him we have enough time to take care of Gober
with the night flower, but then we’ll have to stop. Tom is very disap­
pointed; he sulks and leaves the game.
Gober has always been attacked from all quarters.
We had spoken during discussions of the material relating to the egg
thief about a wish to steal the parents’ fertility and to have access to the
parents’ insides. The story of the egg makes me think systematically
about the account of Tom’s conception. Mrs C, Tom’s mother, thought
she was infertile, because, as an adolescent, she had been hit in the
stomach by a ball during a game with some boys. One of the boys play­
ing was her future husband. This blow had damaged her (Fallopian)
tubes, and the doctor told her she would never conceive naturally. Her
two eldest children were conceived by IVF. The parents did not want
a third child. Tom arrived completely unexpectedly. His mother thinks
that his illness could have arisen because the egg, while on its way to
implant itself in the uterus, had to pass through her damaged (Fallo­
pian) tubes and was harmed in the process. Supposedly he “caught”
his illness in the course of this process.
In what he played out Tom–Gober is first of all an egg, which
 a participant observation with a boy with a chronic illness 233

hatches out and then is taken by thieves but before that is welcomed
by Little Foot and his friends. He is always taken far away, just as Tom
is seized by his illness time and again. The egg thieves are always
attacked and fought against; they get rocks on their heads, but they
never die. In the game they are little dinosaurs, scrawny and very agile,
a bit on the vicious side. They correspond closely to one’s idea of a thief.
Doubtless Tom had very early on internalized objects that steal and take
things from inside him in an intrusive way because of his treatment and
of the constant need to monitor his state of health. He had to accept
demanding treatments daily and often unexpectedly. It also seems that
his incredible attention to all the visual elements of his environment, the
things that happened and the changing décor, and his ability to recall
the stories from cartoons, helped him to struggle with changes and not
to be too submerged by the huge constraints he endured day to day.
He knows all his surroundings with an exactitude that corresponds to
the uncertainty of his future.
The demands Tom experienced were echoed in his exchanges with
his mother. She had to answer all his questions, repeat what he had
said, and give confirmations. When treatment became even harder
to bear, Tom became even more demanding of his mother, unable to
bear the slightest sense of discontinuity between them. At such times
his voice was very high-pitched. Tom did not articulate very well, and
what he enjoyed above all was for his mother to take the time to tell
me the story of the cartoon that would form the basis of his play. Thus
he could be assured that I would have a good understanding of his
game, and at the same time he also took huge pleasure in listening to
his mother. The egg thieves could represent this part of Tom: they never
stopped taking and could never be destroyed. In the game there are one
or two egg thieves, but they are not a couple. They are separate and
different like a part of Tom’s life.
A benevolent parental couple makes an appearance. Tom “builds”
something for himself. However, confusion persists, maintaining a
state of total agitation in his internal world. . . .

Tom, 12 November 2009

When I arrive at Tom’s house, his maternal grandparents are there. Tom
is hiding behind the sitting-room door, as usual.
I was aware that, despite his grandparents’ presence, Tom was
determined to make the most of this opportunity and had thought out
what he wanted to do. The grandparents and mother also understand
234 anne-marie fayolle

that it is Tom’s time, and they go off to do their own thing. I ask Tom
what he has planned. He indicates some Lego bricks and says, “Yes, I
planned this.”
Tom plans games precisely before visits. With his mother’s help
he has developed the ability to make plans in order to protect himself
from the uncertainties of his daily life. He knows the place where he
has left each game; he always knows where his dinosaurs are. When
he has to go to hospital, he decides what he wants to take with him;
his world is regularly transported from the sitting room to his hos­
pital room; his cassettes, his DVD player, his toys. He doesn’t forget
anything.
Tom then looks for the dinosaurs. He has had new dinosaurs this
weekend, and he is looking for Gober’s “twins”.
Gober is the most important, he is a carnivore. In the story carni­
vores are also called “Sharp Teeth”. Gober is both a strong and powerful
friend because he is a “Sharp Teeth” and also a bit worrying because
the “Sharp Teeth” usually eat herbivores.
Tom takes Gober; he adds Gober’s mummy and daddy, who are
“Sharp Teeth” but not too dangerous. He adds 5 or 6 other dinosaur
children who are “twins”. He says to me “Let’s play”, but he doesn’t
give me any dinosaurs of my own. In the game my role is to be psy­
chically present and follow what is happening and ensure the child
dinosaurs are safely transported while imitating the children’s feelings,
fear, surprise. . . .
Tom begins; he has Gober. Gober leaves his daddy and mummy to
go and play. He makes the daddy say, “ be careful, mummy has said
to be careful of the “Sharp Teeth”. Gober goes off to find a place. Tom
places the dinosaurs under the low table in the sitting room where he
builds a wall from Lego, which he can now fit together without any
difficulty. He says that he is making rocks; he also makes gates, first
one, followed by a second. Tom builds this wall slowly; he hums as he
puts the bricks in place, and he seems to be involved in building some­
thing, which really seems to occupy him in a way that goes beyond the
construction of this wall.
On this day the wall is built of Lego, but very often he makes it
from the cartoon cassette boxes. These structures are thought out and
come from his imagination. Later he built walls taking account of the
importance he gave to the cartoons, which the boxes contained. Thus
the cassette boxes of certain cartoons were placed in more strategic
positions, as if they would better protect Gober from attacks.
 a participant observation with a boy with a chronic illness 235

First of all he sings to himself without any words, but then “Sharp
Teeth, Sharp Teeth . . .” can be heard in his song. His grandparents
and mother come to have a look. Tom tries to hide when they
arrive. Tom suggests I bring the other dinosaur children once the
wall is finished. Gober’s parents look for him; Tom does the daddy
and mummy calling “Gober, Gober.” He puts expression into it
and tries hard to pronounce it well. He says, “The Sharp Teeth are
coming!” Tom portrays some panic, but not too much. He takes
two large “Sharp Teeth” dinosaurs. They come close to the wall,
and Tom–Gober says, “We have to make a plan.” The rocks in
the wall have to be pushed to make them fall on the two “Sharp
Teeth”. I help the other dinosaur children to make the rocks fall,
but the “Sharp Teeth” don’t die. Tom–Gober says, “We must go to
the land of mists.” The land of mists is the cupboard in the kitchen.
We have to hide behind the storage jars, and the two “Sharp Teeth”
come to sniff us out.
Then Tom says we have to sleep, not because it is night-time, only
that we must lie down and have a sleep. While we sleep, the “Sharp
Teeth” come and kidnap Gober and Little Foot. All the other dino­
saur children go off to look for them when they wake up. They
have to call many times and with the right intonation, “Gober! Little
Foot!” We find them under the rock–cushions on the sitting-room
sofa. This hiding place has a door that Tom makes from the pirate
cassette. We come back to the land of mists—cupboards in the
kitchen. We have to hide again; Gober and some of the dinosaurs
hide inside the storage jars. He closes the storage jar. Tom brings
Gober’s mother back from the sitting room. She looks for Gober
for a long time, but she doesn’t find him in the storage jar. . . . Tom
continues to really think about what is happening and what should
happen next. He leaves the dinosaurs and returns to the sitting
room and comes back with the two “Sharp Teeth” who previously
took Gober and Little Foot. He places them near the storage jars. He
makes them move slowly and at the same time he seems to be think­
ing. This lasts a good while. Then he goes off to the sitting room.
He comes back with the pirate treasure, which he puts between the
two “Sharp Teeth”.
Gober could not rely on a sufficiently strong maternal figure; she
searches but does not have enough resources to fight against the “Sharp
Teeth”. He finds himself alone without a parent to fight against the
236 anne-marie fayolle

“Sharp Teeth”, and he must think hard about how to satisfy this other
frightening parental couple. He gives them something precious.
It is lunchtime and the end of the visit. Tom is also aware of this and
asks me if we are still playing. I say that it is time to stop for today. We’ll
see each other again next week.

*   *   *
These frightening figures will continue to appear after the transplant,
which was done in January 2010. He introduces some very big dino­
saurs, who are also doctors or nurses. Tom’s mother was sometimes
very tired; the nosebleeds he was experiencing were hard for her to
bear. She was afraid she would not be able to manage. She was some­
times disheartened, like Gober’s mother, who searches but does not
find him. At our last meeting before Tom’s death, Gober and his father
are attacked by the “Sharp Teeth”. They fought together but despite the
help of flying dragons, both father and Gober are wounded. We have
to leave Gober in peace, he said. But this attack is followed by another,
an even more enormous Sharp Tooth arrives, he wipes everything out.
The disappearance of a good paternal figure is followed by the arrival
of another paternal figure, which is very powerful but lethal.
Tom had a chronic illness, which was also extremely dangerous. He
constantly ran the risk of contracting major infections; the doctors said
his liver was a time bomb. His world was divided between good and
bad dinosaurs, but also between what he needed to carry on living,
the treatments, which he knew by heart, the attention of and his links
to those who were close to him and his games, and the outside world,
which he kept at a distance. Tom was very apprehensive when he went
outside; he had little interest in other children, and he kept them at a
distance. Thinking about his illness was relegated to a distant world;
he never spoke about it directly.
He had, however, been able to develop a great ability to name
precisely what he was feeling, especially where he was in pain. He
did this accurately from the age of 3. He knew that his mother was
listening when he was in pain and that she knew that what he was
saying was right. He could also name his catheter and his bags as if
they were a part of his body. His catheter was a real part of him. Its
removal after the transplant was a significant event. By contrast, after
the transplant, when his health deteriorated, he refused to say where
he was hurting, probably to spare his mother and to avoid having
more treatment. He suffered a great deal. He only mentioned his
illness once when he returned to school several days after the trans­
 a participant observation with a boy with a chronic illness 237

plant; his mother found him explaining to little girls in his class that
he was no longer fed through a tube, he now had a “gastronomic but­
ton”! Both he and his mother were a bit worried about his return to
school. He found a quite effective way of keeping the other children
at a distance while at the same time guaranteeing quite a special posi­
tion for himself.
The observation made it possible to support the parents, to listen to
them and contain their anxieties, while at the same being attentive to
the development of Tom’s psychic life. For an ill child like Tom, home
visits were simpler for the family and less anxiety-provoking as they
limited the risk of infection. Tom was generally anxious about going to
appointments, so going to see him at home was a way of getting close
to his psychic life without everything being too dominated by the fact
of his illness.
Observing in someone’s home is a particular way of working. In
the beginning the family agrees to visits but does not know how things
will develop. They let you into their home life and give you access to
the heart of the family. The early days of a home-based observation are
quite unique, since not only is the family unaware of what the obser­
vation will entail, but so is the observer. Our receptiveness, listening,
attention to all that happens and to the way we feel about our surround­
ings are going gradually to create links that will define the observation.
The first meeting with Tom’s family was intense. Even now I can
recall vividly the first time I visited their home. The feeling of urgency
was palpable. They were waiting for me.
Tom’s mother seemed from this first visit keenly aware that I might
come to understand all there was to know about her son’s life and his
day-to-day existence. Faced with the kind of anxieties she was expe­
riencing, she needed not to feel alone. Initially she guided me and
taught me how to get to know her son. Little by little she allowed me
to get closer to him. He could feel very angry and aggressive towards
his mother who, from his point of view, made him experience so many
medical procedures and restricted his activities. In parallel, his mother
found it hard to bear Tom’s oppositional behaviour, but she came to feel
that I could withstand even those aspects of Tom’s emotional life that
she herself could not bear to get near to. She allowed me to do this and
gave Tom permission to have this kind of relationship with me.
Our time together was important for Tom, for although his body
was not working well, his emotions were very acute. Regular atten­
tion to his mental life was very valuable to him. For a long time he
needed my physical involvement in his games; I had to take hold of
238 anne-marie fayolle

the ­dinosaurs and put them as he instructed in his game. Later he took
over, and I just had to be psychically present.
It was, I think, this particular kind of attention that helped him
to become aware of his desire and real appetite for life’s adventures.
My attentive presence seemed to sustain his hope of life and, together
with the parents’ benign presence, allowed him to fulfil his potential
for development. His mother often commented on how he came more
alive when he knew we were going to meet. She said that following my
visits during his most difficult periods in hospital, Tom rediscovered
his pleasure in playing with dinosaurs.
Both Tom and his parents knew intuitively that his games were rep­
resentations of his internal life. Tom also knew that his mother needed a
little time to talk each time I visited. He left her the space so that I could
accept and contain all his mother’s feelings and anxieties.
For my part, writing up and supervision allowed this material to
be worked on and transformed. This thinking work helped to support
every member of the family through the creation of a particular kind
of psychic space between the members of the family and the observer.
Thoughts arising from the relationships that develop during the obser­
vation are internalized little by little. They are enriched as the visits
proceed, and they continue between visits and beyond, as has become
clear from the occasional contacts we still have with Tom’s family. Our
thoughts about him are still very much alive.
What I tried to do, with the help of supervision, was to follow Tom’s
thoughts and to understand them without being overwhelmed by pain­
ful feelings related to his illness. It was so sad to see Tom suffer, yet his
family became able to think about his needs, to understand and accept
them, and to bear the knowledge of the shortness and limitations of
his life.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends:

familiar faces in an uncertain world
Mel Serlin

Paul was jumping up and down excitedly. Suddenly he left the

trampoline, came over to where I was sitting beside his mother,
and exclaimed in a fast and worried way, “Thomas. Help.
Gordon. Choo-choo-train stuck.” Paul stared at me intently,
with an anxious expression. When I asked him about the train
being stuck, he began to look a little less anxious. He then listed
the names of all the other Thomas characters in a worried way.
His mother joined in with helping to name them, and after this
“conversation” Paul looked as if he had been able to let go of
what was troubling him and returned to his play. [Aged 2 years
7 months]

P
aul was 1 year and 8 months when I began working with him. An
only child, he had just been removed from home and placed with
a foster carer, due to his parents’ substance use, which at times
left them unable to care for him properly. As a Family Support Worker
based in a Local Authority contact centre, my role was to supervise
many of the daily contact sessions between Paul and his parents. In this
chapter, through my observations of Paul in contact sessions, I follow
this young child’s emotional journey through a year in transition and
explore how he tried to maintain his relationships and manage the pain
of separation.

239
240 mel serlin

Contact
For all families who have just been separated and children placed in
local authority care, this is a very bewildering and distressing time.
Arrangements for children to see their parents in a supervised setting
are usually made as soon as possible. At a first meeting, when contact
arrangements are explained, parents are often experiencing feelings of
shock, anger, confusion, denial, and powerlessness. They may be strug­
gling to make sense of what is happening, why their children have been
removed, when they are going to see them, who are the sudden influx
of new professionals, what are their differing roles, and whom do they
feel they can trust. These feelings are often heightened for those going
through this experience for the first time and those from other coun­
tries, who are not familiar with the British social care legal system and
may need the additional help of interpreters.
The contact worker role is supervisory (ensuring the children are
cared for safely), supportive (helping the parents to develop their
understanding of their children’s needs), and observational (as reports
of each session will be used to help inform decisions made in Court).
For the supervised family, being observed under constraints of time
and location can feel very difficult. The knowledge that workers will
write observational reports on their care-giving and the quality of inter­
actions with their children can create a great deal of anxiety for parents
who may at times feel hostile and suspicious about what judgements
they believe are being made of them. However supervisors, particularly
when there is consistency of workers allocated to families, can also
often come to be experienced as a benign and helpful presence in the
room for both the parents and children, which can at times help to foster
positive development and change.
Over the year that I worked with this family, while the parents
engaged in treatment plans and recommendations were debated in
Court, there were numerous changes to the contact schedule to help
assess whether it would be possible for Paul to return safely to their
care. Contacts were relocated to the parents’ home, lengths of sessions
increased, overnight stays introduced, and two attempts made to reha­
bilitate him home. While Paul experienced these numerous changes
of routine and transitioned daily between caregivers and locations, I
observed how his relationship with Thomas the Tank Engine grew from
an ordinary interest into something more obsessive. I was interested
to understand the special role Thomas came to play for Paul (and his
 thomas the tank engine and friends 241

parents) at this painful and uncertain time, and how my training in

psychoanalytic observation could help me to gain a better understand­
ing of his feelings and communications, which I hoped could help to
inform my work with him and his family. I was particularly interested
in Winnicott’s theory of transitional objects and the idea that if an infant
is able to internalize the relationship to mother, with her body as the
first object of experience, then other objects may later become used to
represent this.
. . . there soon develops a capacity for using certain objects as sym­
bols of the breast, and therefore of the mother. The relationship to the
mother (both excited and quiet) is represented in the relationship of
the infant to the fist, to a thumb or fingers, or to a bit of cloth, or to
a soft toy. There is a very gradual process in the displacement of the
aim of the infant’s feelings, and an object only comes to stand for the
breast when the idea of the breast has been incorporated into the child
through actual experiences. [Winnicott, 1964, pp. 54–55]

What makes Thomas so special?

Thomas the Tank Engine was conceived in 1942 by Reverend W. Awdry
as a bedtime story for his 3-year-old son. In 1945 the first Thomas the Tank
Engine book was published (Whisky, 2002b). Now, over 70 years since
its conception, Thomas is “a global multi-million-pound franchise”
(Jeffries, 2007), with the Thomas and Friends television series translated
into 25 languages and broadcast in over 185 countries around the world
(Gibson, 2008). So what is it about Thomas that makes his popularity
so enduring? O’Brien (2005) suggests it’s because “the engines are full
of human flaws, cheeky, naughty, grumpy and proud”, while Jeffries
(2007) investigating Why Do Kids Love Thomas the Tank Engine? quotes
one mother who answered “Boys love trains. . . . My 4-year-old boy is
soothed by Thomas because he runs along the tracks in a predictable
way.”
While the phallic shape and predominantly male characters of the
trains could make them a more appealing choice of play object to little
boys than to girls, in his book Playing and Reality (1971) Winnicott sug­
gests boys more typically seek to play with hard objects, which might
partly explain the appeal of die-cast model engines. “Gradually in the
life of an infant teddies and dolls and hard toys are acquired. Boys to
some extent tend to go over to use hard objects, whereas girls tend to
proceed right ahead to the acquisition of a family” (p. 4).
242 mel serlin

In 2001, the National Autistic Society conducted a survey to investi­

gate claims that children with autistic spectrum disorders have a special
relationship with Thomas the Tank Engine. In their findings (National
Autistic Society, 2002) they concluded these children did associate more
strongly with Thomas than with other children’s characters due to the
predictability of character’s roles, resolution of stories, and the exag­
gerated expressions on the trains. While these qualities might make
Thomas special to a child on the autistic spectrum, could it be these
same qualities that were also important to a child like Paul, for whom
coping with difficult experiences of separation could make the task of
understanding not only one’s own feelings, but also the actions and
feelings of other people particularly hard?
In the stories of Thomas and Friends, which are designed to appeal
to young children, the complex emotions and unconscious processes
being negotiated at this age as a result of oedipal desires, birth of new
siblings, and the first steps away from home when starting nursery can
all be seen to be symbolically contained within the narratives.
The Thomas world, if taken to represent a family with the little
trains as the children, allows the dynamics of family relationships to be
safely explored through the characterizations and actions of the trains.
The difficulty of finding one’s own identity and place within a family
and sibling group is conveyed by the distinct and often competitive
personalities of the trains, who all have individual ways to rival each
other and win themselves attention. Gordon, who is the fastest and
strongest of the trains, like a big elder brother acts proud of his status.
Edward, also one of the older trains, likes to take on a helpful role,
while Henry is described as “a bit of a hypochondriac” (Whisky, 2002a).
Thomas is mostly a cheerful character who can be “cheeky at times”
(Whisky, 2002a), while Percy, the smallest train, free of the responsibili­
ties of the bigger engines, has a happy-go-lucky personality but is not
very brave.
Whatever their approach to seeking attention, it is the wish of all the
trains to be noticed and appreciated by the Fat Controller (Sir Topham
Hatt), who runs the railway lines and represents the father of the family.
Described as “strict with his engines but always fair” (Whisky, 2002a),
the Fat Controller controls (parents) his trains (children) by giving clear
instructions, reprimanding bad behaviour, and rewarding good. For
example, in Put Upon Percy (Allcroft & Mitton, 2004)1 the Fat Controller
tells a tired Percy: “you have done a hard day’s work, you should go to bed
now and get a good night’s rest.”
While the world of Thomas and Friends is a very patriarchal one run
 thomas the tank engine and friends 243

by the Fat Controller, which perhaps conveys something of the period

in which the original stories were written, the fictionally named Island
of Sodor where the trains live could be understood to represent the
mother’s body, symbolizing how for the infant the mother’s body is
the first familiar territory. The Fat Controller’s dedication to his job
and commitment to making sure all is running well on Sodor could be
understood as a wish to please his wife, with his movement of trains
on the island representing the sexual relationship between the mother
and father. The feelings of competition between the trains could there­
fore be interpreted as an expression of oedipal desire, as each wishes
to please the mother by proving themselves to be the most useful train
on the island, while disobedient or “cheeky” behaviours might reveal
a phantasy of defying the Fat Controller’s orders and taking his place.
While in occasional episodes the Fat Controller’s wife is featured,
for example in Sir Topham Hatt’s Holiday (Allcroft & Mitton, 2004), the
characterization of Lady Hatt is of a strict and unsympathetic figure,
suggesting a split between the idea of a good mother who is present
and a bad wife–mother who has been absent.
The worry of being replaced by newer vehicles (babies) is never far
away. In Horrid Lorry (Allcroft & Mitton, 2004), the little engines’ mur­
derous phantasies towards three new lorries are revealed when all are
destroyed in a series of “accidents”.
Later Thomas arrived. He looked at the three Lorries and laughed.
“Well, well, well! The Brothers Grim: Smashed, Broken, and Sunk!”
The Lorries didn’t return, and the engines now work even harder to
make sure they never will. [Allcroft & Mitton, 2004]

Without the intervention of a helpful adult like the Fat Controller to

modify their worries and reassure them of their usefulness, the trains’
anxieties of being replaced often increase. In the Thomas stories, not
being useful enough might result in being sent to the scrap yard. The
fear of what it might mean to be abandoned, away from the safety of
home, or left alone at night to manage difficult feelings is depicted in
Stepney Gets Lost.
Then they approached an unknown area. The driver made a decision.
“It’s best if we wait here until the fog clears.” “What are those strange
sounds?” wondered Stepney. Then, the fog slowly lifted. “Oh no!”
wailed Stepney. “We’re in the scrap yard!” [Allcroft & Mitton, 2004]

Like the young viewers who may be leaving their parents for the first
time when starting nursery, fears about coping with separation are
244 mel serlin

frequently symbolized in the Thomas stories. M. E. Rustin and Rustin

(2001) suggest that young children can be very receptive consumers of
texts that, perhaps like Thomas, explore in a safe way some of the feel­
ings and conflicts that are present in their internal world.
The fluidity of the boundary between the imaginary and the real in
the lives of children, and the uncertainties and openness surround­
ing both, make children especially capable of being moved by stories
which give form to the experience of their inner worlds. . . . Such
writing, like the most successful moments of analytic therapy, links
inner and outer experience, finds external form in language or shared
symbolism for unconscious states of feeling. Children’s potential
openness to their own inner states allows them to be especially “good
readers” for writing of this special kind. [p. 15]

Paul
A year in transition:
the introduction of Thomas (June–October)
The day after Paul was accommodated into care, he had his first contact
with his parents, Joseph and Sylvia. The sessions were supervised at
the centre for two hours each weekday morning (I supervised twice
weekly), and he was also taken to church to see his parents on Sundays.
When his parents arrived, Paul would run excitedly up to greet
them, and they would scoop him lovingly into their arms. After a
friendly exchange with his carer they went into the contact room.
Inside, Paul would angrily push toys off the table and insist on going
out to the garden. It seemed that, after his initial excitement and relief
at seeing his parents, Paul was left with the more uncomfortable feel­
ing that they had been absent and a realization that during his transi­
tion into the contact room his carer had disappeared. Paul’s behaviour
seemed to reveal his need to release these difficult feelings by running
around and projecting his sense of being displaced into the toys. At the
ends of sessions, Paul would behave similarly, conveying his awareness
that when they left the room, his parents would leave again.
When reunited with his foster carer, Paul would jump excitedly into
her arms, much in the same way as he had greeted his parents. Joseph
and Sylvia would accompany him to her car, where they would say
goodbye. At this final point of separation, Paul would burst into tears.
It seemed his pleasure at finding his carer there waiting for him would
suddenly give way to the painful realization that her being there sig­
nalled the loss of his parents. Not only was Paul powerless to prevent
 thomas the tank engine and friends 245

their leaving, but was faced with the upsetting feeling that gaining one
parent always meant losing the other; he could never keep hold of both
sets of parental figures together.
It was during this first month that Paul was introduced to the
character of Thomas when his carer took him to play with her friend’s
children, who had some Thomas toys. When subsequently looking
for a toy to occupy him in church, she bought him a Thomas train.
Soon after, Paul received his second Thomas gift—this time from his
parents, who bought him a dish and cutlery set to use at the contact
centre. Paul was excited to receive this gift. His first Thomas present
from his parents, it demonstrated their capacity to notice and respond
to the things he liked. It also showed him that when out of their sight,
he was not out of mind, that in-between sessions they were preparing
for when they would see him next. The dish also seemed to provide
a containing function for Paul. Now, when his parents were occupied
with domestic tasks, he was able to hold himself together by focusing
his attention on the friendly face of Thomas on his dish, as illustrated
in the following observation.
When Paul went to get up from the table, his father called out to
him, “Finish your pear.” Paul sat back down at the table and fin­
ished his fruit, as instructed. He was very calm and seemed content,
sometimes just saying “choo-choo” as he studied the pictures on his
Thomas dish.
Like most children having regular contact, after a month of experienc­
ing his parents returning each day to see him Paul appeared to have got
used to the daily pattern of unions and separations between him, his
parents, and his foster carer. He seemed more able to trust that when
he said goodbye to his parents, they would not (as he might fearfully
imagine) disappear forever, but would return as usual to see him the
next day. After a month it was agreed that on two days sessions would
be increased to three hours and held in the parents’ home. (The sessions
I supervised continued to be at the centre.)
Unexpectedly, the following month his parents’ physical presenta­
tion caused some concern. The following week they failed to turn up
on several consecutive days. During this time, the carer reported, Paul
had been distressed and aggressive at home. The next week, Paul’s
parents returned to contacts as usual, but I never observed any conver­
sations with him about their absence. Paul’s behaviour was unsettled
for several weeks: he would angrily push things over and began hitting
his parents. His presentation would frequently change so quickly from
246 mel serlin

crying to giggling once his parents lifted him up, it often appeared as
if Paul really didn’t know how he felt. However, his behaviour did
convey how confusing things were for him and how he was both long­
ing for affection and attention from his parents while also feeling very
angry with them.
In September it was Paul’s second birthday, and his parents bought
him a Thomas train set, which they gave to him at church. The next day,
Paul arrived at the contact centre with his train set, keen to continue
playing with it.
Joseph and Sylvia brought with them many more unopened pre­
sents. They helped him to open the gifts and tried to interest him
in looking at the new toys, but Paul remained preoccupied by his
Thomas train, which he hardly put down for the whole contact.
In October all the sessions transferred to the family home and extended
to four hours a day, giving me the new experience of seeing Paul in his
parents’ home. The most striking difference between the environments
was the extensive use of the television, especially during mealtimes.
Paul would appear totally mesmerized by the moving characters on the
large screen, which held his attention in a far more sophisticated way
than the faces had once done on his Thomas dish.
At the end of the month, Paul’s mother was excited to tell me he
had got into a popular nursery and showed me a Thomas rucksack she
had bought for him. With his new bag on his back, they could both
take comfort in knowing that although he would be there without her,
Paul would still have his Thomas “friends” to accompany him as he
embarked on this new stage.

The importance of Thomas (November–January)

In November it was recommended that Paul be rehabilitated home.
Contacts would increase to all-day visits for one week, then with some
overnight stays. When I visited Paul on the third day, his behaviour
had changed dramatically. He was highly distressed, screaming for his
mother to cuddle him and refusing care from his father. His despera­
tion to be in physical contact with his mother at all times continued
throughout the week, during which time preparations were underway
for him to stay overnight the following week. His carer reported that
on his return to her home, Paul was often very distressed, hitting him­
self in the face and having bad dreams at night. It seemed clear that
 thomas the tank engine and friends 247

while Paul might not have been able to understand all the plans being
made, he was definitely feeling the gradual tipping of the balance from
spending most of his time in his foster home to more of his time in his
parents’ home. His lack of comprehension as to what was happening
and his inability to control this or express his feelings in words was
perhaps the source of his bad dreams and causing his rather desper­
ate need to cling on tightly as the parental grip on him was changing.
When I visited the family on the morning after his first overnight stay,
Paul was quite unsettled.
Joseph tried to put Paul down so he could prepare his lunch in the
kitchen, but each time he tried to, Paul began crying and scream­
ing “Cuddle! Cuddle!” gripping on to his father’s legs or reaching
his hands in the air so Joseph would pick him up. Joseph tried to
encourage Paul to watch television or play with his toys, but Paul
repeatedly became distressed, so Joseph carried him on his hip as
he made his lunch. Once held in his father’s arms, Paul fell quiet
again, but he looked sad and tired from his upset.
In this visit, when I explored with the parents Paul’s likely worry
about the disappearance of his carer, he appeared to express gratitude
and relief when I mentioned her by name. This seemed to show how
Paul had been able to form an attachment to his foster carer alongside
his relationship with his birth parents and could keep her alive in his
mind. My talking about her absence seemed to provide him with some
reassurance that while he couldn’t see her, she did still exist, as she was
also alive in my mind.
Both parents commented to me on Paul’s clinginess. I talked to them
about how confusing things were for Paul. I suggested that while he
was happy being with them, he was also used to seeing his foster
carer and her always returning to collect him, but for the first time
last night she had not come back to get him. Paul listened intently
from his father’s lap and stared at me pensively when I mentioned
his carer by name. When I suggested that perhaps Paul was wor­
ried as to whether or not she was ever coming back for him, Paul
climbed silently off his father’s lap, walked across the room to me,
and gave me a cuddle.
After a fortnight of several overnight stays, the rehabilitation plan was
terminated due to several incidents that raised concern. During this
period Paul developed a high temperature, went off his food, and fell
248 mel serlin

over, causing an injury to his mouth. Contacts were decreased back to

mornings only until the case could be reviewed in Court the following
month.
After a period of being established securely back in his fos­
ter home with consistent visits to his parents each morning, Paul
appeared settled once more. However, it was at this time that I was
struck by his emerging from his parents’ home clutching an empty
Thomas DVD case to carry in the car. Paul studied and talked ani­
matedly about the container throughout the journey, causing me to
wonder whether it not only provided him with a portable picture
of Thomas, but perhaps also represented a link to his parents’ home
where the DVD was kept.
The Court then ordered a second rehabilitation plan. Paul was to
return home within two months. A new schedule was set out, with con­
tacts gradually re-extending, but now the routine also needed to allow
for Paul starting nursery and a plan for his parents to attend with him
for two weeks to help settle him in.
When this new schedule commenced, Paul’s focus on Thomas
became more pronounced. It was noticeable that his calling for Thomas
had the same anxious and urgent quality as his call of “Cuddle!” or
“Mummy!” when wishing to be held.
Joseph prepared Paul in his chair. The television was on, showing
a children’s channel. Sylvia brought in Paul’s food and gave it to
Joseph to feed him. Paul suddenly became very unsettled and upset,
resisting his food. He began calling out “Thomas!” and pointing at
the television. Joseph told him he could watch it after his lunch.
Paul continued to get upset, rocking back on his chair and kicking
his legs out, making it impossible for his father to feed him. After
persisting for a while, they decided to see if it would help if Sylvia
fed him. Joseph unstrapped Paul from his seat, and Sylvia called
him to sit with her. Paul went straight to his mother and calmed
down quickly once on her lap.
When I observed at lunchtime the following week, a Thomas DVD was
playing loudly on the television. This time Paul silently accepted spoon­
fuls of food from his father without protest, but his attention remained
firmly focused on the screen. Then, on my subsequent visit, when both
parents were occupied cleaning up, Paul came to me instead, showing
me his new Thomas the Tank Engine wallet.
In January, Paul started nursery, and preparations began for the
reintroduction of overnight stays the following month. In one of my
 thomas the tank engine and friends 249

visits, when Paul disappeared into the bedroom, I saw they had pur­
chased a new Thomas duvet cover for him, like the one that he had in
his foster home. Paul was enjoying playing at climbing back and forth
across the gap between his bed and his parents’. The Thomas bedding
seemed a helpful way to convey the imminent changes to Paul, show­
ing him visually the special place ready and waiting for him in their
home. Paul’s play on the beds seemed to indicate his need to explore
how this space was going to feel and test out again the degree of prox­
imity and distance he would have to his parents at night-time.
On all of these occasions, when leaving the house, losing his par­
ents’ attention, or alone in bed at night, focusing on Thomas or feeling
safely wrapped up in Thomas covers seemed to help Paul hold himself
together and manage the difficult feelings aroused by having to cope
with the frightening reality of there being a space between him and
his parents that was out of his control. For Paul, unlike most children
negotiating separation as a natural developmental task, the fear that his
parents, or indeed his carer, could be permanently lost to him during a
period of separation was a very real concern. In transitional moments
when such anxieties were likely to be stirred, Paul seemed to use focus­
ing on Thomas as a way to mentally bridge these uncomfortable gaps
in parental attention, by physically holding on to the familiar smiling
face of Thomas, which, on a DVD case, toy train, or wallet could be far
more easily held within his control.
Paul’s use of Thomas in this way seemed to fit Winnicott’s (1951)
description of transitional phenomena, in which the object comes to
represent the space between the internalized image of the mother and
the external mother as a separate object over whom it has no control.
“It is not the object, of course, that is transitional. The object represents
the infant’s transition from a state of being merged with the mother to a
state of being in relation to the mother as something outside and sepa­
rate” (pp. 14–15). Winnicott notes that bedtime often remains a time
when transitional objects are needed: “the original soft object continues
to be absolutely necessary at bed-time or at time of loneliness or when
a depressed mood threatens” (p. 4).
Winnicott (1951) specifies several qualities that an object must pos­
sess in order for it to function as a transitional object: “it must seem
to the infant to give warmth, or to move, or to have texture, or to do
something that seems to show it has vitality or reality of its own” (p.
5). The character of Thomas, be it in the form of a model train or the
sound and image of Thomas moving on the screen, fits this criteria and
may therefore lend itself well to being used in this way, but I w ­ ondered
250 mel serlin

whether there would come a time when Paul would be able to lessen
his dependence on Thomas. Winnicott suggests that a “need for a
specific object or a behaviour pattern that started at a very early date
may reappear at a later age when deprivation threatens” (p. 4), but that
ordinarily, “as cultural interests develop” (p. 14), the object can become
gradually relinquished by the child, as I was to discover.

The rise and fall of Thomas (February–May)

At the start of February the contacts extended to all-day visits, and
Paul’s settling-in period at nursery concluded. However, the nursery
felt that Paul was not yet ready to manage this separation, and recom­
mended another fortnight of settling him in.
The last part of the rehabilitation was planned for the end of the
month with the reintroduction of overnight stays, but the local author­
ity felt unable to proceed to this final stage. While contact reports
showed that the parents could attend to their son appropriately and
sensitively, concerns remained as to whether there was evidence of
enough sustainable change in their lives for Paul to be permanently
rehabilitated home. The plan was halted, and contacts reduced back to
mornings only. In the same week, Paul completed his extended settling-
in period at nursery and began attending on his own two days a week,
resulting in his no longer seeing his parents on these days. This reduced
arrangement was to continue for six months until the Final Court Hear­
ing, when Paul’s long-term future would be decided.
Throughout February and March, Paul’s attachment to Thomas
rapidly heightened. When leaving the house, he often now carried a
train in each hand, perhaps representing his need to hold on to his
relationship with two maternal figures. There was also an escalation
of concerns about his behaviour: he had begun regularly hitting and
pushing people and was having difficulty separating from his carer at
nursery. (Paul was also being toilet-trained at this time.) During this
period of great uncertainty, when worried feelings were circulating
in both the family and professional network, the Thomas stories now
seemed helpful in providing Paul with words to describe feelings that
no doubt resonated with him at this time.
Joseph was tidying up, and the television was playing Paul’s
Thomas DVD. Paul came over to where I was sitting and hovered
beside my legs. I thought he looked slightly unsettled. Paul began
quietly saying “scary”, repeating it several times. When I asked
 thomas the tank engine and friends 251

Paul what was scary, Joseph told me he had learned this word from
the Thomas DVD. He said Paul also used another word, but could
not remember what it was. We both stopped talking, listened to the
television, and soon heard the word “spooky”.
At Easter, Paul received a new electric Thomas train set from his par­
ents. Unlike his old model train, which needed to be pushed along the
tracks, this one could move by itself, and Paul was delighted when his
mother taught him how to press the switch to turn it on and off.
Paul sat on the floor happily playing with his new train set. Every so
often he would concentrate hard on pressing the small switch on top
of the train. Then he would jump up and down excitedly, gleefully
exclaiming to his mother that he had made the train stop.
Paul’s pleasure conveyed not just delight in his dexterity at being able
to manipulate the switch, but also his feeling of potency, that now he
could control when the train would stop and go. Winnicott (1951) sug­
gests that “In playing, the child manipulates external phenomena in
the service of the dream and invests chosen external phenomena with
dream meaning and feeling” (p. 51). In play with this new electric train,
Paul could also enjoy taking a more omnipotent position, like the Fat
Controller deciding the movement of trains along the tracks. In phan­
tasy, he could escape being in the helpless and frustrating position of a
child always being taken back and forth and instead enjoy playing at
being the one in charge.
Paul also seemed helped by the clarity of the Thomas stories in
which different emotions could be clearly distinguished on the faces of
the trains. Paul was keen to imitate their expressions and test out how
these different emotions looked and felt.
Paul had been looking at his new Thomas books when Joseph came
into the lounge. Paul jumped up and exclaimed “ooo!” raising his
eyebrows and holding his lips in the shape of the letter “o”. He held
the book out for his father to see. Joseph agreed the train looked
worried and explained it was because he was going quickly down
the hill. Joseph then encouraged Paul to pack up his books, as it was
time to go out to play. Paul began packing up but then wandered
over to me carrying two of them. He stood close to me and held up
a book in each hand. He pressed the spines of them together, mak­
ing the books join side by side, and said “Two.” I agreed, “Yes, you
have two.” Paul continued carefully pressing the spines together for
a moment in a thoughtful way, then returned to tidying up.
252 mel serlin

Paul kept hold of one book, and Joseph asked if he wanted to take it
with him in the car, which he did. Joseph reminded Paul that at the
play-centre where they were going there was a Thomas book with a
button that made a “ch-ch” train sound. Paul listened to his father,
then picked up one of his toy train carriages and came over to me.
He showed me his train, making the “ch-ch” sound, and I repeated
it back to him. Paul then began jumping excitedly around the room,
turning in circles and pulling papers off the desk in a rather manic
way. Joseph told him to calm down, but Paul began shrieking excit­
ably as he curved his train carriage through the air above his head.
He then began opening cabinets full of papers and pushing his train
into every space that he could find. His father looked at me and
commented, “everywhere”.
As summarized aptly by his father, Paul seemed to convey a wish that
his little train could get inside “everywhere”. His opening of the cup­
boards and pushing his train into all the small spaces inside could be
understood as an expression of oedipal desire, perhaps also commu­
nicated by his pressing of the two spines together. In her paper “Early
Stages of the Oedipus Conflict” (1928), Klein described the young
child’s wish to know and “appropriate the contents” of the mother’s
body (p. 188). However, for Paul, the phantasy of taking possession
of the contents of his mother’s body might have been heightened by a
wish that he could safely lodge himself inside this space.
By the middle of May, Paul began to show signs of becoming less
dependent on Thomas. For the first time, when another boy at the play-
centre picked up his train, Paul remained close by watching, but let him
play with it for a short time, before reaching out to take it back. The
following week, Paul suddenly realized that he did not have his train.
When Joseph told him it was in the car, he accepted this and continued
playing. In June, when Paul discovered he had left his train at his foster
home, he was again able to tolerate this without upset, knowing that
Thomas was still somewhere safe. Paul’s ability to let there be gradu­
ally increasing distances between himself and Thomas seemed to be a
healthy development.
In addition to this, attending nursery was helping Paul to expand
his knowledge, develop social skills with other children, and manage
periods of separation from his carer. When an episode of Bob the Builder
came on television, Paul was keen to try and name all the different fig­
ures, and it seemed he was ready to “make friends with” a new world of
characters. While Paul continued to express love and delight in Thomas
 thomas the tank engine and friends 253

during this settled period, in which he lived with his carer and contacts
were consistent, the more dependent and obsessive aspects of his rela­
tionship with Thomas seemed to gradually lessen, as Winnicott (1951)
concluded: “Its fate is to be gradually allowed to be decathected, so that
in the course of years it becomes not so much forgotten as relegated to
limbo” (p. 5).

Conclusion
Like the little trains keen to win attention and praise from the Fat Con­
troller, Paul was a boy who worked very hard to secure adult attention
and communicate his feelings, suggesting that despite his difficult start
in life, the love and concern he received from his parents in infancy was
enough to enable him to feel that seeking out relationships and making
connections was worthwhile. This was apparent in how he would be
extremely loving and lively, or when fearful would scream, cry, and beg
to be held. Paul was able to form an important attachment to his carer
and also made use of me as another adult he could turn to for help in
trying to make himself feel understood. Paul’s adoption of Thomas as
a transitional object during this difficult period could be seen to reflect
his capacity to internalize his good experiences of relationships, as Win­
nicott (1951) states: “The infant can employ a transitional object when
the internal object is alive and real and good enough” (p. 9). During the
course of the observations, it became noticeable that although from the
start Paul always found it hard to separate from his parents, increas­
ingly, periods of heightened distress and reliance on Thomas occurred
at times when he was faced with the potential loss of his carer, who had
become a safe and reliable figure in his mind.
Paul was fortunate to have an attentive, dedicated, and sensitive
foster carer who recognized the importance of feeding her observations
of Paul back to the professional network, so contact plans could be
made in a thoughtful way. The carer was also able to recognize the com­
forting role Thomas took for Paul and was able to distinguish this as
being different from how other children enjoyed watching and playing
with Thomas toys in a more ordinary way. As a result of her awareness
of the feelings of security that Paul found in Thomas, she suggested
his parents also bought him Thomas bedding. The parents’ capacity to
listen to her suggestions and respond with interest to things Paul liked
enabled him to make links between his different homes and parental
figures. However, at times when Paul was receiving increasingly more
254 mel serlin

Thomas gifts, I wondered if there was a point when this would begin to
become unhelpful to him. Would it feed his obsession in an unhelpful
and unhealthy way?
While his parents seemed to show an understanding of the special
way that Paul used Thomas, I noticed they also began making use of his
attachment to Thomas as a convenient parenting tool. When on one of
my visits Joseph took Paul’s train away as a consequence for bad behav­
iour, should I have intervened, suggesting he did not remove this toy,
or would this have given a contradictory message and undermined an
otherwise age-appropriate parenting strategy that I should have been
encouraging? Within my remit of reporting the parents’ capacity to
care for their child, turning off the television or stopping play with toys
during mealtimes should demonstrate an example of their ability to set
helpful rules—but what if this programme or toy was Thomas? Was it
possible to justify exceptions and differentiate between the meanings
and functions of different toys?
As a family support worker, my role entailed having frequent close
contact with Paul and his family. This position, supported by my train­
ing in psychoanalytic observation and child development, enabled
me to make detailed, and at times painful, observations that provided
evidence for the social worker of how the changes in Paul’s external
situation were impacting on his emotional wellbeing. In all cases, this
communication between contact supervisor and social worker provides
an important function in helping the social worker who has far less
opportunity for direct contact with the child, to keep the child’s emo­
tional experience at the centre of their thinking when making complex
decisions on their behalf. However, for the social worker, when under
pressure to meet deadlines and make life-changing recommendations
for a young child, remaining in touch with the painful impact of their
decisions is not an easy task. Personal and organizational defences may
combine to protect the worker from a degree of emotional contact with
a young child’s distress, which may feel too much to bear and could
jeopardize the worker’s capacity to stand by difficult decisions made
about a child’s future. This difficulty could help to explain this social
worker’s decision to terminate the first rehabilitation plan after the
foster carer reported that Paul had developed a high temperature, gone
off his food, and fallen over. These responses, which all powerfully
communicated the extent of Paul’s confusion and distress, understand­
ably made it hard for the social worker, in the face of such distress, to
feel able to proceed with plans for his rehabilitation. The importance
of maintaining a dialogue between social workers and family support
 thomas the tank engine and friends 255

workers also worked in reverse. The social worker’s advanced com­

munication of changing contact plans enabled contact visits not only
to be used as a source of information gathering, but also to help the
family support workers provide a containing function for the family,
for example by planning a visit to the parents’ home on the morning
after Paul’s first overnight stay.
By reflecting on Paul’s experience and responses during this year
of transition, I have been able to gain far more insight into the emo­
tional impact of this experience on a child. This has highlighted to me
how important the training in psychoanalytic observation has been in
enabling me to have a much greater understanding of the interactions
I observe in a contact setting. By being able to think about the child’s
communications and what they might convey about how the child is
feeling, I feel in a better position to be able to offer support to the par­
ents and children I work with. While there is no way of removing the
painfulness of this experience for the child (or for their parents), if they
can be helped to feel that during contact sessions their difficult feelings
have at least been heard and understood, this can perhaps go some way
in helping to reduce the level of trauma and confusion experienced.

Note
1.  Britt Allcroft was the creator of the children’s television series Thomas the Tank
Engine and Friends, directed by David Mitton.
 PART V

Research

The first chapter of part V, by Anna Burhouse (chapter 16), takes us into a
new dimension: the enlarged vision opened by the attempts at integrating
the approach and discoveries of child development research with findings
coming from child psychotherapy and from psychoanalytically oriented
observation. Music’s recent book (2011) takes up some issues originally
investigated in Burhouse’s work. The author traces the development of
triangulation from its early origins, when it begins to evolve within the
two-person world of mother and baby. The infant develops the capacity to
“think triadically”—that is, to think of three things in conjunction—through
“joint attention skills” and the “shared affects” that he or she experiences
and practises in relation to mother. These experiences pave the way for the
child’s encounter with the triadic dynamics of the early and later more fully
developed Oedipus complex. The successful working-through of oedipal
conflicts, centred around themes of inclusion and exclusion, allow the child
to reach a “third position” (Britton, 1989), characterized by the possibility of
adopting an observational and self-observational stance.
These theoretical concepts are vividly illustrated by the record of the
observation of a girl of 2½ years, whose overall development appeared to
be consistently delayed. The threat of a serious illness seems to have pre-
vented the possibility of allowing some separateness and separation between
mother and child. The third figure—the father, the observer, the external
world—had become the receptacle of all threats and was strongly resisted
and banished from the primary couple. Once the risk of a possibly fatal ill-
ness was dispelled, more healthy developmental processes could be set in
motion again.
The two following chapters illustrate other aspects of the contribution
that Young Child Observation can give to research about the lives of young

257
c­ hildren. Both of them focus on the role that nursery schools can have in
children’s development and come from researchers who have a long-stand-
ing interest in this field.
Chapter 17, by Wilfried Datler, Nina Hover-Reisner, Maria Fürstaller,
and Margit Datler, focuses on the impact on children’s personality of the
transition from family to nursery. The authors show the specific place that
Young Child Observation methodology can have in studies that combine
quantitative and qualitative methods and describe in a very detailed way
their different steps and procedures. Some of them are the same well-known
elements that characterize the Observation seminars that follow Esther Bick’s
method and that have training aims. Others are specific to the use of the
method for research purposes. The potential for acquiring new knowledge
and understanding is, in our opinion, present in any observation conducted
with openness and rigour. This chapter, however, sets Young Child Observa-
tion in the wider epistemological debate about its legitimacy and specificity
as a research tool and shows the criteria that have to be satisfied in order to
fulfil this role. The single case described in the chapter is a very convincing
example of the usefulness of this approach, since it highlights a very easily
underestimated unwelcome effect of the nursery experience—that is, the
condition of “the silent suffering children” who do not develop an evident
symptomatology but who, through their listlessness, apathy, signs of empti-
ness, and aimless walking, appear to signal a worrying impoverishment and
flattening of their personalities.
Peter Elfer’s chapter 18 concentrates, instead, on the different ethos and
cultures that can inspire nursery organization. It is, however, important to
note that here we have two forms of nursery organization, both of which
provide a “good-enough” experience for the children. Elfer differentiates two
approaches—one that gives priority to the children’s attachment to nursery
teachers and another that puts more emphasis on peer relationships—and
he presents observational material gathered in these two different contexts.
It is interesting to see how this issue re-proposes, at a different, symbolic
level and in the nursery setting, a theme that can be found in many chapters
based on observations in the home described in previous chapters—that
is, the role that parent–child and child–sibling relationships perform in the
young child’s development.

258
CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Now we are two, going on three:

triadic thinking and its link with
development in the context of Young
Child Observations
Anna Burhouse

O
ne of the most striking features of many Young Child Observa­
tions is the wealth of oedipal material in which the child is seen
to grapple with the difficulties and rewards of triangular rela­
tionships. This material often highlights the varied ways in which the
young child experiences what it can feel like to be included, excluded,
a participant or an observer in the general hubbub of family life. Such
highly charged and at times passionate encounters require underlying
cognitive and emotional skills which support the child to recognize,
think, and reflect upon their own position within the family. These skills
include an ability to think “triadically” about the inter-relatedness of
objects.
In this chapter I intend to illustrate how fundamentally important
the ability to make links and to “think triadically” is to the young
child. To begin with, I will describe how the ability to think triadically
emerges from preceding dyadic infant/caregiver relationships formed
in the first nine months of life. Next, I will demonstrate how triadic
thinking is linked to both the Oedipus complex and the Kleinian con­
cept of the depressive position and how the experience of inclusion
and later exclusion help to promote a capacity for abstract and three-
dimensional thought. I will illustrate some of these triangular dynamics
with material from a Young Child Observation. Finally, I will attempt to
show how the observer is helped to retain an ability to think triadically

259
260 anna burhouse

about their own position within the observation by the containment

and reflective capacities offered by the seminar group and training
organization.

How the ability to think, link, and act triadically evolves

from dyadic interactions
Many authors agree that the origins of triadic skills lie in the earlier
“dyadic” interactions between the infant and caretaker in the first nine
months of life (Bakeman & Adamson, 1982; Hobson, 1993; Mundy &
Sigman, 1989). The defining feature of this appears to be “face-to-face”
contact, where the infant participates in finely coordinated expressions
of affect with the caretaker (Stern, 1985; Trevarthen, 1979a; Trevarthen
& Hubley, 1979). Trevarthen has suggested that this constitutes a dis­
tinct developmental phase, which he calls “primary intersubjectivity”
(Trevarthen, 1975, 1979a, 1979b, 1980; Trevarthen & Hubley, 1979).
Initially it is the caregiver who predominantly presents new objects
of interest, other than the face, to the infant. In this simple way the
caretaker begins to introduce the notion of a “triad”. At first the infant
cannot relate to both the object and the caregiver at the same time but,
instead, continues to relate in a solely dyadic fashion “attend[ing] to
only a single aspect of [his] surroundings . . . providing few indications
that [he] desire[s] to share this new interest with [his] partner” (Bake­
man & Adamson, 1982, p. 1278). At this stage the skill of the caretaker
supports and structures the infant’s active attempts to engage and
communicate in a reciprocal fashion. By the middle of the first year,
however, infants can increasingly explore and manipulate their envi­
ronment independently (Tronick, 1989).
At about 9 months the primary intersubjectivity gives way to a more
advanced secondary form, involving a flux of new skills. Increasingly
the infant acts with a sense of agency and begins to use requesting skills
and gestures to communicate to others. The infant begins to be able to
relate on triadic as well as dyadic levels. This is illustrated by bringing
toys to the caregiver for inspection or by indicating a preference for
objects by looking or turning away, and so on.
At this stage the caretaker continues to scaffold the infant’s abilities
by following the infant’s attention to the object of focus and display­
ing a willingness to wait interestedly, ready to receive the infant’s
attempted communications. By this means the caregiver demonstrates
a capacity to keep the infant “in mind”, as well as modelling a way in
which things can be held in reserve so that all is not lost through sepa­
 now we are two, going on three 261

ration (Alvarez & Furgiuele, 1997; Broucek, 1979; Bruner, 1968). As the
infant gradually internalizes a caregiver capable of holding him in this
way, so he begins to construct increasingly complex triadic exchanges.1
Sensorimotor accomplishments involving pointing, requesting, and
showing gestures and referential eye contact develop during this time.
Using these “joint attention skills” the child begins to make cognitive as
well as affective links between himself, his caretaker, and a third object/
event (Bates, Benigni, Bretherton, Camioni, & Volterra, 1979; Butter­
worth, 1991; Scaife and Bruner, 1975). Central to this is the infant’s abil­
ity to form links on several different levels: first, between two external
objects and himself, second, between internal thoughts, phantasies, and
external reality, and, third, over time and space.
Joint attention skills are always used in a social context and are
employed primarily to share attention and interest with others vis-à-
vis an object or event. The motivation behind these skills appears to be
the enjoyment and stimulation that the infant gains from sharing affect
with another person. They are used to express that an object is interest­
ing rather than necessary or desired. This is distinct from other sensory
motor skills that are designed to elicit the material satisfaction of physi­
cal needs, such as hunger, warmth, or thirst. The satisfaction gained
during these skills from the mutual exchange of emotions (surprise,
delight, joy, fear, uncertainty, pleasure) highlights their importance as
interpersonal and psychological skills.
Given this context, it is interesting to note that joint attention skills
have been found to act as an essential precursor to several major cogni­
tive and linguistic skills. This includes the development of language,
the concept of dialogue, the ability to use reference in speech, symbol
use, and theory of mind, to name but a few. Of particular importance is
the link between joint attention skills and the theory of mind. The the­
ory of mind hypothesis was developed in the late 1970s and originated
from animal experiments into psychological understanding. Since then
the emphasis has shifted to human psychology in an attempt to explain
how human beings come to have such a set of mutually understood
mental representations. It endeavours to explain how normal children
develop the capacity to “attribute mental states (such as beliefs, desires,
intentions, etc.) to themselves and other people, as a way of making
sense of and predicting behaviour” (Tager-Flusberg, 1993, p. 3). This
approach is based on the premise that we, as psychological beings,
do not have direct access to other people’s minds—that is, we cannot
always know what someone else is thinking and, certainly, that we
can both deceive and be deceived, keeping our thoughts or intentions
262 anna burhouse

c­ oncealed. Given that these skills are central to the process of under­
standing other minds, it is not surprising to learn that the absence of
joint attention skills forms one of the earliest diagnostic indicators of
autism at 18 months (Baron-Cohen, Allen, Gilberg, 1992).
This is thought-provoking from a psychoanalytic point of view, as
these skills are clearly founded on a shared affective base. Using these
skills, the infant is able to assert his own capacity to notice things, to pay
attention to the world, and to explore the distinction between being a
participant and an observer. He is able to think in a more creative and
flexible way, taking up a third position, which allows him to reflect on
the nature of his own and other people’s minds and the link between
them. Central to this is the curiosity with which the infant appears
to be investigating, not only the external world, but also the caretak­
er’s “internal world”. In this way the infant perceives the caretaker’s
responses, emotions, reactions, and interests to be engaging stimuli in
their own right.
The infant learns through this type of exchange (via ­intrapsychic
mechanisms of projection, introjection, and projective identification and
sensory-motor action, etc.) that people are “psychological” beings—
that is, capable of sharing and communicating mental and affective
states with others. With experience the child begins to sense how covert
psychological states are communicated interpersonally. This allows the
transmission of mind between infant and caregiver and vice versa. The
infant also gradually learns that he can make a potent impact on these
mental states in others and, conversely, that others can have an effect
on his own emotions and feelings.
It is through such shared mental and affective states that the infant
gradually becomes aware of the opaque nature of others’ minds.
Moments of de-synchronized behaviour between the dyad set up
differences in the infant’s more familiar continuum of experience. By
noticing the unfamiliar, the infant begins to question what is true and
what is false. The infant can gradually puzzle about things that are not
shared with him, or aspects of the caregiver’s internal world that are
not available to him. As this capacity develops, the infant can begin to
interact with others in a way that allows teasing, tricking, and joking
and so on, where experience includes moments when “all is not what
it seems” (Reddy, 1991).
This developmental advance promotes a sense that “self” and
“other” are different and separate, each with a discrete internal
makeup or perspective. This allows the growth of flexible think­
ing, including the ability to think triadically and to begin to look
 now we are two, going on three 263

at things from another person’s point of view. As Hobson (1993)

says, “The twelve-month-old who can both recognize the separate­
ness of another person-with-attitudes and identify with those person-
anchored attitudes is already well placed to acquire the insight of
what it means to be a person who can adopt alternative attitudes to
given objects and events” (p. 209).
From a psychoanalytic perspective this confirms that the impact of
emotion on cognition is not a peripheral or additional factor, but is a
formative source of development in its own right (Urwin, 1989). Psy­
choanalysts are also concerned with the inevitable internal “splits and
conflict within the personality and the effects of these on the develop­
mental process” (Boston, 1987, p. l). It is in this respect that the inclusive
and exclusive elements of the infant/caregiver relationship are of such
significance. It is my contention that some of the joint attention skills
that the 9- to 18-month-old develops encapsulate some of the complex
negotiations of triangular relationships. These include the movement
of position from “excluded” observer (for instance in gaze monitoring)
to “included” participant (in proto-declarative pointing), for example.
This produces a range of intense feelings, such as rivalry, jealousy,
sadness, and pleasure about having to share the caregiver with a third
object (Burhouse, 1999). The infant is therefore faced with dynamic
situations that require a flexible way of behaving and thinking. The
infant’s intrapsychic experience is fundamental to the establishment of
these skills. It is to this intrapsychic dimension of mental states that I
now turn.

Triadic capacity for thought and its relation

to the Oedipus complex
In Kleinian terms the ability to think triadically is inextricably linked
to the move from the paranoid-schizoid position to the depressive
position. During this developmental phase the infant progresses from
relating only on a part-object basis towards a more complex recogni­
tion of whole objects (Klein, 1935, 1945). During the paranoid-schizoid
position the infant projects the frustrating aspects of the breast into the
primitive mental space known as the “bad breast”. By using projection
to expel such destructive aspects of the self a primitive mental sense of
“out there” is created. Coupled with this, when the object is absent the
infant experiences the contrast of “breast” and “no breast”. This causes
an interruption to the continuum of his experience sufficient to generate
rudimentary thought formation (Bion, 1959, 1962a).
264 anna burhouse

Using such basic mental capacities the infant gradually begins to

turn away from the frustrating breast in search of new sources of grati­
fication or relief. This creates the need for a third object in the infant’s
mind. “The infant splits off the bad aspects from both the breast and
himself and creates a bad third figure” (Segal, 1989, p. 6). The concept
of the penis fulfils this role, acting both as an object of oral desire and
as a container for sadistic projections. This process slowly paves the
way in the infant’s mind from the dyadic construct of good breast/bad
breast to the more complex “triangulation” of good breast/bad breast
and penis.
As the depressive position emerges, the infant begins to realize that
the person he has attacked and hated is one and the same as the person
he loves. The infant therefore faces a continual struggle to control the
sadism and aggression that are now seen to be his own. This involves
attempts to look after the loved object by projecting sadism and aggres­
sion elsewhere. The infant has an even greater need at this stage for a
clearly defined “triangular space” containing a third object suitable for
the projection of his sadistic attacks. This space is used at this stage both
to “shield” the loved object and to circumvent the infant’s experience
of intense fear of having irreparably damaged the loved object with
his attacks. Without such a triangular mental space the infant experi­
ences the object as the projector, rather than the container of the pro­
jection. Consequently, the infant develops an omnipotent fear that the
object-projection will invade and destroy his mind (Caper, 1999). This
omnipotent delusion impairs the infant’s ability to distinguish external
and internal reality or “your mind” from “my mind”. Thus the estab­
lishment of a triadic mental space, where the infant can project into a
containing third object, is of enormous relief to the infant.
Depressive concern also motivates the infant to increasingly attend
to, or to “keep an eye on”, both the whereabouts and the condition of
his loved object. This simultaneously increases the infant’s awareness of
his surroundings and, by using his ego function of attention, the infant
can test and compare the omnipotence of his feelings against reality. As
the infant discovers the limits of his omnipotence, he becomes increas­
ingly able to think in an abstract and more objective fashion. This in
turn promotes increased flexibility of thought. Using these new skills,
the infant is able to think about more than one object at a time and
to secure two- or even three-tracked thinking (Alvarez & Furgiuele,
1997). This amplifies the innate epistemophilic instinct, augmenting the
infant’s desire to know and learn. This is often accompanied by a shift
 now we are two, going on three 265

in the creative ability to make links, to observe, to form symbols, and

to see things from a different perspective.
The triangular mental space formed in this way stimulates a sense of
curiosity in the infant with which he begins to think more clearly about
the implicit relatedness of his mother and father. In doing so, the infant
becomes aware of rivals for the loved object and begins to experience
oedipal anxieties and conflicts. Cognitively and emotionally, this means
allowing the mind to open to the possibility of the parents in enjoyable
and exclusive intercourse and to feel the extreme conflict of being on
the outside of this union. The depressive position thus allows the infant
to feel the true pain and conflict of the classic Oedipus complex, and in
this way “The primal family triangle provides the child with two links
connecting him separately with each parent and confronts him with the
link between them which excludes him” (Britton, 1989, p. 87).
This oedipal triangular space prepares the infant to take up a “third
position” from which he can “envisage being observed . . . [which] pro­
vides us with a capacity for seeing ourselves in interaction with others
and for entertaining another point of view while retaining our own,
for reflecting on ourselves while being ourselves” (Britton, 1989, p. 87).
Triadic thinking thus promotes the ability to take up a “third position”
mentally. With maturity, this skill develops to include a capacity to
recognize and think about covert mental states in others. This skill is
absolutely fundamental to the development of a fully fledged theory of
mind, where action is understood to be driven by opaque mental states
that have to be inferred if behaviour is to make sense. “The world we
live in can only make sense if we invoke constructs such as wishes,
beliefs, regrets, values, or purposes to understand the mental world of
the other as well as the mental world of the self” (Fonagy, 1991, p. 203).
The child’s capacity to introject an internal model of the primary carer
as a meta-object-related person capable of holding others in mind as
well as the child is vital to this developmental shift.
We come back again to the importance of the ability to share mental
and affective states with others, in such a way that allows the infant to
explore both internal and external reality via his interpersonal and intra­
psychic interactions with the caregiver. This requires the caregiver to
have a capacity to contain the mind of the infant and respond empathi­
cally or reflectively to the child’s communications (Fonagy, 1991; Main,
1991; Siegel, 1998). Bion highlights the need for the caregiver to con­
tain the infant sufficiently to enable him to introject a contained space
within his own mind, allowing him to make K links and begin to think
266 anna burhouse

(1959, 1962a). Without such an internalized model of “container–con­

tained” many abilities, including joint attention skills, will either fail
to develop (as in autism) or atrophy. This is because the infant has to
be able to introject and hold on to experiences from the outside world
in order to bring them to the attention of an other (Alvarez, 1992). In
addition, without a contained space to project into, the infant cannot
fully experiment or play with reality, as he is unable to project internal
states into his caregiver’s mind in a manner that supports reality testing.
By using “realistic projective identification” the ordinary infant is
able to arouse mental states or “states of mind” in the caregiver (Bion,
1959). When experiencing this, the infant begins to experiment with
ways of knowing and defining both his own and his object’s mind,
by analysing the caregiver’s reactions to his projections. “This kind of
projective testing allows us to test and thereby learn about our internal
and external realities at the same time: we learn about the minds of
our objects by projecting into them our inner states (to see how they
react), and we learn about our own inner states by using the minds of
our objects as instruments for measuring them (by seeing how they
reacted)” (Caper, 1999, p. 87). Alongside this, the infant begins to inter­
nalize a sense of his own ability to act upon his environment in a potent
way. The infant brings about changes in his environment and can expe­
rience the causal link between his action (his pointed finger and refer­
ential look) and the effect on other people (his caregiver’s response). In
this way the infant can concretely sense intentionality and, in so doing,
begins to unlock his creative potential to make things happen, not by
omnipotent means or magic, but by being who he really is: himself.
In favourable circumstances the infant is able to introject a sense
of himself as an interesting person in his own right, through his car­
egiver’s obvious interest in his thoughts. This potency and liveliness
seems to me to be a compensating factor, which might explain how
the ordinary infant begins to deal with the pain of losing his “imag­
ined” exclusive relationship with the caregiver. It could also provide
the impetus needed for the infant to move forward into a social world
where relationships are rarely exclusive. This allows a new type of
relationship to be formed with the caregiver, which is based more on
a social partnership. In this way “It can be realised that the oedipal
triangle does not spell the death of a relationship, but only the death of
an idea of a relationship” (Britton, 1989, p. 100). In a symbolic way the
ability to have more than one thing in mind reflects the infant’s accept­
ance of his place in the world where he is not the only thought in his
caregiver’s mind.
 now we are two, going on three 267

The ability to think and link triadically, as a person who is able to

be curious and have an effect on the external world, is an important
inducement or motivating factor to psychological and emotional devel­
opment. I hope to demonstrate this with the following material.

Exclusion and inclusion, pairs and triads,

within the setting of a Young Child Observation
Cody (2½ years old) is the only child in a nuclear family. Her mother
worked from home doing occasional piecework, and her father was a
foreman in a local factory. At the beginning of the observation there was
considerable concern about Cody’s health. Her overall development
was delayed, and her speech was limited to three or four single words.
She was not weaned, still wore nappies, and did not sleep through the
night, appearing to “twitch” or “jerk” herself awake. The family had
consulted various health care professionals, and Cody had undergone
several clinical tests. No clear diagnosis was yet available, but there was
a possibility that Cody might have a neurological disorder, autism, or a
life-threatening disease or tumour. During the first few months of the
observation the family waited anxiously for the results of further tests.
Naturally, all members of the family were under a considerable strain,
and the dynamics observed within this time reflected this extremely
emotional and tense atmosphere.
In particular, Cody’s mother’s quite understandable reaction was
to hold on fearfully to her daughter and attempt to minimize any frus­
trations, separations, or conflict between them. This anxiety-reaction
appeared to add to the existing developmental delay, preventing Cody
from developing new skills via independent exploration. This inter­
acted with oedipal conflicts and seemed to bind Cody to her mother
rather than to support her move towards her father. Cody’s dread of
separations appeared to be linked to this, and her fear of the combined
parental couple seemed to disturb her sleep and add to her nightmares.
Her father was often excluded from the mother–daughter dyad in a
defensive measure to deny this conflict, but his place in the parental
bed was a powerful reminder of his importance and status as a rival.
The most striking feature of this period was the highly exclu­
sive nature of the relationship between mother and daughter. Cody’s
mother was highly sensitized to her daughter’s needs and anticipated
them long before Cody needed to make any attempt to vocalize them.
In many ways this was reminiscent of an earlier mother–newborn-
infant dyad. Cody therefore had little need for her own voice, and in
268 anna burhouse

many ways speech appeared to become a symbol of separateness or

threat to the close union of mother and daughter. In addition to this,
others outside the dyad seemed to be experienced in a persecutory way,
as if they too were part of a threatening “outer” or “alien” world that
could ultimately hurt or kill Cody.
At this point Cody’s father (when present) and the observer (when
father was not present) were placed in the position of representing
the excluded third party or dangerous alien. Often play would ensue
between mother and daughter where both seemed to want to retreat
into a safe “world of their own” free from threat. This was reminiscent
of a combined womb where only they existed or had a capacity to see
what was going on. The observer repeatedly experienced the feeling of
being wiped “out of mind”, as being powerfully “outside” of the pair,
or treated as if he did not exist.
Cody switched on a torch. She shone it on her mother’s pubic area
and then went underneath her mother’s shirt, treating it like a tent.
Cody’s mother also put her head inside the shirt, joining her daugh­
ter in the tent. Cody’s mother said, “Inside here, we’re the only ones
who can see”, adding, to the observer, “You can’t see.”
Cody’s play at this time was dominated by an intense preoccupation
with pairs. She would bring identical twinned objects to the observer,
holding them for him to see and sometimes to hold on to. It was as if the
role of the father and the observer came to be that of a person capable
of keeping in mind that a larger world, full of complex relationships,
still existed outside the powerful mother–daughter pairing.
As the results day approached, Cody and her mother began to
sleep together in a separate bedroom away from father. At this point
Cody could not tolerate, to any degree, being in the excluded third
party observer position. Whenever Cody’s mother wanted to spend
time with her husband or talk with the observer, Cody would sabo­
tage this. She ensured that she was always included and that some­
one else was placed in the position of the “banished” or “invisible”
one. This pairing of mother and daughter appeared to be largely
unchallenged by Cody’s father. His concern for their welfare caused
him to accept a role where he was consistently eclipsed by his daugh­
ter in relation to his wife. It was as if any intrusion into the mother–
daughter dyad was felt to have the potential to be damaging, as if
the danger to the family, both external and internal, was projected
into the phallus. Most of the attempts that Cody’s father made to
come closer to the pair were openly rejected by Cody and were often
 now we are two, going on three 269

unsupported by her mother. It was as if the inverted oedipal con­

flict had been intensified by the family’s anxieties relating to Cody’s
potential illness, and triads simply could not be tolerated or even
imagined.
Cody’s parents sat next to each other. Dad’s knee brushed mum’s
and Cody immediately reached out and pushed her dad’s leg away.
He commented on this, and Cody stood up, in reaction, indicating
without words that her dad should vacate his seat. Cody’s father
moved to the adjacent dining room, making no further protest.
Cody then sat in her mother’s lap triumphantly, beginning to eat
and drink, making exaggerated facial expressions of enjoyment
saying “More, more!”
Good news arrived in the family. The tests showed that Cody was in
positively no danger and was expected to have no major developmen­
tal delays or learning or physical disabilities. The first observation
after this news was remarkably different in character to the previous
sessions. It highlighted the incredible strain that the family had been
under. The assurance that Cody was “safe” and would live appeared to
allow mother and daughter to become increasingly separate. Cody also
seemed to become openly inquisitive and interested in other people
outside the dyad.
At the beginning of the observation Cody was playing in the far cor­
ner of the room. She was using bricks to build a house. Her mother
was in the kitchen baking a cake. Cody was out of her sight. The
physical space between the pair and the fact that they were both
concentrating hard on separate occupations was striking. Cody
noted the arrival of the observer, and for the first time greeted him
by name in a loud, clear, and interested voice.
Along with a growing capacity to be separate was a growth in the moth­
er’s ability to resist Cody’s demands and to say no. Cody found this
change difficult and began to cry, scream, and kick when she couldn’t
get her own way. The growing ability for the pair to be both separate
and in conflict increased the need for speech. Cody now had a need to
express her disagreement with and resistance to her parents. This was
quickly followed by a developmental step forward as Cody began to
string pairs of words together, introducing the two phrases “no-way”
and “go-way”. These phrases appeared to indicate a growing wish in
Cody to define her physical, emotional, and mental space and to move
beyond the constant need to be in a pair.
270 anna burhouse

Both Cody and her mother became more expressive of their ambiva­
lence towards one another. During this period the close physical contact
between mother and daughter began to change character. The contact
Cody made with her mother would usually begin by being very lov­
ing and affectionate, but would soon become increasingly sadistic and
painful.
Cody picked up a photo of her mother. She pointed to it, saying,
“me”. Her mother corrected her, saying, “No, it’s Mummy”. Cody
came over and sat on her lap. She stroked her mother’s face with
one hand while the other reached inside her shirt and pinched her
breast. Her mother said, “So this is the ‘I’m going to be nice to you
while pinching your boob’; the ‘love-you-and-torture-you routine’.”
This increase in sadism appeared to stem both from Cody’s envy of her
mother and a dawning acknowledgement that her mother was not only
shared with others, but actively wished to be so. Cody’s father began
to be allowed a more potent presence within the triad. He became an
increasingly important figure for Cody to turn to when she felt tem­
porarily hostile towards her mother. She also sought him out to seek
different perspectives and opinions. Triads seemed to be more easily
accepted, and the family spent more time together in close contact as
a threesome.
As time proceeded, Cody slowly began to tolerate observing her
parents being together. She started to sit and watch them in conversa­
tion without interrupting or drawing attention to herself. In this way
she became increasingly able to take on the role of the excluded third
party. She also allowed her mother to talk freely to the observer while
playing quietly at their feet. The observer’s role also changed within the
family. His presence seemed to be enjoyed, and his departure was often
a source of upset for Cody. She symbolically kept the observer alive in
her mind during his absence by pretending to phone him up during the
week to say “hello” and thus maintain contact.
There was also a marked increase in the amount of time that the
family spent reflecting, observing, and thinking about each other in
creative and ingenious ways. For instance, when the family went on
holiday, they made up a family play about three foxes. One of the three
foxes would lose their way in a “dark fox den” and become separated.
The other two foxes would search and search for the missing fox until
they were all reunited. Each member of the family took it in turns to
take up the excluded third party position, and Cody’s parents were
 now we are two, going on three 271

particularly empathic about the anxiety Cody initially demonstrated

when acting this part. The family seemed to be celebrating the fact that
Cody was safe and their family was not going to be reduced from three
to two by her premature death.
Soon Cody was sleeping through most nights in her own bed and
leaving her parents undisturbed. This phase marked an exponential
growth in Cody’s cognitive and emotional development. She began
to use full sentences, to use personification in her play, and to learn in
many new ways, including counting and basic letter recognition. Cody
was also able to separate from her mother and started attending play
school. She made friends and became fully weaned and potty trained.
The knowledge that Cody was “safe” had allowed some of the
denied conflict and aggression within the family to return. Cody and
her mother were more able to express their ambivalent feelings towards
each other as well as their love. Cody was able to become increasingly
separate while also working through her feelings of loss and fear of
abandonment. It is striking that at the point that Cody accepted her
parents’ relationship and began to make use of triadic thinking, she also
started to make great developmental strides forward. This included a
capacity for abstract and three-dimensional thought.

Triadic thinking in the observer

It can be extremely difficult to maintain a three-dimensional mental
space when under stress, faced with trauma or powerful unconscious
feelings, as illustrated by the parents in the material above. As with
the paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions, a person’s capacity
to master triadic thinking does not mean that this is then fixed and in
constant use. However, dyadic thinking does stand in a developmen­
tally necessary or causal relationship to triadic thinking. Prior to dyadic
thinking, Bion throws light on how thought initially arises from the
unthinkable (1959, 1962). He stresses how the caretaker’s capacity to
process the “unthinkable” and return it in a “thinkable” digested form
to the infant aids the introjection of this capacity within the infant. It is
my suggestion that triadic thinking is only used while drawing upon
templates of infantile containment and is not available when such inter­
nal or external containment is missing.
Pre-oedipal dyadic or earlier fragmented thinking can overtake
us all during less integrated moments. This can restrict our internal
capacity to take up a third mental position, affecting our ability to put
272 anna burhouse

things in perspective, to think clearly about external reality, and to see

things from another’s point of view. It can thus impede our capacity for
abstract thought, clarity of observation, memory, and empathy. As one
can see, all of these qualities are desirable in students of young child
and Infant Observation.
Much has been written about the difficult but rewarding role of the
observer in an infant or Young Child Observation (Miller et al., 1989).
Acknowledgement has been made of the powerful countertransfer­
ence feelings that can be experienced while undertaking an observa­
tion. As illustrated above, the observer can be called upon to perform
a containing function or take up a particular role within the family in
times of anxiety or stress. It is at these moments, particularly when the
observer’s experience in the family “fits” in some way with an uncon­
scious resonance of their own, that he or she is also in need of some
containment.
The seminar group, the seminar leader, and the training organiza­
tion ideally make up a reflective three-dimensional space with which
to contain the observer. With this help the observer can usually contain
their feelings sufficiently in order to maintain his or her quietly atten­
tive observational stance. When the observer returns to the family,
hopefully he or she carries an internalized “third” dimension, allow­
ing self-reflection to be maintained. This “inner voice” of the seminar
group or leader can be extremely helpful when thinking about tricky
situations that arise or difficult roles that one is asked to undertake.
The reflective capacity of the seminar group and leader can deepen and
widen the observational experience.
The seminar group and leader also help the observer when they are
looking at the observational material. They can point out new areas
of interest, express curiosity about things that the observer has never
thought about before, bring significant details to light, and, importantly,
point out and make links between the present observations and those
of the past. In this way the observer is helped to find new perspectives
in their thinking. This can act to prevent a somewhat narrow field of
vision developing in relation to the family material. It can also prevent
the observer from becoming too heavily over-identified with a particu­
lar member of the family and the associated risk of acting this out in
some way. Most importantly, the seminar group and leader provide
a containing three-dimensional space safe enough for the observer to
take a few risks in their thinking. This can enable the observer to make
leaps in their capacity to make links and to explore new emotional are­
nas in spite of the fear of the unknown or the “unthinkable”.
 now we are two, going on three 273

Conclusion
Triadic thinking is an invaluable skill that, once established, provides us
with an inner resource for living life with curiosity. It is a skill initially
associated with the painful acknowledgement of being on the outside
of a parental couple. However, once the child begins to accept the loss
of the imagined exclusive relationship with the primary carer, this skill
also offers compensation in the form of new and exciting ways of think­
ing and observing the world. Equipped with these new perspectives,
the child can begin to think about the links between himself, his envi­
ronment, and other minds. He can then be more proactive in expressing
his own potency, creativity, and capacity for abstract thought. Triadic
thinking thus marks a bittersweet developmental moment where pain
and loss act as a threshold opening onto the benefits of living in a tri­
angular world.

Notes
I would like to thank Martin Stern, Cathy Urwin, Kate Barrows, and Sara Rance for
all their support, supervision, and encouragement regarding this paper.
1.  For the purpose of clarity, the infant or child is here referred to as “he”.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Young Child Observation used as

a research tool: investigating toddlers’
development in day care nurseries
Wilfried Datler, Nina Hover-Reisner, Maria Fürstaller, &
Margit Datler

Paulina’s first day at the day care centre

P
aulina is 2 years and 8 months of age when she, together with her
parents and her 5-year-old sister Sarah, enters the nursery that
her older sister Sarah has already been frequenting every day of
the working week for the past two years. Paulina has often come along
when Sarah was taken here in the mornings or picked up in the after­
noons. But now the day has arrived when Paulina’s first proper stay at
the day care centre is to begin.
From the observational account written by Lisa Schwediauer (2007),
which covers Paulina’s first day at the centre, it can be divined that
two rooms exist at the nursery, where, at certain times of the day, the
younger and older children are separately attended to. The group of
the younger children, of which Paulina now also is a member, bears the
name “Higgledy-Piggledy”; the older children’s group, which Sarah
belongs to, is called “Circus Tent”.
Early in the morning, as Paulina and Sarah are brought to the nurs­
ery, both group rooms are initially still being made available to all of the
children. As if it were the most natural thing in the world, Paulina runs
over to Sarah’s group room, the “Circus Tent”. Together with her sister,
Paulina clambers into a small wooden house that has been set up on
an elevated platform. A little while later she poses in front of a mirror,

274
 young child observation used as a research tool 275

again together with her sister. Then she runs about the room and seeks
the proximity of her mother, Mrs K., who, together with her husband,
Mr K., is sitting in the cloakroom. When Mrs Schuster, the caregiver,
calls on all the younger children to come and join her in the “Higgledy-
Piggledy” group room, she turns to Paulina with a friendly smile:
“Well, Paulina, wouldn’t you like to come along with us—huh?!
Sarah’s coming along too, she already knows the way.” [Schwediauer,
2007, 1/61]

Indeed, Paulina and Sarah, along with the other children, run over
to the “Higgledy-Piggledy” group room. There they steer towards a
wooden house, which is similar to the small house that is situated in
the “Circus Tent” group room. When Paulina discovers, underneath
this house, a box containing wooden railroad tracks, she starts to link
the pieces of toy track, with Sarah’s help.
All of this seems to convey the impression to the caregiver, Mrs
Schuster, that Paulina may well be able to cope with a day’s stay at
the centre without her parents. When Paulina’s parents ask when
they could start leaving Paulina behind at the centre, Mrs Schuster
replies: “Well, ordinarily we don’t keep the children here alone on
their first day. Usually, during the first four days, parents stay here
and leave for an hour, max” (Schwediauer, 2007, 1/7). But, she adds
immediately, it’s different in Paulina’s case, as she is already familiar
with the nursery centre and, in any case, her sister Sarah is here too
(Schwediauer, 2007, 1/7). The parents take this to mean that it will
be all right for them to go away and leave their child at the nursery.
When first the father and a little later the mother say goodbye to
Paulina, the girl does indeed react neither with tears nor any other
outward displays of distress. This appears to confirm Mrs Schuster’s
assumption that Paulina will not need her parents’ presence in order
to feel comfortable at the nursery.
Some days later, when the observational account is being dis­
cussed at the seminar, the impression prevails that Paulina must have
been more strongly affected by her parents’ departure than initially
appeared to be the case. An indication of this may be gleaned from
the following: (1) Paulina runs away from her mother when Mrs K.
announces her imminent departure. This would appear to suggest that
Paulina is actively attempting to obviate the painful experience of the
impending abandonment by placing not herself, but her mother, into
the position of being the one who is abruptly left behind. The group
further noticed (2) that, after her parents’ departure, Paulina occupies
276 wilfried datler et al.

herself with a concentrated effort of assembling railroad tracks and

parts of puzzles, as though she were, in a playfully symbolical man­
ner, pondering on ways in which things that were separated could be
pieced together again. And, finally (3), it could be observed that, about
an hour later, when Paulina’s mother returned, the girl’s reaction was
somewhat ambivalent. When Mrs K., standing in the open doorway
of the “Higgledy-Piggledy” group room, comes to collect Paulina, the
little girl initially shows a joyful reaction:
Paulina turns her head and casts a glance at her mother. Her mouth
spreads into a wide grin. Her eyes gleam with a noticeable sparkle.
She takes a few steps in the direction of the door, keeping her eyes
fixed on her mother as she does so. [Schwediauer, 2007, 1/11]

But then Paulina hesitates, as though she is not quite sure whether she
wants to greet her mother with such undiluted joy. She stops in mid-
step, turns around, and lies down on the floor, keeping her gaze fixed
on Mrs Schuster, the caregiver, giving her to understand that she first
wants to finish the puzzle she has started before going along with her
mother.
As the seminar group discuss these reactions of Paulina’s, they are
reminded of descriptions of insecure–ambivalently attached children.
The assumption arises that Paulina has to struggle more strongly with
painful emotions than either Mrs Schuster or the parents were initially
able to imagine. At the same time, the group begin to wonder how
Paulina’s process of transition from home-care to out-of-home day care
might continue to develop in conjunction with the relational experi­
ences that Paulina will encounter at the nursery over the subsequent
weeks and months.

The research project

“Toddlers’ Adjustment to Out-of-Home Care”
Questions like these have motivated a team of scientists at the Univer­
sity of Vienna to design and run the third-party-paid research project
“Toddlers’ Adjustment to Out-of-Home Care”.2 It is the aim of the
project to investigate the transitional processes of 104 children as they
move from home-care to out-of-home care. At the time they first started
at nurseries, most of the children were between 1½ and 2½ years old.
In particular, the research team is seeking answers to the following
research questions:
 young child observation used as a research tool 277

» How does the process of adaption (or maladjustment) to out-of-

home day care develop over those first six months?
» Which aspects are helpful, or a hindrance, with regard to the way
young children experience the transitional process?
» What are the consequences to be drawn from the results of the study
in terms of education and training of caregivers?

In order to be able to make assertions as to which factors may be helpful

in contributing to the success of such transition processes, a definition
had to be found, as a first step, of just what was meant by a successful
transition process (Datler, Hover-Reisner, & Fürstaller, 2010). In this
context, with reference to psychoanalytic and developmental–psycho­
logical theories, it was assumed that the transitional processes involved
in moving from home-care to out-of-home care entailed, for all infants
and young children, a painful experience of separation, so that the
transition can be considered to be successful if a child is able, alone or
with someone’s assistance:

» to experience and express pleasure and enjoyment in their new care

environment;
» to explore and investigate situations in their new environment with
interest; and
» to take part in interactions with peers and adults.

In an effort to have available a variety of material for the examination

and discussion of the key research questions, the work on the research
project is carried out in a mixed-methods research design. For this rea­
son, a variety of research tools pertaining to the areas of quantitative
and qualitative research methodology is being used (Ahnert, Kappler,
& Eckstein-Madry, 2012; Datler, Funder, Hover-Reisner, Fürstaller, &
Ereky-Stevens, 2012). Much of the data was collected at three separate
time points (Figure 17.1):

» T1: within the first two weeks of a toddler being left in the nursery
without the parent’s presence;
» T2: about two months later (or about 11 weeks after admission to the
nursery);
» T3: about another two months later (or about 20 weeks after admis­
sion to the day care centre).
278 wilfried datler et al.

Figure 17.1  Time schedule, taking as an example the year 2007, after data
were being collected of 104 children who began attending the nursery in
2007, 2008, and 2009.

The date when—about two to four weeks before the children entered
the nursery—some data regarding the families of the children were
collected has been denoted as T0. Two further time-points, when addi­
tional data were collected after the first 20 weeks, were marked by the
project team as T4.1 (six months after entry to nursery) and T4.2 (twelve
months after entry to nursery) (Figure 17.1).
The general quality features of the day care centres were being
surveyed during the first two months of this project with the use
of the German version of the “Infant/Toddler Environment Rating
Scale (ITERS)” (Harms, Cryer, & Clifford, 1990; Tietze, Bolz, Grenner,
Schlecht, & Wellner, 2005). Beyond that, 11 of the 104 children were
being observed, according to the Young Child Observation method,
an average of once a week during the first six to eight months in the
nursery.
Why and in which way we used Young Child Observation as a
research tool may be gleaned from the following overview. For this
purpose, we shall first dwell on videography as used in the research
project, in order to attain a kind of comparative framework, as a back­
ground against which we may subsequently elucidate the particular
strong point and benefit of working with Young Child Observation.
In so doing, we shall repeatedly refer back to Paulina, whose first
day at the nursery we reported on at the outset and who is one of
the 11 children observed according to the Young Child Observation
method.
 young child observation used as a research tool 279

The rating of videotapes

and the statistical analyses of data
At time points T1, T2, and T3, two sequences were videographically
recorded of each of the children: (a) their arrival in the mornings (20
minutes) and (b) one hour of the events that occurred at the day care
centre in the latter part of the morning, usually between breakfast and
lunch (60 minutes). In this fashion, some 240 minutes of video material
was collated for each of the 104 children.
In order to be able to compare the processes of transition that
occurred between these 104 children, the video recordings were rated
with regard to the three categories mentioned above of successful
transitions from home-care to out-of-home care (Datler, Ereky-Stevens,
Hover-Reisner, & Malmberg, 2012; Datler, Funder, et al., 2012). For this
purpose, the video recordings were split into five-minute segments.
Specially trained project assistants rated these short sequences on a
scale of 1 to 5, based on the intensity and duration that the child, in the
course of those five minutes, displayed:

» a positive mood;
» a negative mood;
» explorative/investigative interest;
» dynamic interaction with caregivers;
» dynamic interaction with peers.

Summing up the scores that were allocated to each of these five vari­
ables at time points T1, T2, and T3 and computing the average scores
resulting from them for each time-point, it is then possible to convert
the data thus arrived at into a graphic representation that reflects a
certain image of each child’s transitional process.
Accordingly, the image that emerges, in this way, of Paulina’s tran­
sition process (see Figure 17.2) suggests that in two areas Paulina’s
behaviour has barely changed at all from time point T1 onwards: the
girl’s behaviour expresses virtually no negative emotions at all, while
positive feelings are expressed only in a very mild form. Dynamic
interactions with other children, on the other hand, were waning con­
tinually, while the dynamic interactions with the caregivers were on the
increase between T1 and T3.
In order to ascertain whether significant changes could be deter­
mined within the transitional processes of the 104 children, all the
280 wilfried datler et al.

Figure 17.2  The scores of the ratings for the video recordings of Paulina
(Datler, Funder, Hover-Reisner, Fürstaller & Ereky-Stevens, 2012, p. 70).

1,560 scores taken of the children at time points T1, T2, and T3 were
fed into a mathematical model to determine statistically significant
results regarding the changes between all these data (Datler, Ereky-
Stevens, et al., 2012). This led, among other things, to the following
assertions:

1. The transitional processes of the children run to a great variety of

courses. Looking at the present set of data, it has not been possible
to identify groups of children whose scores showed a minimum of
similarities. Within the changes of the rating values that are based
on all five variables (see Figure 17.2) no patterns can be found that
would allow for the description of various types of transitional
processes.
2. In the areas of two variables, however, changes could be identified:
within the total group of 104 children, the interactive exchange with
the caregivers had a tendency to decline during the period between
T1 and T3, while the interactive exchange with the children’s peers
showed an upward trend.

One paper in which we presented these statistical results was accepted

for publication by the journal Infant Behaviour and Development (Datler,
Ereky-Stevens, et al., 2012). The project team has every reason to rejoice
in its success, especially as, in connection with these statistically vali­
dated results, further analyses can be undertaken, where the relation­
 young child observation used as a research tool 281

ships between these results and other data can be analysed, making it
possible to find more answers to the central research questions of the
project.
Nevertheless, the research team would not be satisfied if, during the
current research project, only results of this statistical nature were to be
obtained. When it comes to the study of transitional processes, the team
is interested in a particularly intense way in finding an answer to the
question regarding the relationship experiences that children encounter
in these transitional processes and, beyond that, how these relation­
ship processes impact on the inner worlds of children and hence on
the success or failure of these transitional processes. Finding answers
to questions of this kind will, however, fail as long as one’s methodol­
ogy remains confined to the rating of video recordings, as outlined
above, and to the statistical analyses of data found in this manner (cf.
Shpancer, 2006).

The use of Young Child Observation in the research process:

three phases and eleven steps of work
Several members of the research team had already had the experience,
garnered in other research projects, that it was possible, with the help
of the use of observation according to the Tavistock model, to ana­
lyse connections between relational experiences and internal psychic
processes.3 Subsequently it was proposed that 11 children would be
observed with the aid of the Young Child Observation method. The
aim here was to conduct 11 single-case studies based on a series of
weekly observations, which would—always taking into consideration
the central research objectives of the project—provide insights into the
individual features of each transition process. We also pursued this
particular course of action because we felt heartened by two sets of
publications produced by various other authors.

» In the first group are papers that have, since 1997, carried on a debate
on the fundamental principles relating to the ways in which the spe­
cific insights gained by the use of the observation method based on
the Tavistock model may be relevant to the ongoing development
of theoretical frameworks, and hence also to the pursuit of research
interests (Elfer, 2010; Lazar, 2000; M. J. Rustin, 1997, 1999, 2002, 2006,
2011a, 2011b; Trunkenpolz, Funder, & Hover-Reisner, 2010).
» The second group covers those papers reporting on the ways in
which observation according to the Tavistock model has already
282 wilfried datler et al.

been successfully employed in other, quite different research pro­

jects (Briggs, 1997; Davenhill, 2007; Diem-Wille, 1997; Urwin, 2007;
Shuttleworth, 2010). A particular inspiration in this context was
provided by the studies of Peter Elfer, who, with the aid of observa­
tions according to the Tavistock model carried out in England, had
already explored young children’s nursery experiences over the
course of several research projects (Elfer, 2006, 2007a, 2007b, 2011;
Elfer & Dearnley, 2007).

The challenge of coming to grips with these research experiences and

research reports prompted our team in Vienna to structure the research
process into three phases, each of which was subdivided into several
procedural steps (cf. Datler, Hover-Reisner, Steinhardt, & Trunkenpolz,
2008; Datler, Datler, & Hover-Reisner, 2011).

Phase 1:
Clarifying the research project
Once it had been determined why, alongside videographic and other
research tools, the Young Child Observation method should be used,
we set about, with the help of the heads of the nurseries with which we
cooperated, engaging the support of eight parents who gave us permis­
sion to observe their children. Subsequent to that, experienced students
who were majoring in education were invited to apply for the positions
of observers.4 On the basis of trial accounts of observation, which the
applicants were required to conduct, we selected eight students, who
were obliged:

» to observe one child, on a weekly basis, throughout a period of at

least six months, starting on the day the child was brought to the day
care centre,
» to participate in a Young Child Observation seminar as well as vari­
ous other research seminars,
» and to draw up, within the framework of their diploma theses, a
single-case study dealing with the transitional processes of the child
they had observed.

The eight students were split into two groups of four. It was determined
that one group would meet weekly with Margit Datler, the other with
Wilfried Datler, to discuss the students’ observation accounts within the
framework of the Young Child Observation seminar. Also participat­
 young child observation used as a research tool 283

ing in these two seminars were Nina Hover-Reisner, Maria Fürstaller,

and Tina Eckstein, three further members of the team in charge of the
overall project.
During the second year of the project, a third Young Child Observa­
tion seminar was established and run by Margit Datler, where observa­
tional accounts were discussed which focused on three further children,
two of whom were a pair of twins.

PHASE 2:
Observation as it is practised within the context of training and
continuing education
In the second phase of the research process, Young Child Observa­
tion was carried out in the manner already familiar from the contexts
of initial training and the continuing training for expanded or added
competence. Accordingly, the process was characterized by the follow­
ing five recurring steps:

Step 1:  Observing and memorizing: the observer acting in

the field
In this first step the process of observation is carried out in the day
care centre by the observers, who direct their attention to the child they
are observing, attempting to register everything that can be perceived
in the best possible way and to retain it in memory. The “recording
instruments” in this case are the individual observers themselves, with
all of their senses and mental capabilities.

Step 2:  The memorizing and the writing-down of

the observation account, as detailed and descriptive as
possible, by the observer
Immediately subsequent to the observation session, all that has been
perceived and recognized is then set down in the shape of a detailed
account written from memory. In so doing, observers are faced with
the task of digesting and transforming these multi-modal impressions,
within their own internal psychic processes, in such a way that their
notations can be structured into coherent units, captured in language,
and set down, in largely descriptive form, in writing.
One significant consideration, in terms of methodological issues,
is that the “recording instrument”—that is, the individual who was
284 wilfried datler et al.

­ ersonally present at the observational situation—is required, on the

p
basis of his or her mental structuredness, to furnish complex ascriptions
of meaning and assessment, while also producing compressed and at
the same time richly detailed descriptions. Both of these aspects flow
into the composition of the observational accounts, which comprise in
the project usually a minimum of five to seven printed-out pages and
hence, in their volume and extent, are configured in such a way as to
allow for some intense reflections, during the seminar, on the occur­
rences of that hour’s observation, without any further transcriptions,
compactions, or other editing work becoming necessary for the purpose.

Step 3:  Presentation of the observation account by

the observer at the observation seminar
The fact that the members of the Young Child Observation seminar
gather on a weekly basis contributes to an expansion of the observer’s
mental capacities by the group’s thoughtful input, which thus creates
the potential of a communal mind search with and within the group
(Skogstad, 2004).
The sessions commence with the observer participating in the
weekly Young Child Observation seminar and presenting what is,
usually, the most recently completed observation account, by reading it
aloud. The modulations of the voice, variations in the speaking speed,
and changes in intonation significantly contribute to the observer con­
veying the atmosphere and emotional content of the observations, in
conjunction with the text being presented, in such a fashion that within
the conceptual world of the group members a kind of “internal film”
starts to run, which, for one thing, ought to be similar, to as great an
extent as possible, to what the observer perceived and experienced in
the situation he or she found himself or herself exposed to.
And, for another, the images and emotions thus generated within
the members of the group should activate associations that could
open up various inferences with regard to the latent contents of the
text and hence also to the experiences of the child at the centre of the
observation.

Step 4:  Discussion of the account at the observation seminar

With this objective in mind, then, the observational account
being presented for group review is thus scrutinized line by line and
 young child observation used as a research tool 285

­ aragraph by paragraph in an effort to develop thoughts and reflec­

p
tions on the child’s encounters with its world and on its experiences
of relationships. Central to this approach would be grappling with the
following questions:

» How may the observed child have felt during the individual
sequences of the observation hour; and how may the child have
experienced himself (or herself) and his (or her) environment?
» How, against this background, may it be understood that the
observed child did behave, in each case, in the manner described?
» What were his (her) experiences in those situations?
» What influence could those experiences, in turn, have had on his
(her) emotions?

During this phase, the observer is also encouraged to participate in the

analysis of the account and to allow his or her personal thoughts and
impressions to enter into, and mix with, the process of analysis. Beyond
that, the observer may gauge from the utterances of the other seminar
members during the discussion of the account, just how far he (or
she) succeeded in adequately representing what he (or she) had been
observing. This offers a continual opportunity of adding emendations
and more precise formulations. This aspect is significant because it is
the task of the group to find answers to the quoted questions which
can be corroborated as well as possible by referring to the descriptively
worded accounts and the complementary remarks of the observer
(Lazar, 2000, p. 410).

Step 5:  Drawing up the discussion minutes by another member

of the seminar group, one who is not the observer who wrote
the original account that is being discussed
One member of the seminar group is assigned the job of jotting
down notes during the course of the discussion of the accounts. Later,
when writing up the discussion minutes on the basis of these notes, the
note-taker faces the task of re-visualizing, once more, the process of the
discussion of the account and recasting it once again in his or her mind.
After all, the significant point of the discussion minutes is to identify
and summarize the central ideas that were raised during the discussion
of the accounts and to set them on paper in such a way that they may
be retraced and understood even weeks later, upon being read.
286 wilfried datler et al.

Step 6:  The writing and discussion of an interim report

While working on Steps 1–5, the seminar group is urged to avoid
referring to the research questions of the research project or, worse yet,
seeking to find answers already, at this early stage, to those research
questions. To do so would narrow the focus of the assessment unduly
and at too early a stage, and it would mean that the particular options
offered by the use of observations according to the Tavistock model
could not be fully utilized. Explicit reference to the project is resumed
during Step 6, which calls for a fine-tuning with regard to the research
project. Now, when the observations and the discussions of observa­
tions within the seminar group have been concluded, the observer is
required to go through all those observation accounts and discussion
minutes once again. In so doing, the observer is obliged to direct his
or her attention towards one particular aspect of the observed child’s
experiences and then to discuss just what influence the child’s relational
experiences, in particular, exerted on the ways this aspect changed—or
else, failed to change. In our research project the thematic focus had
to be chosen in such a way as to stand in a close relationship with the
main research questions concerning the child’s transitional process. To
this end, “interim reports” were generated, and these were presented,
in written form, to the seminar group and were discussed within the
seminar group. By their explicit reference to the guiding research ques­
tions, these reports already offered a bridge to the third phase of the
research process.

PHASE 3:
Further processing of the material
Phase 3 docks on to results of the second phase, while taking it yet one
step further, with the intention of generating answers to the research
question, which would need to be adjusted in the course of undertaking
the single-case studies. To ensure that deeply ingrained thought and
interpretation patterns were not, unthinkingly, allowed to come to the
fore, and so that the circle of people who dealt critically with the obser­
vation accounts might be enlarged, the “observation groups” that had
been set up for Phase 2 of the process had to be disbanded. Their place
was taken by newly named “research groups”, whose task consisted of
turning their attention, under the supervision of a seminar lecturer, but
also without such tutelage, once again to specific individual accounts.
 young child observation used as a research tool 287

During the first year of our research project, “research groups” were
formed, consisting of two members each from one “observation group”
from Phase 2 with two members from the other “observation group”.
This mingling of the two groups was intended to ensure that, in each
case, two members of the “research group” were already familiar with
the accounts that were to be discussed, while the other two members
were new both to the material and to the results of the previous group’s
work. The “observation group” of the second project year became a
“research group” by dint of the fact that a new seminar leader who
was entirely unacquainted with the material that some members of the
former “observation group” had heretofore ploughed through came to
be in charge of the sessions.

Step 7:  The presentation of the observation accounts in

the research group
In the research group, selected observation accounts were once
again being presented by the observers.

Step 8:  The discussion of the accounts with reference to

the research questions
The presentation of the accounts was followed by a discussion of
these accounts in two steps. First, the accounts were considered in terms
of the questions that had already guided the work in the observation
group. In so doing, the minutes that were written during the second
work phase also needed to be co-evaluated. In a second step, the discus­
sion centred on the research questions, a process from which answers
were expected to be gleaned regarding the subjects so far discussed, but
this time with a clearer focus on the central research questions.

Step 9:  Drawing up discussion minutes

As in Step 5, one member of the research group had to write up the
minutes.

Step 10:  Final discussion of, and finding answers to,

the research questions
When the repeated cycles of going through Phases 7–9 were termi­
nated, the observers had already begun, at this point in the proceedings,
288 wilfried datler et al.

to bundle and augment the results of the discussions and had started
writing up their final research reports, which were to be completed in
the shape of diploma theses. The individual chapters of these reports
were regularly discussed within the research groups as well as with two
members of the research team and, beyond that, also, in excerpt form,
within a research seminar.

Step 11:  Publishing the results

Finally, the diploma theses were written—taking into account that
an explicit indication was required as to the ways in which the new
work related to previously published theories and research findings (cf.
Fatke, 1995; M. J. Rustin, 2002). These diploma theses are now freely
accessible via a link to the library of the University of Vienna.5 One
diploma thesis was published as a book (Heiss, 2010). Some initial and
partial results of the single-case studies were, in addition, published in
a number of separate papers (cf. Funder, 2009; Datler, Datler, & Funder,
2010; Datler, Fürstaller, & Ereky-Stevens, 2011).

Paulina’s transitional process

In the course of preparing and finalizing the eleven single-case stud­
ies, it was found once again that it is possible, within a research project
employing the Tavistock model, to generate and analyse, inside reason­
able time spans, comprehensive amounts of material and so provide
insights into processes that have kept developing over several months
(Datler, Datler, & Hover-Reisner, 2011).
While from a methodological point of view it is relatively easy to
compare the results of the video ratings concerning each child with oth­
ers, some methodological clarifications are needed before the results of
the analyses of the single-case studies can be linked and discussed from
a more comprehensive viewpoint in order to enrich or increase theories.
On the other hand, however, it must be noted that the perusal of each
single-case study offers substantial and vastly sophisticated insights
into the course and dynamic of each individual transition process,
thus opening up an opportunity to understand, step by step, what any
one child experienced during the first six months of his or her nursery
attendance and which factors were helpful or obstructive.
This richness of insights is related to the narrative tenor of both the
accounts and the published single-case studies, as well as to the fact
that observation accounts written down on a weekly basis record these
 young child observation used as a research tool 289

transitional processes in much more highly close-meshed form than

the video recordings made on just three separate days. While the rat­
ings of the video recordings are based on events that cover four hours
per child, the accounts that centre, for example, on Paulina describe
processes observed within a little over 21 hours. This increases the
likelihood that events described in the observational accounts are espe­
cially important and revealing for the understanding of each child’s
transitional process.

Paulina is separated from her sister

Among the accounts that cover Paulina’s transition process, it would
appear that the account of the eighth observation should be accorded
such special consideration (cf. Datler, Funder, et al., 2012). From
the observer’s previous reports it could be concluded that Paulina
appeared to enjoy her stays at the nursery, having never yet on any
day responded to the departure of her parents by whining or with
any other clearly visible signs of pain or protest (Schwediauer, 2009,
p. 51ff.). Even now, five weeks after Paulina’s first day at the nursery,
the little girl enters the building, as she is wont to do, cheerfully and
with a swing in her step, in the company of her mother and older sister.
But this time, when Paulina, after changing her clothes in the dressing
room, sets out, as usual, to enter, together with her sister, the room of
the older children’s group called the “Circus Tent”, she is, for the first
time, prevented from doing so. In her account, the observer described
the ensuing scene as follows:
Mrs K. [her mother] leans forward and kisses Paulina on the lips.
Shortly afterwards, Paulina turns around and . . . walks past the door
that leads to the “Higgledy-Piggledy” group room. She continues
on in the direction of the room of the older children’s group, called
the “Circus Tent”. Sarah follows her. Mrs K. steps up quickly behind
Paulina. She puts her hands on her daughter’s shoulders and turns
Paulina a little towards the entrance to her proper group room, the
“Higgledy-Piggledy” room. Mrs Schuster stands in the doorway.
“Come along, Paulina, go to your group. Mrs Schuster will be waiting
for you”, says Mrs K. and Paulina stops and turns her head towards
the “Higgledy-Piggledy” group room. Mrs Schuster, still standing in
the doorway, calls out to her. “Hello, Paulina”, she says, smiling and
waving. [Schwediauer, 2007, 8/3].

Paulina lowers her gaze and seems to feel no inclination to enter the
room of the younger children and thus to part from her sister Sarah. But
290 wilfried datler et al.

this is precisely what appears to be the shared intention of Mrs Schuster

and Mrs K.; the latter, having placed her hands on Paulina’s shoulders,
is now steering her daughter towards Mrs Schuster.
Paulina is now standing in front of Mrs Schuster. “I want to go with
Sarah”, she says quietly, and looks up to Mrs Schuster. Sarah is stand­
ing next to Mrs Schuster in the aisle. “Well, you can stay with me for
now, in the ‘Higgledy-Piggledy’ group. After the 10 o’clock meeting
you can go back to Sarah again”, says Mrs Schuster. She strokes
Paulina’s back while saying this. “Nooooo, I don’t want to”, Paulina
yells loudly and starts to cry. She turns to Mrs K. and the corners of her
mouth are drawn down. Her mouth is slightly open and she starts to
cry out with a loud, “WAAH!!!” Paulina’s face is all red, and unstop­
pable tears are flowing from her eyes. She roars with her mouth wide
open now, her eyes clenched shut. Mrs K. crouches down in front of
Paulina and talks soothingly to her. Paulina snuggles up against Mrs
K.’s chest and bawls so very loudly that I cannot understand what
Mrs K. is saying to her. [Schwediauer, 2007, 8/3]

When Mrs K., after some hesitation, decides to leave the nursery for the
time being, Paulina’s roar changes gear to a low whimper (Schwedi­
auer, 2007, 8/5). A short while later, Paulina is even able to sit with Mrs
Schuster and look at a picture book together with her. And when Mrs
Schuster starts up a conversation with an assistant, Paulina disengages
herself from the caregiver and occupies herself by sticking cutout
shapes and wooden rods into the appropriate openings of two wooden
puzzle boards. In so doing, however, she seems to be preoccupied with
the desire to bring together separated parts that belong together. As
she continues playing, her power and energy appear, repeatedly, to be
leaving her entirely. During these episodes her gaze becomes empty,
showing signs of tiredness, and she keeps running towards the door
through which her mother left the group room and through which one
has to go if one wants to get to Sarah’s group room, the “Circus Tent”
(Schwediauer, 2007, 8/5).

Paulina’s relationship with her sister Sarah—

helpful but also burdensome
This is not the place where Paulina’s transitional process can be traced
in its entirety. However, if one follows Schwediauer’s analysis (2009),
it can be stated, in summary, that it was extremely helpful for Paulina
during her first few weeks at the nursery to be able to remain in con­
stant close touch with Sarah. When, after those first five weeks, she was
 young child observation used as a research tool 291

obliged to separate from Sarah, Paulina was apparently unprepared

and was suddenly confronted with the pain of separation and the
experience of being alone. Subsequently, Paulina could not get the per­
sonal assistance and support that she would have needed for a gradual
separation from Sarah and also for the successful conduct of the entire
transitional process. It can be seen from the accounts that even eight
months after entering the nursery, Paulina still needed a conspicuously
high level of Sarah’s proximity in order:
» to be able to experience situations at the day care centre as comfort­
able or even pleasurable;
» to turn towards the conditions that exist in the day care centre with
any degree of interest; and
» to be able to establish dynamic interactions with her peers (Schwedi­
auer, 2009, p. 142f.).
At the same time, the incidence of reports in which Paulina is described
as crying or even screaming decreases. Instead, it can be seen from
the accounts that Paulina, although not consistently, but to an increas­
ing degree shows the kind of behaviour similar to the behaviour of
those children who are referred to as “silent suffering children”. Their
behaviour is frequently characterized by listlessness, by apathy, by
signs of emptiness or even signs of aimless walking (Grossmann, 2011;
Fürstaller, Funder, & Datler, 2011). In the account of the final observa­
tion session, such a situation is described right at the very beginning:
Paulina sits at the breakfast table and peers up at me with big, round
eyes. She has planted both elbows on the table, bending her upper
torso slightly forward. In her right hand she holds a half-eaten bun,
coated with a thick layer of butter. Paulina is very pale today and
she has bluish shimmering circles under her eyes. . . . The corners of
Paulina’s mouth are slightly pulled down and her eyes hold a very
sad expression. [Schwediauer, 2008a, 21/3]

The observer briefly gives in to her impulse to smile at Paulina, but

gets no response:
Paulina does not smile back, but rather stares back at me with a wall-
eyed look. At the same time, she makes a chewing motion with her
lips closed and the corners of her mouth drawn downwards a bit.
After a while she turns her gaze away from me and looks at her bun,
which she is holding propped up in her right hand approximately 5
cm away from her mouth. Paulina now stretches her head forward
a little and bites off a chunk of her bun. [Schwediauer, 2008a, 21/3]
292 wilfried datler et al.

But even while she engages in the intake of food, Paulina displays
hardly any signs of vitality. Nor does she get noticeably livened up
when casting a glance at the play corner, where at this very moment
some turbulent game is underway. On the contrary, it is only after some
while that Paulina bestirs herself to put away her dishes and move
towards a door that leads to the “Higgledy-Piggledy” group room,
via the cloakroom, from where she can attempt to get to Sarah’s group
room, the “Circus Tent”. One part of this door is ajar, the other part is
closed.
Paulina leans with her right shoulder against this, now closed, part
of the door. She looks inside the cloak room. Suddenly she raises her
upper body and I hear Paulina breathing audibly. It sounds like a
deep sigh. [Schwediauer, 2008a, 21/5]

Thus Paulina stands, until a sneeze obliges her to get a paper tissue,
after which she returns to the door again, lingering a while, and begins
to walk around the room. She approaches a small wooden house, which
stands on a shelf:
Paulina now spends a few minutes standing before the shelf and
touching the walls of the cottage. While she is so engaged, her gaze,
from time to time, sweeps across the room. After a while, Paulina
turns and looks around. Slowly, she takes a few steps forward. Look­
ing about herself, Paulina now shuffles aimlessly through the group
space for a while. [Schwediauer, 2008a, 21/7]

If one follows the observer’s analysis, all of this indicates that Paulina’s
settling-in process cannot be regarded as having been a success. And
with reference to relevant publications, it may be noted that the pres­
ence of sibling children would ostensibly appear to be useful only
under certain conditions, but is not generally conducive to the tran­
sitional process of young children (cf. Kercher & Höhn, 2006; Merker,
1998; Peterson, 1995; Schwediauer, 2009, p. 141ff.).

A final look at the data generated by the ratings

of the videotapes
The results of the analysis of the Young Child Observation accounts
draw a vivid picture in at least two ways of the changes, which are
also reflected in the numerical values that were generated by rating the
video recordings (see Figure 17.2):
 young child observation used as a research tool 293

» The fact that Paulina did not succeed in establishing a viable contact
with her peers corresponds to the fact that, according to Figure 17.2,
the values representing the dynamic social interaction with one’s
peers keep dropping. The simultaneous rise of values that reflect
the duration and intensity of the dynamic social exchanges with the
teachers corresponds to Schwediauer’s note (2008b, p. 34), accord­
ing to which proximity to Mrs Schuster and the other adults at the
nursery was becoming increasingly more important to Paulina.
» However, Schwediauer (2008b, p. 34) points out that these same
adults also often do not seem to understand Paulina’s desire for
closeness and togetherness, and therefore also often fail to meet this
demand of hers. Seen against this background, it is not surprising
that the values for showing positive feelings remain low from the
beginning. The fact that the values for utterances of negative affect
also scored at unbeatably low levels coincides with the fact that over
long stretches of time Paulina behaved in the manner of a “silent suf­
fering child” (Grossmann, 2011; Fürstaller, Funder, & Datler, 2011).

From these comments, once again, it can be gleaned that we, the par­
ticipants in this research project, have gained deep insights into the
dynamics of transitional processes, especially through the discussion
of the Young Child Observation accounts and the related single-case
studies. This prompted us also, even while the research project was still
running, to get in touch with Viennese day care centres, in an effort to
develop well-founded concepts for the implementation of transition
processes, where those deep emotions are taken into account that are
experienced in these transitional phases not only by the children, but
also by the parents and caregivers. In the process, we employed—
among other tools—Work Discussion, another application of observa­
tion according to the Tavistock model (Klauber, 1999; M. E. Rustin &
Bradley, 2008). But that, as the saying goes, is another story, which has
to be reported on elsewhere (cf. M. Datler, Datler, Fürstaller, & Funder,
2011; Fürstaller, Funder, & Datler, 2012).

Notes
This paper is based on the research project “Toddlers’ Adjustment to Out-of-
Home Care”, financed by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) and run by Wilfried
Datler (Department of Education/Research Unit “Psychoanalysis in Education”)
in cooperation with Lieselotte Ahnert (Department of Developmental Psychology)
at the University of Vienna. Members of the research team are Nina Hover-Reisner
294 wilfried datler et al.

(­project coordination), Katharina Ereky-Stevens, Tina Eckstein-Madry, Antonia

Funder, Maria Fürstaller, Michael Wininger, Margit Datler, Tamara Katschnig, and
Gregor Kappler.
1.  The first number indicates the number of the observation from which the
quotation is taken. The number after the slash refers to the page of the report from
which the passage has been extracted.
2.  See www.univie.ac.at/bildungswissenschaft/papaed/forschung/x10_WiKo
.html
3.  For further information see Datler, 2004; Datler, Hover-Reisner, et al., 2008;
Datler, Trunkenpolz, & Lazar, 2009; Trunkenpolz, Datler, Funder, & Hover-Reisner,
2009; Datler, Datler, & Hover-Reisner (2011); Datler, Lazar, & Trunkenpolz, 2012.
4. The Young Child Observations were done by Rita Blümel, Agnes Bock,
Sylivia Czada, Antonia Funder, Esther Heiss, Bettina Hofer, Agnes Jedletzberger,
Regina Kaltseis, Hanna Pfundner, Ulrike Schäufele, Lisa Schwediauer, and Ellen
Weizsaecker, all of whom we want to thank for their hard work and their commit­
ment to this project.
5. A list of all diploma theses can be found on the project’s homepage:
www.univie.ac.at/bildungswissenschaft/papaed/seiten/datler/6forschung/
forschungsprojekte2.htm
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Young children’s relationships with staff

and peers in nursery: observations of two
girls aged 29 months and 25 months
Peter Elfer

Evolving understanding of nursery as a social context

F
or many people, the word “nursery” may be understood as
meaning “nursery school”, an educational provision for 3- and
4-year-olds. However, in the United Kingdom, in much of West­
ern Europe (but with the particular exception of Scandinavia), and in
North America different kinds of nurseries have developed historically
for different reasons, with different access criteria, different staffing,
and different ways of working. This range of nurseries has included
nursery schools for 3- and 4-year-olds, primarily focused on early learn­
ing, day nurseries for children from before their first birthday to statu­
tory school age focused on family support, and nurseries for children
whose parents are in full-time employment. In the last 30 years, these
different kinds of nursery have increasingly been subject to policies of
integration into combined nurseries offering all three functions: early
education, family support, and child care for working parents. These
nurseries take children from at least 6 months, if not earlier, for the
equivalent of adults’ full-time working hours and often a little more,
to allow for parents’ travel to and from work.
Questions have persistently been asked in the United Kingdom
and in North America about whether such nursery provision for very
young children may be detrimental to long-term development. It is

295
296 peter elfer

now widely accepted, though, that a broader view is needed. Children’s

long-term development depends on their overall experience at home, at
nursery, and in the way these different social settings relate to each other
(Ahnert & Lamb, 2003; Leach, 2009; Rutter, 2002). Yet clearly, while it is
important not to see children’s experience in nursery as isolated from
their experience at home, nursery experience does matter. What kind
of place should a contemporary nursery be? Should it be modelled on
some ideal of the kinds of ethos and interactions found within families?
Should it be modelled more as an educational institution, with attention
to an explicit curriculum and learning goals? Or should it be an entirely
different social institution, constructed by its members, both children
and adults, in a way that does not seek to replicate family or school
settings (Dahlberg, Moss, & Pence, 1999)?
Much research has pointed to the importance for children of experi­
encing attachment interactions in nursery (Brooks-Gunn, Sidle-Fuligni,
& Berlin, 2003; ­Melhuish, 2004; Belsky, 2007; Ebbeck & Yim, 2009).
Further, the early years policies of many countries emphasize the
importance of nursery staff facilitating opportunities for children to
form an attachment to a member of staff (in England: DfES, 2003, 2008;
DoE, 2012; DoH, 1991; in many European countries: OECD, 2006; in the
US: Clarke-Stewart & Allhusen, 2005; and in Australia: DEEWR, 2009).
There is a great deal of practical guidance about the ways in which
such attachment relationships might be facilitated in nurseries (Man­
ning Morton & Thorp, 2001; Goldschmied & Jackson, 1994; Lee, 2006;
Nutbrown & Page, 2008; Elfer, Goldschmied, & Selleck, 2011).
However, there have been two developing lines of critical commen­
tary, one about the practice and one about the principle of young chil­
dren’s attachments to staff in nursery. The first concerns the demands
on nursery practitioners of children’s attachments to them in nursery.
The second concerns the “opportunity costs” of nursery attachments—
that is, the view that giving priority to children’s attachments to nurs­
ery staff leads to the importance of children’s close relationships with
friends and in groups being overlooked. These have been discussed
elsewhere (Elfer, 2012; Elfer & Dearnley, 2007) but are summarized here.

Nursery attachments and their demands on practitioners

The pioneering work of Bain and Barnett (1980) was based on their obser­
vations that children in nursery often received only fleeting attention,
and then from many different nursery workers. They referred to this
 young children’s relationships with staff and peers in nursery 297

as “multiple indiscriminate care”. Using the concept of “social defence

systems” (Menzies, 1970), they were able to show how staff tended to
avoid closer and more consistent interactions with the children in their
care because of their experience of how personally demanding and
emotionally painful such interactions could be.
The brilliant significance of the concept of “social defence systems”
lay in the identification and naming of the collective “social” or organi­
zational practices and procedures evolved by nurseries as a defence
against the anxiety of children’s stressful demands in their day-to-day
work. Nurseries were understood to develop social defences over time
and partly unconsciously as a “defence” against painful experience
evoked by the work. An example of this is the possibility of attach­
ments becoming established between staff and children that would
then be painful for both when the children moved on through the
nursery, or from nursery to school. Such defences might include ways
to limit attachments occurring, such as “not noticing” young children’s
distress or their demands for comforting, seeing such demands as
“spoilt or bad” behaviour, or by prioritizing hygiene or administra­
tive activities. Bain and Barnett used this insight into the stressful and
anxiety-­provoking nature of nursery attachments to explain why such
interactions may be systematically avoided by staff.
Hopkins (1988), in a study shortly following that of Bain and
Barnett, used expertise in group relations to help a group of nursery
staff discuss their work experience, including anxieties about children
becoming attached. She reported how some staff “still vividly recalled
the pain caused to them and to the child when they parted” (Hopkins,
1988, p. 102), their anxiety about the possibility of nursery attachments
undermining attachments at home, and concern about mothers’ pos­
sible jealous feelings.
The nurseries that Bain and Barnett (1980) and Hopkins (1988)
studied gave priority to children from families where there were child
protection concerns or other serious family difficulties. This may have
made the challenges of nursery attachments with some of these children
much greater than with children from families where they experienced
more secure or consistent interactions. Some 25 years on, nurseries have
changed considerably, with much broader social intakes of children.
Nevertheless, it appears that attachment interactions between staff and
children may still be difficult and sometimes avoided even in nurseries
that say they are committed to them (Goldschmied & Jackson, 1994;
Elfer, 2008; Datler, Datler, & Funder, 2010; Drugli & Undheim, 2012).
298 peter elfer

Young children’s attachments to practitioners,

and their costs
The second line of critical research and discussion has focused on
how facilitating attachments between children and nursery staff may
be unnecessary and unhelpful to children in the context of nursery.
Dahlberg, Moss, and Pence (1999) have argued that, provided young
children have secure attachment experience at home, nursery provides
rich opportunities for different social interactions, for children to inter­
act with peers making friends and experiencing group participation:
Young children—both under and over three years of age—are seen
as able to manage, and indeed to desire and thrive on, relationships
with small groups of other children and adults without risking either
their own well-being or their relationship with their parents. . . . To
abandon ideas of intimacy, closeness and cosiness does not leave
indifference, callousness and coldness. . . . Instead Ziehe (1989) offers
a contrasting concept to closeness, the concept of intensity of relation­
ships implying a complex and dense web or network of intercon­
necting people, environments and activities which opens up many
opportunities for the young child. . . . [pp. 81–82]

The argument here is that the “cost” of nursery attachments, in princi­

ple and in practice, is that it creates an ethos and individual relation­
ships with children where the unique social opportunities of nursery
for children’s peer interactions are overlooked or undervalued. This
view has been taken up by others. Degotardi and Pearson (2009) have
argued for at least a more balanced approach to close relationships in
nursery, challenging an over-emphasis on attachments between chil­
dren and nursery staff and calling for more attention to peer interac­
tion.
These two lines of research and discussion of nursery attachments
were conducted separately and have not informed one another. How­
ever, they are likely to be intrinsically connected. If nursery staff adopt
overly defensive states of mind, they are less able to think about their
interactions with the children and what children are communicating
about their wishes and feelings. The application of methods of obser­
vation sensitive to young children’s emotional experience, for example
methods based on the Tavistock method of Young Child Observation
(Elfer, 2011), may be able to show, from the child’s perspective, the differ­
ent patterns and configurations of their need for both an experience
of being attached to particular staff and of the benefits of friendships
 young children’s relationships with staff and peers in nursery 299

and being part of a group. Detailed observational data, combined with

support to practitioners and commentators to think about and discuss
these data, may enable a less polarized attachment to staff OR peer interac­
tion view of intimate relationships in the nursery.
The aim of this chapter is, therefore, to show:
» how two different nurseries, one prioritizing attachments and one
prioritizing peer interaction, facilitate close interactions for children;
» what staff communicate about their feelings in nursery, and how
they cope with the emotional demands of the work;
» what two children, aged 29 and 25 months, have to communicate
through their behaviours and emotional communications about their
intimate interactions in nursery with both nursery staff and with
peers.

The observations
Observations of Sian (29 m)
Sian’s nursery
The observations took place in an early years centre setting that
has been open for only two years. The centre is multi-purpose, offer­
ing nursery education for 3- and 4-year-olds and day care for working
parents of children aged 1–4, from 8 am to 6 pm.
Three observations were made of Sian, each lasting one hour. Sian is
in a room for children aged 24–36 months. She attends the nursery on
the middle three days of the week, from 8.30 am to 6 pm. Sian’s “key
person” is Dana. In the United Kingdom, this term is used to denote
a member of staff who has particular responsibility for a small group
of children and whose job is to form a settled attached relationship
with the child and family (DoE, 2012). However, the role is interpreted
differently in different nurseries, with some seeing it primarily as an
administrative and liaison role. In Sian’s nursery, there does not appear
to be a developed understanding of the term.
Documentation described the role simply as to:
. . . . build up a particularly close relationship with the parents and
your key children. The parents should know who you are and be
encouraged to discuss any information or concerns with you when­
ever possible. Remember, it does not mean that you only ever deal
300 peter elfer

with your key children; and you should not let your key children get
attached to you to the extent that they will not go to anybody else.
However, staff interviews revealed the complexity of managing these
close relationships, with evidence of considerable anxiety about the
demands of children who had become attached:
Marjory spoke of her struggle with Jenny, who is just 2, and explains
to another member of staff how Jenny was fine first thing, but by ten
o’clock had become very tearful. “I couldn’t take her to the toilet,
and I explained that I couldn’t take her, but she was having none of
it—I’ve been really bullied by her, but I do need to put some distance
between us.”
In contrast to very detailed and sophisticated planning for learning,
staff seem to manage their emotional engagements with individual
children in their own way guided only by the importance of being
seen to treat all children equally and not to let children get “too
attached”.

Observation of Sian
(The names of nursery staff are in italics.)
From the beginning of observing, the staff emphasis on taking a
group approach was evident:
Dana begins to gather the children together, ready for a story. The
children appear to know the routine well and gather in one part of
the room sitting on chairs by the book box. Rosie and Roger sit next
to each other, jostling and laughing and tickling each other. Sian sits
next to them but not joining in, more calmly waiting.
Dana sits down in front of the assembled group of four children with
a bag of objects. From the bag she takes objects one by one, holding
them up to the children and saying their names: clock, fish, biscuit,
cat, mummy bear, and William baby bear. The children are invited
to take these “props”, and she asks who would like the mummy
bear. Roger shouts very quickly “Me!” and Rosie does the same
with the clock. Sian is quieter and asks if she can have the mummy
bear, which she is given, and she holds on her lap cuddling before
placing it on the empty chair next to her. As Dana reads the story,
characters or objects are named, and the children hold these up as
they are named.
 young children’s relationships with staff and peers in nursery 301

Dana’s activity and the children’s responses might be understood as

the work they need to do in a group in order to maintain a sense of
individuality while also being part of a collective experience. For Sian,
the claim to individuality perhaps lies in her request for the “mummy
bear”, possibly a reminder to her of feeling individual in her relation­
ship with her mother?
The next section of observation showed how skilful Dana was at
helping children join the group:
Another child now arrives with her mother, coming in to the room
quietly. The child looks quiet, subdued, and uncertain about join­
ing the group. Her mother does not call out any greeting, and the
staff do not get up to meet her or her child, although Dana calls out
to her mother, “Hello”. The mother does not come into the main
part of the nursery room, staying instead by the coats, and staff do
not go across to greet her. But the child does come slowly towards
the circle and sits down as Dana says “Hello (name of child), look,
I saved a chair for you”. Dana then begins to sing a song with the
whole group, which goes: “Let’s see who’s here today. Is (name of
child) here today?—stand up and say “here today!”
The rules of process and procedure and turn-taking seem quite
strict. Everybody must have a turn at calling out their name “here
today!” and the sequence going round the group must be followed.
The late-arriving child is still sitting rather subdued and doesn’t call
out her name, but Dana bends towards her, and I can just hear the
child whisper into Dana’s ear, “Here today.”
This rhythmic song addressed to each child in turn but sung by the
whole group was extraordinarily powerful in the feelings it evoked. I
found myself sitting on the edge of the room wanting to join in with
“Peter’s here too!”. It seemed to emphasize the strength of the group
and its members together but also to support the individuality of each
person within the group. Sian seemed to manage being part of the
group but then showed her struggles with turn-taking:
Dana now invites the newly arrived child to ask the rest of the group
in turn whether they would like water or milk for their drink. Sian
immediately says that she would like milk, but Dana asks her to wait
until she is asked. Sian does not wait but repeats her request again
and is told more firmly by Dana, “Wait your turn.” Again Sian does
not wait, and the third time Dana almost tells her off, saying, “What
did Dana say to you?” The process of making Sian realize that she
302 peter elfer

has to wait is gentle and kindly, but it is also very firm—the rules
of turn-taking must be followed.

Sian’s response here raises the question of how children manage the
demands of having to share their “key-person”, in this case Dana, with
many other children.
After the welcome group, the children dispersed in the nursery
room, and Sian found a torch that did not seem to be working prop­
erly. She brought it first to a member of staff and then to me to elicit
help before turning to play with an electric drill, using it first as a hair
dryer and then as a drill. She seemed adept at using the adults around
her, even me, with whom she had no relationship, for assistance, even
though Dana is available to her.
Once again, Dana brought the children together as a group:

Dana concentrates on the group of children as a whole. Dana now

reads a story to the group, and Sian gets off her chair and stands
nearer to Dana. Dana picks Sian up on to her lap, and Sian leans
back, snuggling in. Sometimes she puts her head back and calls
out to the ceiling in a kind of protesting, half-testing way—looking
a little tired. She stretches and does her calling out several times
before Dana tells her to stop. Dana is trying to read to the group and
is being interrupted by Sian’s calling, and as Sian calls even more
loudly, Dana tells her off for interrupting the story.

Sian does seem to be working hard to disrupt Dana’s attention to the

group and secure it for herself. Dana talked to the group about play time
outside. This seemed to reinvigorate Sian, and she jumped off Dana’s
lap as all the children began to move towards the garden.
A few weeks later, in the second observation, just after lunch, Dana
was not present, and Sian was emerging from the sleep room. The
children already awake seemed pleased that the sleeping children were
now “back”. Sian played briefly alongside, but not with, another girl
before turning to the home corner, playing with a doll. As she dressed
the doll, other children were in the home corner too, sometimes helping
and sometimes just watching each other.

Now Sian leaves the play house in the home corner, carrying her
doll and saying lots of goodbyes to the children left behind “Good­
bye, goodbye, I love you, I love you”, and the adults suddenly seem
to notice this and applaud her: “Oh that’s nice—bless!” Sian brings
the doll right across the room and, noticing me sitting on the edge
 young children’s relationships with staff and peers in nursery 303

of the room, greets me with a half-smile, partly friendly and partly

curious, and sets the doll down a few feet away from me.
During this time, the staff talked together and made only generalized
comments to the children as a group.
Sian comes across the room again to me with a brush and pan and
announces “I’m going to sweep up”, with a smile. She brushes the
carpet just near me, holding the brush and pan firmly but is able to
sweep up very little into the pan and seems dissatisfied. She takes it
to another part of the room, where the flooring is vinyl, and sweeps
again to see if she can get a better result.
Alongside me, she used me again to affirm her readiness to go outside:
“I’ve got my hat on—ready for the garden.” Once outside, she played
mainly alone. All the time in the garden, she wore a little smile, as if
content and enjoying the various possibilities available to her. Occa­
sionally she checked out where a particular adult is or another child
and once asked me “Where’s Oscar?” another child that staff said Sian
is very pally with.
The third observation again took place around lunchtime, with
eight children sitting up. They had their own places, indicated by per­
sonalized place mats, but several of the children sat in different places.
The staff corrected them and asked them to move to where they should
be sitting, and gradually everybody was settled into the right place. It
was quite noticeable how watchful all the children were of each other,
including Sian, noticing that the various rules and procedures were
complied with—or not! At one point, Sian noticed me watching her
and stared back with an intense look of curiosity and just a slight smile.
It made me curious about Sian’s curiosity (and indeed the curiosity of
the other children) and how much she may need to feel individually
noticed and thought about. Indeed, she did then ask, “Where’s my
drink”, and Dana pointed it out right in front of her. I wondered if she
was perhaps so preoccupied with what the other children were doing
that she had not noticed, or whether it was just an excuse to speak to
Dana, to be attended to.
After lunch, the children were settled for a sleep. The children’s
mattresses were all covered by white sheets except one that was pink,
called the Barbie mattress. Dana explained that the children loved to
have the pink sheets and took it in turns—today was Sian’s turn. Dana
also fetched a teddy called Brian for Sian, which had once belonged to
Dana herself.
304 peter elfer

The observations of Daisey (25 months)

Daisey’s nursery
Daisey was 2 years and 3 weeks when the observations started and
had been attending nursery for 14 months. She attended nursery from
9.30 to 4.30 each day, five days each week.
Her nursery is unusual in that the staff are paid directly by parents
and only for the hours that they care for those parents’ children. Thus
their employment contract is with parents, not with the nursery, and
different staff are paid different amounts according to how many chil­
dren they are responsible for and how long they care for those children.
This system fits with the nursery’s main priority, which is to provide
each child with a “secondary attachment figure”—a named person who
is contractually as well as emotionally responsible for particular named
children. In this respect, the nursery’s priority is the opposite of Sian’s,
where social interaction with peers is prioritized rather than individual
attachments with adults. Daisey’s allocated staff member is Meera. The
nursery rooms have a mixed age range rather than year-banded rooms,
as in Sian’s nursery.
Meera told me of her strong preference for working with babies
rather than the older children. Meera also told me that she had no
children of her own and had spent her own childhood in a children’s
home. Recently, in addition to working with Daisey, she had taken on
the care of a baby, 5-month-old Violet. Meera spoke of how much she
loved nursery work but added that although her Manager was kind
and supportive, she had been told to allow Violet more opportunities
to explore and play in the protected area of the nursery floor rather
than continually holding her, and she felt unfairly criticized by the
Manager. I was struck how immersed Meera seemed in Violet’s care
and how often Daisey seemed displaced by Meera’s preoccupation
with Violet.

Observation of Daisey
(The names of nursery staff are in italics.)
Daisey has fair hair, sometimes tied in a bunch to one side of her
head. She is of average height and build and has a round, open face.
My first impressions were of a very feisty personality, confident in the
nursery and rather oppositional. For example, in a recent observation
of another child, before Daisey’s observations started, I was distracted
by her sweeping, with considerable determination, all the dressing-
 young children’s relationships with staff and peers in nursery 305

up clothes off a table top and onto the floor. She was very resistant to
day-care workers’ attempts to make her pick the clothes up and put
them back on the table.
In the first observation (mid-afternoon), Daisey seemed confident
and at home in the room, which was quiet compared to the crowded
morning session. After briefly playing in the sandpit, Daisey moved
quickly to the adjoining room, but Meera stood in the doorway and
Daisey could not get through—she was determined and persistent in
pushing Meera out of the way. It did not seem aggressive, but she was
clearly very intent on what she wanted.
Here, Daisey played with connecting large plastic bricks, before
“connecting herself” to Meera again:
she pushes the bricks together in a determined, almost impatient
way, seeming anxious to make them connect. . . . Then she returns
to playing in the room, making lots of large whole-body move­
ments in the room—swinging her arms while bending and lifting
her body, running across the whole length of the room, walking
backwards—all as if exploring what she can do with her whole
body. She backs herself onto Meera’s lap, who is sitting on the floor,
and in that moment, watching her smiling and held by Meera, I had
a strong sense of how safe and secure she seemed in this room with
the confidence to drop down onto Meera’s lap, secure that she would
receive a welcome there.
But then she did the same “backing up” movement towards another
worker, who was reading a book to Ellen. Ellen gave Daisey a little push
away but was gently told off by Sana. Ellen complied, but then Daisey
snatched the soft squeezy ball that Ellen was holding and was told by
Sana not to snatch.
However, Daisey ran away with the ball, smiling and determined,
to Meera. Sana told Meera that she must make Daisey give the ball back
to Ellen because she needs to learn to ask and not to snatch. But Meera
was very vague, and Sana seemed to give up. Then she tried again, but
Daisey clung to the ball tightly. Sana persisted and eventually managed
to get Daisey to return the ball to Ellen, telling Daisey to ask for the
ball. Ellen, having just received the ball back, then offered it to Daisey.
Meera then prepared to take Daisey and another child to the base­
ment area to play. Some children were wildly scooting scooters the full
length of this basement, but Daisey was more focused on details. She
sat on a bike that had a basket fixed by two plastic clips, one broken, to
the handlebars. Daisey examined the broken clip with great intensity.
306 peter elfer

She pressed the basket to the handlebar repeatedly but seemed to real­
ize that however hard she pressed, it would not magically “reconnect”.
Pulling the basket away from the handlebar, as if to emphasize the
lack of connection, with vigour and determination, almost outrage, the
second clip snapped and she looked even more outraged, holding the
basket aloft. The Manager squatted beside her, telling Daisey that they
would try and mend it. This seemed to draw a line for Daisey, and she
pedalled away, looking confident and happy.
As Daisey pedalled by, she noticed a small jigsaw piece on the
ground. She stopped immediately, with a look of outrage to see some­
thing out of place. Picking it up, she showed me again, as if to empha­
size how outrageous it is that this toy should be out of its proper place.
She rushed off to take the piece indoors, presumably to put it in a
“proper place”.
I wondered if this concern about “things being in their rightful
place or properly connected” might represent her sense of displacement
from Meera’s care by the baby Violet. Yet much of the observation also
records her smiling, energetic, and engaged with activities.

*   *   *
In the second observation, Daisey had just been woken by Meera from
her afternoon nap. She seemed to be able to get into playing straight
away with bold confidence and no need to acclimatize or adjust to
being awake. She had a large tangle of beads to play with and began to
sort these out, spreading them flat on a table in a big circular shape. As
she played, another child took the remaining bundle of beads. Daisey
snatched them back, and they struggled for a moment, but Daisey was
bigger, stronger, and more determined, and as she retrieved them, the
other child bursts into tears, radiating rage and frustration. She contin­
ued to play, apparently quite unperturbed, but the child took the beads
again, holding them more firmly. Daisey reached to snatch them back,
but Tina intervened, allowing each child to keep one bundle of beads
and offering Daisey two plastic wrist bangles instead. Daisey was not
interested in these and turned away.
She walks away from the table where she was playing and past me,
but there is no sign of anger . . . She looks composed and relaxed and
asks, “Where’s Meera? She finds Meera feeding Violet and rushes
to get the baby’s bottle. The baby is on Meera’s lap, and Daisey
sits watching Meera feed her and holding the bottle in readiness.
As soon as Meera has finished, she offers the bottle to Meera, and
 young children’s relationships with staff and peers in nursery 307

Meera in turn gives her the finished bowl for Daisey to put on the
counter. In this interaction she seems very grown-up and like a “big
sister”, helping out. Daisey puts the bowl on the counter and returns
immediately, just in time for Meera to give her a bundle of tissue that
she has used to wipe Violet’s face and mouth. Again Daisey seems
pleased and enthusiastic to be in the helper role and rushes away
with the bundle of tissue, holding it a little bit by one edge, towards
the bin. Passing by me, she thrusts the tissue towards my face to
show me, with a triumphant look, announcing “Tissue!” Then she
pops it into the swing bin and runs straight back. She sits right by
Meera, who is still holding the baby between her legs.
Daisey sat quietly close to Meera, sucking on the biscuit and watching
all the activities in the room. Then she was on the go again, touring the
room, sometimes making a soldierly marching walk round the perim­
eter of the room, smiling and exuberant. She played for the next 20
minutes, sometimes with another child, following each other in circles,
climbing on a chair, intermittently being told by various day care work­
ers not to climb but always resuming. Once she asked me “Where’s
Meera?” who had briefly left the room, and climbed again on the table to
turn the lighting dimmer switch up and down. The staff, with a mixture
of humour and exasperation, call on Meera to tell Daisey not to climb.
Meera does respond, but she tends to be very quietly spoken and rather
indistinct in her English, which is not her first language, and so she
seemed to lack authority. Eventually, a member of staff gently guides
Daisey away—“How many more times do I have to tell you”—and,
carrying her to Meera, impatiently instructs Meera “Tell Daisey she is
not allowed to climb on the tables.” Meera seems still preoccupied with
Violet, and Daisey occupies herself once more, suddenly deciding to
bring me a plastic beaker.
For Daisey, “working” alongside Meera to care for baby Violet may
be a comfort in the face of feeling rather displaced by Meera’s preoc­
cupation with Violet. However, there remains the difficult painful side
of this experience for Daisey. Does she partly conceals this in her “care”
of me as the observer but also reveal it in what she “projects” into her
adopted caring role? She holds the tissue that Meera has given her at
arm’s length and by the edge, like something unpleasant that she does
not want to allow coming too near her. The command to me—“drink,
drink”—also has the character of something much more imposed than
offered, perhaps reflecting an experience imposed on her too. Finally,
she climbs back and forth on the table, also reminding us that her
308 peter elfer

adopted “responsible” caring role is only partial and that the rebellious,
demanding Daisey is still present too.
*   *   *
In the third observation, it seemed Daisey was getting more familiar
with my presence, but she also seemed to show more dependence on
Meera. A day care worker called her attention to my arrival, and she
greeted me warmly, scooting her feet backwards and forwards under
the table, but also immediately asking where was Meera. When Meera
did re-enter the room, she seemed again rather absorbed with the
new baby she had been contracted to care for. Other day care workers
interacted with Daisey, but she became very upset or angry at their
attentions:
Marina goes to help Daisey wash her hands, but Daisey protests
loudly, pointing to Meera, who does come across to help her. Soon
Daisey is angry again, crying loudly and tearfully. She is red-faced
with her distress, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen her quite like this
before. The Manager comforts her, and I see that the chair where
Daisey was sitting has been taken by another child. The Manager
gently explains to the child, but Daisey again becomes upset, this
time it seems because Jennifer is comforting her rather than Meera.
Once back with Meera, Daisey becomes more settled . . .
A little later, Meera’s presence again seems important in maintaining
Daisey’s emotional equilibrium. Having been “washing dishes” with
the Manager, Meera helped her take off her plastic apron, and Daisey
stood, pulling out her t-shirt to show the Manager, I think proud of
having managed to keep it dry.
When the Manager tried to involve Daisey in another activity, she
would not cooperate, sitting instead on the floor with a garage and
cars with two other children. Suddenly, using a car, she swiped at one
of the children and lifted her arm ready for another hit before a staff
member intervened: “Gently, Daisey.” But when the Manager departed
to call a separate group of children together to sing a song, Daisey was
desperate to join in:
Daisey seems to love the singing and follows the exaggerated
movements of the adults as they work through the nursery rhyme
but also moving her body with a kind of exuberant excitement as
she intently watches the Manager’s expression of words and move­
ments. The staff seem to sit near “their children”, and when the
nursery rhyme calls for the children to be tickled, it is their children
 young children’s relationships with staff and peers in nursery 309

that they are tickling. Daisey does not have Meera with her, and at
one point calls to her as she goes by, but Meera does not respond.
Daisey does respond to the Manager’s invitation to her to join
in, smiling and miming the song’s actions, but suddenly her face
becomes solemn again and she asks Tina, “where’s Meera”? Tina
smiles back but does not respond.

Discussion
What did the staff do to facilitate children’s close interactions
with others?
In Sian’s nursery, staff maintain a highly organized environment with a
detailed daily timetable and close attention to adhering to it, so that the
children live in a very ordered and regulated world. Staff interactions
took place mainly with the children as a group, with separate time for
the children to play individually, then having only generalized staff
oversight. Staff convened groups very carefully and in the observations
of Sian, Dana, the room leader, showed how as she led each group, she
managed also to give individual attention to the children. This was
illustrated, for example, in the first observation, when she sensitively
and skilfully enabled a late -arriving child to join the “welcome” group
first thing in the morning and used an activity that addressed each of
the children in the group as individuals. The pink “Barbie” sheet, much
prized by the children, again showed her sensitivity and responsive­
ness to their need to feel individually special. Finally, Dana had given
her own teddy, “Brian”, to Sian, which may have helped Sian feel spe­
cial and individually held in Dana’s mind.
On the other hand, there appeared to be little institutional thinking
or action to support children’s attachments as a collective task of the
nursery. The Head said she was uncertain of the meaning of the “key-
person” system, although there are clear references in the nursery docu­
mentation to its function (see “Sian’s nursery” above). The prescription
not to allow children to get attached to you to the extent that they will not go
to anybody else seemed rather limited and not very helpful in the absence
of any opportunity to reflect on children’s individual nursery attach­
ments and when these may have become too demanding or restrictive.
This nursery has a high reputation for its sophisticated planning to
support children’s explorations and thinking. So it is something of a
surprise that so little attention is given to planning for emotion and
attachment in particular.
310 peter elfer

In Daisey’s nursery, the context is almost the reverse, with the

whole ethos, aim, and organization of the nursery being based on
providing a “secondary attachment” for the children (seeing their
primary attachments as occurring at home). This might be seen as
a high-risk, “all-or-nothing” strategy, given the observations of Dai­
sey, whose secondary attachment figure (“key-person”), Meera, seems
so preoccupied with Violet, the new baby allocated to her. Indeed,
Daisey does seem to struggle with the loss of Meera’s attention that
clearly was there at one time for her, given the strength of her efforts
to regain it. However, this is not a case of “all or nothing” for Daisey.
She does receive attention from the nursery manager, and, like Sian,
she is able to elicit some from me as the observer too. She receives
attention too from other staff, although the system of individual staff
being contractually responsible for individual children does seem to
make other staff, understandably, reluctant to interact with Daisey.
Instead, for example when she is being disruptive, they seek to cajole
Meera to set some firm boundaries, so there is still a degree of collec­
tive care and oversight.
These achievements of the two nurseries are not insignificant and
show how much progress has been made from the kinds of interactions
documented by Bain and Barnett (1980) and Hopkins (1988) nearly
three decades ago and discussed earlier in the chapter. Yet it is also
the case, as shown by two important contemporary studies, that we
have much progress still to make in developing nursery systems that
enable young children to feel reliably thought about as individuals and
that sensitively but not prematurely foster their emerging independ­
ence and agency. Datler, Datler, and Funder (2010) showed Valentine’s
(21 months) painful feelings of “becoming lost” in a Viennese nurs­
ery where the nursery staff were unable to perceive his emotions or
overtures seeking attention (p. 65). In this case, the standard ratios of
Viennese nurseries (three staff with a group of 20 children 1–6 years of
age) may well have been a factor contributing to the lack of individual
attention Valentine received. However, Dechent (2008) has shown the
struggle of staff in an English nursery (standard ratio of one staff to
three children under the age of 2) to be sufficiently responsive to the
children in their care:
My experience of this and other nurseries has shown me that the
emotional and mental resources we human beings are equipped with
are relatively limited when it comes to having intense relationships
with many children at the same time and trying to meet all their
needs. [p. 39]
 young children’s relationships with staff and peers in nursery 311

The question at the heart of this chapter is the debate about children’s
close interactions in nursery and whether attachment interactions with
nursery staff may undermine young children’s opportunities at nursery
to make close interactions with peers in friendships and groups. Catty
(2009), in a home-based observation of Henry from birth to 18 months,
showed the highly sensitive and subtle support provided to Henry by
his parents to enable him to make the gradual progression towards
increasing agency and independence. For young children, such agency
will be expressed in play and exploration alone, as well as with com­
panions in emergent friendships and group relations. These three stud­
ies together, by contrasting home and nursery contexts, suggests how
much more work there is to do to provide the conditions and support
in nursery so that crude or simplistic choices between adult interactions
or peer interactions can be replaced by more sophisticated understand­
ings of the emotionally complex task that nursery staff face if they are
to enable children’s development in both these forms of interaction.

What did the staff communicate about their experience

in nursery?
In Sian’s nursery, which is relatively new and where nursery education
and nursery day care have been combined recently, there were institu­
tion-wide conflicts about the relative status of these two tasks and a loss
of confidence in the senior management to facilitate integrated work­
ing. In this context, the trust in senior staff necessary to contain emotion
and enable critical professional reflection on interactions between staff
and children did not exist.
Thus Marjory’s comment early in this chapter about being bullied
by the demands of Jenny, a child who has become very attached to
Marjory, suggest that the way close attachments are managed have not
been well thought through and are experienced as “bullying”. Mar­
jory’s response, that the only way to respond is to put some put some
distance between us, may be appropriate. But it does not seem as if there
is any professional forum where Marjory’ relationship with Jenny can
be thought about more carefully with attention to other ways of helping
Jenny beyond simply distancing her.
It was not only children’s demanding attention that staff could find
stressful but also sometimes children’s clear preference for another
member of staff. One of the room leaders told me about a little girl aged
16 months called Alison, her rejection of this room leader, and Alison’s
attachment instead to a more junior member of staff (Kim) in the room:
312 peter elfer

When Alison first started, she’d come in and she would just give
me the most appalling looks, and I said Kim, Alison doesn’t like
me, and Kim’s like don’t take it personally, and I said, no, I never
would, I couldn’t afford to in this. But as soon as Kim come on duty,
Alison would be, oh Kim, and her whole face would light up, and
I’d be, oh god, Alison doesn’t love me, and we’d have this laugh
between us all.
This rejection by Alison was laughed off by the room leader, but it
was easy to imagine the deeper painful feelings that may be evoked
for some staff and the conflicts between staff this may give rise to. In
the absence of some professional forum where such feelings could be
discussed and understood, a socially defensive response of the nursery,
for example to establish a procedure prohibiting attachments, seemed
more likely.
By contrast, staff in Daisey’s nursery reported much less conflict or
stress. Their accounts of their work experience were filled with anec­
dotes characterized by the pleasure of deep personal engagement with
children, affection, pride, satisfaction, and amusement. They had often
looked after a child for several years, knew the family intimately, and
maintained contact with many families long after the children had left
the nursery. Yet this did not always mean that interactions were more
responsive in Daisey’s nursery than in Sian’s, as is evident from the
observation material. Clear questions are raised about the risks, as well
as the benefits, of nursery systems that prioritize such attachments. Can
Meera’s apparent disconnection from Daisey be seen as a defence, per­
haps against painful emotions from her own difficult childhood? Could
systems of supervision or work discussion be effective in enabling her
to strike a more balanced approach in the division of her attention
between Daisey and Violet?

What did the children communicate about their feelings

in their interactions with staff and other children?
Interactions with staff
Most of Sian’s interactions are with Dana, and Sian’s attachment to
her seems strong. This judgement is based on her emotional responses
to Dana—the way, for example, she claimed Dana’s lap in the group
times, and her efforts to disrupt Dana’s attention to the group as a
whole. She takes Dana’s old teddy, “Brian”, to sleep with her, and
 young children’s relationships with staff and peers in nursery 313

this seems like an important representation of having part of Dana to

herself.
The observations seem to present a picture of a little girl whose
overall wellbeing is good, and the nursery does much to support this.
The rules and procedures of the room seem well established and to
provide an environment that is safe and ordered and perhaps feels to
Sian containing. In fact it might be asked if the room is “too well” organ­
ized in that the children seem not to have to wait for very much and
so do not have to cope with many feelings of frustration or impatience.
Nevertheless, Sian is skilful in seeking the help of whichever adults are
available to her even asking me about the broken torch and telling me
with pride about her readiness to go out in the garden.
What Daisey communicated about her feelings was more mixed.
She shows a feistiness and exuberance that seems to convey emotional
wellbeing. However, once, during play in the basement, she discovered
a jigsaw piece on the floor and held it up to me with a sense of outrage
at it being out of its rightful place. This concern about “things being
in their rightful place” or “properly connected” was shown again,
for example, with her efforts to connect the large plastic bricks and to
reconnect the basket to the bicycle (first observation), and I wondered
if these might represent her sense of disconnection from Meera’s care
by the new baby. Yet much of the observation also records her smiling,
energetic, and engaged with activities.
As Meera is preoccupied with the baby, Daisey is intent on being
the helper. This may be a comfort in the face of feeling rather displaced
by Meera’s preoccupation with Violet. However, there remains the dif­
ficult painful side of this experience for Daisey. She partly conceals this
in her “care” of me as the observer (bringing me a chair and a drink)
but also reveals it in what she “projects” into her adopted caring role.
She holds the tissue that Meera has given her at arm’s length and by the
edge, as if something unpleasant that she does not want to allow com­
ing too near her. The command to me, “drink, drink”, also has the char­
acter of something much more imposed than offered, perhaps reflecting
an experience imposed on her too. Finally, she climbs back and forth on
the table, also reminding us that her adopted “responsible” caring role
is only partial and that the rebellious, demanding Daisey is still present
too and able to make a healthy protest.
In Daisey’s nursery, the evidence of managerial support for the staff
in managing their relationships with the children was much stronger
than in Sian’s. The Manager was frequently to be found in the nursery
314 peter elfer

rooms, talking to children and staff and advising staff and modelling
interactions for them. This person also ran a weekly work discussion
group for staff to help them think about their interactions with children.
Here, the term “work discussion” has a special meaning beyond its
obvious literal one to mean a process of reflection on work experience
taking account also of emotions evoked in nursery staff by their work
and how these emotions influence their work with children. An evalu­
ation of Work Discussion groups in nursery is given elsewhere (Elfer,
2012).

Interactions with peers

Sian seemed to have only a rather lukewarm interest in other chil­
dren, and this was expressed mainly in the form of occasional monitor­
ing of their whereabouts in the nursery or their behaviours in group
(to ensure they were complying with rules). Sian did not seem to be
ready to play in a cooperative or collaborative way. In Observation 3
she did ask about where Oscar was—a child with whom staff said Sian
was very “pally”.
Daisey’s interactions with peers included both pro-social behav­
iours (for example, helping Luke dress at nursery) and anti-social
behaviours (snatching toys from other children, pushing or hitting). In
groups, she was desperate to join in, knocking things over in her rush,
but she seemed to struggle to know how to participate and belong, as
if she needed lots of encouragement and direction.
Burlingham and Freud (1944) have shown that children under the
age of 2 can become “great friends”:
Reggie (18–20 months) and Jeffrey (15–17 months) had become great
friends. They always played with each other and hardly took notice
of another child. This friendship had lasted about two months when
Reggie went home. Jeffrey missed him very much; he hardly played
during the following days and sucked his thumb more than usual.
[p. 40]

However, this was in the context of a residential war-time nursery,

where these children were separated long-term from home attachment
figures. For today’s “ordinary” day nurseries, the evidence from Sian
and Daisey of friendship seems consistent with that of Dunn’s for
2-year-olds—that is, that friendships entailing companionship; reci­
procity and affection; intimacy or loyalty do not seem to emerge until
 young children’s relationships with staff and peers in nursery 315

children are around 4 (Dunn, 2004, p. 13). Nor was there any evidence
of the “emotions of relating (of affection and mistrust, pride and
shame)” that Trevarthen (2005) has noted influencing the purposes and
interests of infants who are conscious of being noticed by others (p. 84).

Interactions with staff and with peers considered together

The following quotation from observations by Burlingham and
Freud (1944) offer a sharp challenge to Dahlberg and colleagues’ view
of the capacity of young children, including children under 3, to thrive
in small groups:
Under normal family conditions contact with other children develops
only after the child–mother relationships has been firmly established.
Brothers and sisters are taken into account for ulterior motives: for
instance as playmates and helpmates. . . . Under institutional condi­
tions the matter is completely different. At the time when the infant
lacks opportunities to develop attachments to a stable mother figure,
he is overwhelmed with opportunities to make contacts with play­
mates of the same age. Whereas the grown-ups in his life come and
go in a manner which inevitably bewilders the child, these playmates
are more or less constant and important figures in his world. . . . These
institutional children do not start out to meet a world of contemporar­
ies, secure in the feeling that they are firmly attached to one “mother
person” to whom then can revert. They live in an “age group” that
is, in a dangerous world, peopled by individuals who are as unsocial
and as unrestrained as they are themselves. In a family they would,
at the age of 18 months, be the “little ones” whom the elder brothers
and sisters are ready to protect and consider. In a crowd of other tod­
dlers they have to learn unduly early to defend themselves and their
property, to stand up for their own rights and even to consider the
rights of others. This means that they have to become social at an age
when it is normal to be asocial. [p. 23]

It is important to point out that Dahlberg and colleagues assume that

children can interact with peers in the way they describe when they
already have a strong attachment experience with adults at home. The
situation referred to by Burlingham and Freud concerns children who
are living in a residential nursery and who are a little younger than Sian
and Daisey. Yet these two quotations seem to set up a question about
whether attachments to nursery staff may undermine or facilitate peer
interactions. What do Sian and Daisey’s observations show about how
316 peter elfer

their attachments to nursery staff influence their interactions with other

children?
In the second observation of Sian, after lunch, Dana was not present,
and Sian turned her attention to the play house and the rituals of part­
ings, saying “goodbye” and “I love you”. She then turned to sweep
up. This may have been a continuation of acting out ordinary domestic
tasks that she had seen at home. However, I wondered whether the
sweeping-up might represent something more than this and thought
about the interpretation of an older child’s (Mario aged 4) sweeping
as he prepared to leave nursery and move to school (Adamo, 2001).
There the suggestion was that the sweeping may be a representation of
Mario’s struggle to manage the anxieties of separation, “sweeping them
away”. One way of seeing Sian’s sweeping might be of her struggle to
manage the absence of Dana, perhaps also represented in her earlier
play with the doll and the parting rituals Sian enacts.
It is a question, then, whether if Sian’s nursery was able to provide
more attention to facilitating attachments between staff and children
(for example, a more developed view of what nursery attachments
entail and more emotional support to staff to manage the demands of
attachments), whether Sian would have been better equipped to “meet
a world of contemporaries, secure in the feeling that they are firmly
attached to one ‘mother person’ to whom then can revert” (Burlingham
& Freud, 1944, p. 23). Or would a closer attachment to Dana, while
strengthening Sian’s emotional capacity to engage in peer interactions,
have led her to concentrate her energies on being with Dana rather than
with other children?
The answer to this probably lies in the personality and emotional
resources of each member of staff, as well as the values and priorities of
the nursery in which they work, as is shown by Daisey’s observation.
It might say that Daisey’s situation is more difficult than Sian’s—she
shows her struggle, having become attached to Meera, to now cope
with Meera’s withdrawal of attention in favour of the baby Violet. Her
“oppositional” nature and the way she alternates between helpfulness
and disruptive behaviour perhaps represents her struggle to manage
her difficult feelings. She too, at the beginning of the first observation,
sweeps the clothes from the table. The context of this is quite different
to Sian’s sweeping but nevertheless alerts us to the possibility of her
seeking to rid herself quickly of something that is painful and the more
reliable attachment experience in nursery that she may need in order to
be able to engage more confidently in peer interactions.
 young children’s relationships with staff and peers in nursery 317

Conclusion
An observation methodology to elicit young children’s thoughts
and feelings
There is a strong expectation in the early childhood literature, under­
pinned by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child,
that development in early years policy and practice should take account
of children’s views and feelings. Much work has been done to seek
the views of children over the age of 3 (see, e.g., Clark & Moss, 2001).
However, little work has been done to elicit the perspectives of children
under the age of 3 about their experience of nursery and how their
feelings may inform debate and development in nursery policy, for
example the interplay of interactions with nursery staff and interactions
with other children.
I have sought to show elsewhere (Elfer, 2011) the important con­
tribution narrative methods of observation based on the Tavistock
method may have to make here. Earlier work used the observation
method in relation to two children in their second year (Graham aged
16 months and Henry 12 months when the observations started), both
attending nursery. The observations showed the interplay of interac­
tion with nursery staff and interaction with peers, both important and
interdependent sets of interactions. This chapter, also using the same
method, has sought to examine this interplay in relation to two children
at nursery in their third year.
The data show in particular the potential of this observation meth­
odology to give voice and meaning to the possible ideas and emotional
experience of these two children in different nursery settings. This
would not be accessible in the same way through other observation
methodologies, just as data produced by those methodologies would
not be available in this method, underpinned as it is by psychoanalytic
conceptions.

Attachments to staff versus peer interaction

The data showed how much both these nurseries achieved for Sian
and Daisey, offering much sensitive care, with individual attention and
opportunities for play and exploration, alone and with other children,
in a physically safe environment.
Sian was able to develop an attachment to her “key-person” Dana,
and this is clearly an important relationship shown in her pleasure
318 peter elfer

when with Dana and protest when she must share Dana’s attention
with a group. However, attachment is not seen as a priority in Sian’s
nursery, and there is little evidence of thinking about how attachments
may be nurtured and used to support children’s other interactions in
the nursery, with peers and in playful exploration. Sian did not show
much interest in peer interactions, either with friends or in groups,
although she did seem very interested in group processes and that
children were conforming to nursery rules.
For Daisey, the data showed the strong attachment she had made to
Meera, her allocated worker in a nursery that prioritized attachments.
However, the data also show how painful it was for Daisey when
Meera then became preoccupied with another, much younger child,
and Meera was then much less responsive to Daisey’s continued need
for individual attention. Nevertheless, Daisey was resilient and was
able to manage with the attention of other adults in the nursery (the
Manager, other staff, and me as the observer). In her peer interactions,
Daisey seemed aggressive, perhaps expressing her anger that Meera
was so preoccupied with another child. The emphasis on individual
attachments in this nursery raises a number of questions. Might Daisey
have been better off with a member of staff more able to hold all her
“attachment” children in mind, rather than becoming absorbed with
one? Might Daisey have had more positive interactions with peers?
How might these interactions with peers have been enabled or under­
mined by Daisey’s attachment to Meera?

Nursery work and the role of Work Discussion

Work Discussion is a forum in which the observed details of interac­
tions in organizations as well as the emotions evoked by these inter­
actions can be thought about and explored by the members of the
organization (M. E. Rustin & Bradley, 2008). I have discussed the use of
a monthly Work Discussion group for nursery practitioners elsewhere
(Elfer, 2012). I would like to conclude by proposing the importance of
Work Discussion in nurseries both as a means of emotional support for
nursery staff in the complex and difficult work they undertake and as
a professional reflection tool to support staff so they are able to manage
sufficient distance from the children with whom they work in order to
effectively reflect on their interactions with the children in nursery. The
data presented here support both these functions.
In Sian’s nursery, it is not obvious that the staff are stressed or strug­
gling. Yet the reference by Marjory to feeling “bullied” by a child’s
 young children’s relationships with staff and peers in nursery 319

insistent demands does show the capacity of attachments to be stress­

ful and the risk that this is managed simply by avoidance strategies.
In Daisey’s nursery, the Manager was exasperated by Meera’s preoc­
cupation with baby Violet and the lack of attention to Daisey. This
may not be stressful for Meera (although she was struggling with the
conflict between her own wishes to be with Violet and the Manager’s
insistence that she limit this), but Daisey’s disruptive protesting was
stressful for other staff. Whatever a nursery’s systems and priorities, it
seems likely that there will be stress somewhere, carried by somebody,
staff or children or both, and this is supported by Dechent’s observa­
tion (2008). Work Discussion has a potential role to play in supporting
practitioners make attachments to children, withstand the possessive
demands of children arising from these attachments, but also to avoid
becoming over dependent on the children and to allow the children,
indeed enable them, to make and develop peer interactions with friends
and in groups.
Epilogue
Michael Rustin

The widening scope of psychoanalytic observation

Y
oung Child Observation as defined in these pages is, in the
first instance, a method of study and a form of learning. It has
developed at the Tavistock Clinic over the last decades, as part
of a course that is now the Post Graduate Diploma and MA in Psycho­
analytic Observational Studies. In this programme a single year’s
weekly observation of a child aged between 2 and 5 has taken place in
the second year of the course, normally in parallel with the second year
of a two-year Infant Observation, which has always been the central
component of this course. In the version of this programme that was
adopted in Italy for some years, and from which several contributions
to this book arise, Young Child Observation took place (like Infant
Observation) over two years, not a single year. This allowed for the
observation of more extended development in young children, adding
further possibilities for learning over this longer period.
Psychoanalytically informed observation is at the centre at the
Tavistock not only of the procedures of Infant Observation and Young
Child Observation, but also of Work Discussion (the subject of a recent
volume parallel to this one: M. E. Rustin & Bradley, 2008), and of Insti­
tutional Observation, about which a further book is in preparation.
Central to this method is that students are expected to observe in the

321
322 michael rustin

“natural” context of home or day nursery, rather than in the experi­

mental setting of the child development laboratory. Following each
observational visit, students write up their experience of their obser­
vation from memory, in as much detail as possible. Their written-up
observations are then taken for discussion in a weekly seminar with
a supervisor and a group of fellow observers, in which students take
turns to present an observation each week. At the end of the period
of visits, students are expected to write a paper which describes some
aspect of what they have observed, and which gives some interpreta­
tion of what they have seen in the context of the psychoanalytic ideas
and theories that they have been studying concurrently. A further field
of reference is contemporary psychological research on child develop­
ment, which is a component of the Observation Course as it is taught
in Britain (Music, 2011).
These psychoanalytic “observation courses” are intended to develop
the understanding and capabilities of people working with children in
a variety of professional and occupational capacities, including teach­
ing, nursing, child care, and both residential and community social
work. It is a condition for entry to the course that students should have
had previous experience of working with children or adolescents, and
that this continues in some form during the years of study. The course
is also a mandatory preclinical qualification for students wishing to
train subsequently as child psychotherapists1—although it should be
noted that a majority of the students do not choose to become child
psychotherapists but remain in their original professions or develop
their career in other ways, making use in a variety of ways of the learn­
ing achieved through their observational experiences. The objective of
enhancing the quality of work with children that is undertaken outside
the specialized field of child psychotherapy has always been a central
one for the Observation Courses both in Britain and in Italy, and in
many other contexts in which such courses are provided. However, this
work is characterized by its psychoanalytic focus of attention, and it is
therefore from experienced child psychotherapists that the teachers of
Young Child Observation have been largely drawn.
The connections between the methods of Young Child Observation,
and indeed Infant Observation, and the clinical practice of child analy­
sis and child psychotherapy are subtle and complex. The approach to
the close observation of infants and young children from a psycho­
analytic perspective of interest in unconscious mental and emotional
life, and to the phenomena of transference and countertransference
that give crucial access to this, was pioneered in the first instance by
 epilogue 323

psychoanalysts such as Freud with Little Hans, Anna Freud, Susan

Isaacs, Melanie Klein, and Donald Winnicott, as an aspect of their close
attention to their child patients.
It was Esther Bick who saw the potential for an experience of Infant
Observation separate from, and preceding, any clinical function for
observers (Bick, 1964). She was the inventor of Psychoanalytic Infant
Observation as a method of learning. Separately, and a little before this,
Nursery Observation was pioneered by Anna Freud and her colleagues
in the Hampstead War Nurseries she conducted during the Second
World War, though it was only later that it became formalized as a
method of study (Midgley, 2013).
In the first instance, the practice of psychoanalytic Infant Observa­
tion emerged through the clinical work, and indeed through the per­
sonal experiences, of the first child analysts. It was from the interest and
insight obtained in this work that a specific practice of learning based
on Infant Observation was developed. Psychoanalytic observation of
infants and young children has always been deeply informed by con­
cepts and theories whose origin lies in the clinical consulting room. It
must be clear from previous chapters how central the classical concerns
of psychoanalysis, for example in regard to the Oedipus complex and
its later theorizations as the development of “triangular” relationships
and a “third position” (Britton, 1998), are to the understanding of the
children who have been observed. But there has also been a form of
influence that has flowed in the opposite direction, from sensibilities
learned initially in the observation setting to the understanding of chil­
dren who receive clinical psychoanalytic treatment. Indeed, as the intri­
cacies of interactions between mothers and infants came to be better
understood, for example through the concepts of projective identifica­
tion and container–contained relations developed in particular by Klein
and Bion, so observation as such has become an increasingly central
element of psychoanalytic clinical practice. This includes not only the
therapist’s observation of her patient, but also a therapist’s observation
of herself as she seeks to apprehend and understand the phenomena of
the transference and countertransference in vivo.
Observation is particularly central and indispensable to clinical prac­
tice in the psychoanalytic treatment of children, through the method
which Klein (1926, 1927) first described as “play therapy” and which
has subsequently become central to the practice of psychoanalytic child
psychotherapy. Children in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy do not
usually lie on a couch and talk with their therapists. Characteristically,
they make active use of a therapy room and its furniture, of selected
324 michael rustin

toys provided for them, and of drawing materials. Conversation with

a therapist arises from their play with these materials, as commentary
upon, or “free association” to, whatever they may be doing. Therapists
need to be attentive to what is going on in this situation and find mean­
ing in those activities of their patients that attract their interest. In this
context little is likely to be understood unless the fine detail of a child
patient’s movements, facial and bodily expression, play, and conversa­
tion are closely observed (M. E. Rustin, 2012).
Because of the importance in contemporary psychoanalytic think­
ing of the “child in the adult” and of the influence of early relational
experiences on later psychological development, it seems that experi­
ence of observational and clinical work with children would be valu­
able to analysts working with adult patients. The omission from the
mainstream psychoanalytic curriculum in Britain and elsewhere of
training in clinical work with children is thus a serious loss to the larger
field of practice.

The object of study of Young Child Observation

What is the object of study of Young Child Observation? Obviously,
it is young children, but from what perspective and through what
conceptual lens are they observed? There are, after all, several possible
perspectives from which an observation can be conducted. One might
expect a medical doctor or health visitor to be primarily attentive to
matters of physical health and development; a specialist in language to
be noting speech patterns and how they are evolving; a sociologist or
an anthropologist to be aware of the social roles into which even young
children are being inducted—for example: how soon are they expected
to show independence from mother? How much stress is placed in
their culture on their aptitude for cognitive learning? There can be no
systematic observation without an informing theoretical perspective
of some kind. And where observations are part of an organized cur­
riculum for learning, as in the case of Young Child Observation, this is
certainly be the case.
“Observational frames” may be made more or less explicit. In some
contexts this amounts to a procedure for systematic examination, in
which observations are checked off against benchmarks by which a
particular child can be placed according to age-related norms. In the
case of suspected developmental delays, a psychological or psychiatric
assessment may take this form—it will be noted how far a child does or
does not have the capabilities expected at his age. Many “disciplinary
 epilogue 325

frameworks” have sought explicitly to codify the phenomena in which

they are interested, telling observers in that field what they should
be looking for and where its diagnostic significance lies. This can be
entirely positive and helpful in appropriate contexts. For example, we
expect a specialist in the allergies of small children to be able to recog­
nize and classify an allergic reaction when they see one.
Psychoanalytic observation, however, has a different character. No
explicit conceptualization or classifying frame is expected to precede
the first encounter with the observed child in the context of family
or nursery in which the observation takes place. Indeed, it may be a
common experience of young child observers, as with psychoanalytic
observers of infants, that they feel that they do not know what they are
supposed to be looking for when they begin an observation. In fact,
they are expected to be observant of the child as a person and in his or
her relationships with those around him. This includes the relationship
between the child and themselves, which most likely develops as soon
as a child realizes that indeed this observer is specially interested in him
(or her). What matters most is the emotional qualities or texture of the
child’s relationship with those around him—or, as we might put this
in more technical psychoanalytic terms, his “objects”. The crucial thing
about Young Child Observation is that the experience of the child and
the detailed descriptions that attempt to record it are expected to come
first, and the more abstract concepts that it is hoped might give mean­
ing to the Observations in their detail and sequence, definitely second.
Nevertheless, in psychoanalytic observation a theoretical frame,
or indeed a system of classification, is definitely present in the back­
ground, with its relevance to experience awaiting its realization. But,
just as with therapeutic work with child patients, it may not be evident
for quite some time which particular concepts from a large lexicon of
psychoanalytic ideas have relevance and use in understanding a par­
ticular child. If Young Child Observation is to be done well, theoretical
understanding has to await its moment—and sometimes the wait has
to be a prolonged one.
There is a more general issue in an observational practice like Young
Child Observation, which we describe as a psychoanalytic one, of what
a specifically psychoanalytic object of study is. Whether psychoanalysis
is a legitimate field of study at all, with an identifiable empirical object,
remains a matter of controversy in some circles, including among
psychologists. This issue has or should have become less contentious
following the recognition, in recent studies in the philosophy and soci­
ology of science, that different fields of scientific study do indeed have
326 michael rustin

distinct objects and correspondingly different methods of acquiring

knowledge of them. There is, in fact, not one science, but many sci­
ences (Galison & Stump, 1996). A more technical way of putting this is
to say that different fields of science have different ontologies (ideas of
being) and different epistemologies (modes of perception). The distinc­
tive “object of study” of psychoanalysis is unconscious mental life, and
its primary epistemological resource is the study of the transference–
countertransference relationship in the consulting room (M. J. Rustin,
2007, 2009). Thus it has been powerfully argued (O’Shaughnessy, 1994;
Quinodoz, 1994) that it is “clinical facts” (phenomena arising from the
transference) that provide the empirical points of reference, or justifica­
tion, of psychoanalytic theories.2
The recommended setting for psychoanalytic Infant Observation is
set up in such a way as to be as equivalent as possible to the clinical
consulting room in its reliability and consistency, in order to make pos­
sible the recognition of unconscious mental phenomena in that situa­
tion. To put the issue in terms of scientific method, the idea is that only
if as many variables as possible are held constant will it be possible to
observe the differences that have an unconscious origin. Reliability and
consistency of the setting and the “neutral” stance of the observer are
intended to filter out the “noise” and disturbance of everyday life and
allow observations to focus on what is psychoanalytically significant.
But since observers are unavoidably to a degree active participants
in the setting in which they observe, and since interaction between
observer and observed gives rise to crucial information, this “neutral­
ity” can only be maintained through self-awareness and by respecting
the boundaries of the observer’s role. Even though such considerations
might be thought most relevant to the practice of research, they are, in
fact, integral to any practice of psychoanalytic observation in which
learning is expected to take place.
One may ask, how far are the Young Child Observations presented
in the chapters of this book centrally concerned with psychoanalytic phe­
nomena—that is, those with an unconscious dimension or origin? The
answer is, to a considerable degree, although many other features are
also of importance and are given space in the observational process and
the seminar discussion. The presence of oedipal anxieties for example,
prominent in several observations, refers to a fundamental element of
psychoanalytic theory, essential to its theory of personality develop­
ment. The anxieties of children in attending a nursery for many hours
in a day or week are a common theme of these observations. It is usually
painful for children to be separated from intimate contact with parents
 epilogue 327

for considerable stretches of time. The psychoanalytic understanding

of the dependence of infants and young children on a close relationship
with parents or parent substitutes explains why such separation can not
only cause suffering but also, in its extreme forms, psychological dam­
age. The theory of the container–contained relationship describes cru­
cial unconscious processes of projection, introjection, and identification
between mother and baby from which an adequate sense of identity is
built. Children find it hard to maintain a sufficient sense of their own
wholeness and thus suffer in situations where a close relationship with
loved adults is absent. (Esther Bick, 1968, described the fear of “falling
to pieces” as one of the primary anxieties of infancy.) This can be the
case in nurseries where there are too many children, with too few adults
available to respond to a young child’s needs, although we can also see
that good nurseries offer compensatory satisfactions in terms of oppor­
tunities for friendships and play with other children and in enlivening
relationships with staff members. Winnicott’s concept of the “transi­
tional object”, as something through which a child maintains contact
with its maternal object through fantasy and play, is vividly exemplified
in Mel Serlin’s chapter, where she describes the use made of the Thomas
the Tank Engine stories by a boy placed in a precarious situation of tran­
sition, as a way of reminding himself that there might be a reliable and
ordered place for himself. Sharon Warden’s chapter, “The Day Captain
Antonio’s Balloon Burst”, describes another kind of symbolic object, the
purple balloon blown up by mother and with millet put inside to make
it rattle. This balloon seemed to represent a combined parental object
for this little boy, a symbolic breast containing seeds, whose beauty he
joyously celebrated to music on his own and on his parents’ bed. This
is a child preoccupied by the anxieties of separation, as he grows older
(“I don’t want to be four”, he says), who has discovered an omnipotent
solution to the oedipal problem of his parents’ fertility, which lasts until
the balloon sadly bursts and he is brought back to the painful reality
that growing older cannot be avoided—he is definitely going to be four,
and no longer a baby, very soon.
Current psychoanalytic theory and practice, following the contribu­
tions of Klein (on the epistemophilic instinct), and Bion (on the idea
of maternal reverie and space for thinking) holds that being observed
and understood, especially in the dimension of feelings, is fundamental
to psychological growth. Young child observers discover, as several
chapters show, that their own attention to their subjects can be very
meaningful to the children, and that even their once-weekly visits, in
their rather quiet role, can further the children’s development. This
328 michael rustin

can be the case even where an ordinary observation is taking place

without any specific therapeutic intent. Observers can also feel, through
what we can term a form of countertransference, powerful emotional
demands being placed upon them, sometimes drawing them into
seductive complicities, for example of an oedipal kind, that may make
them anxious about keeping within the boundaries of their observer
role.
Thus, even though Young Child Observers are expected to enter the
observational setting without preconceptions of what they are to look
for, it can be seen from these observations that several major themes
informed by psychoanalytic concepts and theories consistently emerge
and give meaning and shape to the accounts given. Among these
themes are the emergence of young children from a primarily two-
person relationship with mother, or other primary carer, into three- or
multi-person family relationships, in which mother’s care and attention
has to be shared with others. It is in this situation that observers find
the psychoanalytic understanding of the oedipal situation indispensa­
ble. Where Freud thought that oedipal rivalries become significant for
children only when they reach the age of 3 to 5 (Freud, 1905d), Klein
established that they became part of the mental life of the infant in a
primitive form at a much earlier age, indeed in the first year of life.
Thus although Klein is often thought to have displaced theoretical
interest from Freud’s “oedipal stage” to an earlier dyadic relationship
with mother, the oedipal situation in fact retained its central place in
her account of development and thus its relevance to both Infant and
Young Child Observation. Oedipal anxieties in observed children are
a theme of several chapters. In some observations (e.g. those by Anjali
Grier and Claudia Henry) an observer’s presence as a “third person”
in the family setting seemed to have supported a child’s development.
Emerging into a multi-person world is a challenging experience
for every child, although when there is enough love and attention
to go round, the satisfaction this brings of new activities, capacities,
and relationships usually outweighs the pains. “Growing up”, heavily
marked as it is in our society by the rituals of birthdays, can be a source
of great pleasure and pride. But where there is not enough to go round,
and especially where parents have difficulty in caring sufficiently for
a child at all, as in some of the observations described above, a child’s
suffering and anxiety can be deep. An observer may find it painful to
be close to this experience, even though her own feelings can help her
to understand it.
 epilogue 329

Observations undertaken outside the family setting—in day nurser­

ies, for example —often call upon a psychoanalytic conceptualization
different from the theory of the Oedipus complex. The central dilemma
for a child in this situation is not competition for mother or father’s
attention within the primary family, since neither parents nor siblings
are usually present. The issue for the young child here is rather who
and what can he depend on to feel loved and secure, in these hours—
possibly rather many hours—when he is away from home. These are
issues that have been deeply explored by John Bowlby in his work on
attachment and separation, and in the substantial research that has fol­
lowed from this (Holmes, 1993).
The theoretical frame that seems most apposite to the understand­
ing of the nursery situation is that which describes anxieties and their
containment. It seems that all nurseries caring for children as young
as 2 (and even more so where there babies being looked after too) face
the problem of how to cope with the pains of separation of small chil­
dren from their primary carers. Observers are likely to find themselves
experiencing many kinds of response to this situation. Psychoanalytic
observation is distinctive in its quality of attention to emotional pain, in
both observed subjects and in the observers themselves. Its procedures
(originally derived from psychoanalytic methods, of “evenly hovering
attention”, of detailed descriptive writing up from memory, and of sub­
sequent recall and reflection in a group of observer-peers), are designed
to make painful emotions and states of mind central to its field of atten­
tion. The authors of the preceding chapters show themselves to have
been sensitive to different kinds of pain, including those arising from
life-threatening illnesses and severe deprivation as well as the more
ordinary sufferings that arise when a child is asked to take on more in
terms of independence than they are yet ready for.
A child observed in a nursery setting may enjoy the attention of an
observer. Here is perhaps a kind of “special friend” who has appeared,
whose regular presence and whose friendly attention can be relied on,
even if the protocols of inactive observation make her less available
as an extra play-leader or play companion than a child might desire.
But what about the other children, the majority not being specially
observed, who do not have this particular attention? Might it some­
times be a mixed blessing for a child to be receiving such attention?
It may, on the one hand, be something to be enjoyed, but on the other
hand it may be felt as an unwelcome singling-out, a provocation of
envy or jealousy among peers, a “specialness” one would rather not
330 michael rustin

have. Perhaps most observed children experience both these aspects of

having been “chosen”. Observers certainly have to take account of how
their particular subjects respond to the special attention they are given.
In fact, the responsibility of making and maintaining an appropri­
ate kind of relationship with a young child is an aspect of Young Child
Observation that differentiates it from Infant Observation. As the Intro­
duction to this book points out, at the start of an Infant Observation
the relationship with the baby is mediated by the presence of mother.
Infant observers may even feel alarmed if a mother happens to leave
them alone with the baby. I have suggested in an earlier article that the
primary object of Infant Observation is, in fact, not so much an infant
as a mother–infant couple, just as Winnicott’s famous aphorism (“there
is no such thing as a baby”) would lead one to expect. One of the most
interesting areas of research that has emerged from Infant Observation
has been into the complex interactions that make up the mother–infant
relationship and the different kinds of relations between “container and
contained” through which this can be understood.
But from before the age of two, which is the age that marks the
formal boundary between these two kinds of observation, babies and
toddlers often develop a capacity to make a relationship with their
weekly observer which has a life of its own. Even though this relation­
ship usually develops in mother’s presence, it may nevertheless evolve
its own character. Observers sometimes find difficulty in holding on to
the “inactive observer” role that the observational method prescribes,
and there are real issues of technique involved in deciding how actively
an observer should respond to a child’s invitations to play, or to accom­
pany her around the house. Experiences suggests that observers may
sometimes be too constrained by an obligation to keep their distance,
when they would do better to allow a more active relationship to
develop. In Maggie Fagan’s chapter, there are interesting reflections on
the risks of over-rigid attitudes, and a charming example of the value of
sometimes responding by what she calls attunement to a child’s needs.
There is a vignette in this chapter of an observer who found herself
kneeling down to help Anna, a bewildered little girl, fasten her coat
buttons, which is a beautiful illustration of such responsiveness.
In Young Child Observations, whether in a domestic or a nursery
setting, young children are able to make their desires for contact (or
otherwise) known to an observer, since they will normally have a
greater degree of autonomy and agency than an infant. It is, after all,
assumed that a child who is ready to go to nursery will already have
some capacity for self-sufficiency and independence, whether this is the
 epilogue 331

case or not. Thus, where the primary object of study of Infant Observa­
tion might be said to be the mother–infant couple, the primary object
of study of Young Child Observation is, rather, the young child him or
herself, their emerging separate personality, and the anxieties that may
accompany this development.

The value of Young Child Observation

This volume has an important section that directly addresses some
potential applications of Young Child Observation concerned with its
use as a therapeutic resource. It is clear from these chapters that this
method can greatly enrich understanding of situations of deprivation.
The examples given are Anne-Marie Fayolle’s account of a participant
observation with a child suffering from a serious illness (sadly, later
this child died) and Mel Serlin’s observation of the child whose parents’
capacity to care for him was being reviewed, observation providing one
source of evidence relevant to the eventual decision. Observation can
lead not only to the understanding of such situations, but also, when its
techniques are appropriately modified and when observers are experi­
enced enough, it can be a definite source of help, as Deborah Blessing
and Karen Block’s chapter about a possibly autistic child illustrates.
Significant precedents for this therapeutic use of observation have
been established in regard to the observation of infants, first in France
(Delion, 2000; Houzel, 1999; Watillon-Naveau, 1999) and subsequently
in Britain (Gretton, 2006; Wakelyn, 2011).
As the provision of day care for under-fives becomes a more wide­
spread expectation in modern societies, urgent questions arise concern­
ing the quality of the care that is provided. The primary issue here is
that of attention to the emotional needs of young children, and the
stresses experienced by the institutions and staff that provide it. There
is the serious question of how staff are to learn to understand what
children’s emotional needs are, especially when, sadly, the convention
in Britain is to employ very young and inexperienced staff, and to give
them little training. Young Child Observation, and the linked practice
of Work Discussion, would be valuable educational experiences for
entrants to this field of work, or indeed for those already engaged in it.
There is also the “policy question” of how institutional quality is to
be assessed and standards of care established and upheld. The practice
of Young Child Observation has a potential role here too, as a way of
enabling managers and quality assessors to learn to become sensitive to
the needs of small children and to the emotional needs of staff who are
332 michael rustin

expected to meet them. In the formal educational programmes referred

to in this book, observations have a duration of one or two years. But
it is likely that much shorter observational experiences—even of a sin­
gle observation, if resources and time are made available to reflect on
it—can aid in developing the sensitivity of those who work with young
children and in the settings in which they are cared for.
Isca Wittenberg’s chapter in this book, which focuses mainly on
the significance of transitions—joining and leaving a nursery setting—
and how they are managed, is exemplary in drawing attention to a
fundamental institutional process. What she has written about the
importance of beginnings and endings, from her long experience, ought
by now to be completely taken for granted in institutions of all kinds,
whether they are populated by children or adults. The description in
Simonetta Adamo’s chapter, “The House Is Boat”, of the careful prepa­
ration for Mario’s saying goodbye to his nursery, is a fine example of
how Wittenberg’s understanding of endings can inform practice. But
we know, unfortunately, that the significance of transitions is often not
understood, or is brushed aside. One can think in the present context
of “austerity Britain” of the dire way in which redundancies are often
implemented. One way in which an institution’s neglect of human
relationships can be recognized—an index of its relational quality—is
through the poor or callous management of transitions. Conversely, the
careful management of transitions, with appropriate attention and cere­
mony, can be an index of the high quality of an institution’s practice.
Infant Observation was practised for several decades, as a method
of learning and education, before anyone thought much about it as a
form of “research”—that is, as a way of generating new knowledge.
(However, an important exception was Esther Bick’s “second skin”
paper, published in 1968.) But awareness of the knowledge-generat­
ing potential of this method has grown into a developed method of
research (Urwin & Sternberg, 2012). It is also clear that psychoanalytic
understanding and clinical practice, especially in work with children
and families, has been deeply enriched by close observational study of
the earliest relationships. Young Child Observation has already devel­
oped a dimension of research, two examples of which, by Peter Elfer
and Wilfried Datler and his colleagues, are presented in this book.
As is often the case with psychoanalytic investigation more gener­
ally, research has been feasible so far mainly in the form of the single-
or multiple-case study, valuable as a source of insight and theoretical
understanding, but limited in the scope of application of its findings.
The “scaling up” of hypotheses about, for example, the oedipal transi­
 epilogue 333

tions of young children, or concerning those forms of nursery provision

that work best for them, is deemed necessary to meet the criteria of
“evidence-based services”, but it is difficult to achieve, in part because
of the size of the costs involved in large-scale studies. It might prove
more feasible in terms of future research to include a dimension of
Young Child Observation within broader-based studies of child devel­
opment or institutional practice, than to access resources for large scale
research relying exclusively on this method.
Wilfried Datler and colleagues’ study does combine a fairly large
scale of assessment of children’s experience of a day nursery, using dif­
ferent measures of wellbeing, with the use of systematic videographic
evidence. But it is interesting to note that the researchers found the
evidence generated by both of these means rather shallow and sought
to deepen their study by conducting a number of Young Child Observa­
tions in parallel with one another, as a multiple case study of 11 nurs­
ery children. In the article published here, they substantially deepen
understanding of the experience of one particular child, adding to that
obtained from the more “objective” procedure. This study valuably
demonstrates the feasibility of conducting and analysing Young Child
Observations in a systematic way. The contrast between the fully docu­
mented methodology of this report and the more informal and intuitive
procedure of most of the other reported observations is an interesting
one. The particular finding of Datler et al.’s observation of Paulina,
which links her failure to settle happily at nursery to an enforced sepa­
ration from her sibling to whom she was allowed to remain close in her
first weeks there, is compelling. But one is struck also by how much is
conveyed in some of the more informal descriptions of children, in the
absence of a formal “research task”, perhaps with a greater imaginative
openness to a child’s whole experience.
Peter Elfer’s focus, in his chapter on the experience of two indi­
vidual children in two nurseries, is on the consequences for the children
of contrasting models of nursery organization. One nursery provides
“group care”, without giving special emphasis to children’s attachment
to a single carer; the other assigns children quite specifically to a single
carer, who has main responsibility for the child, and even an individual­
ized contract with the child’s parents. Case study methods do not easily
lend themselves to generalization. In this instance it is difficult to gauge
accurately the weight to be assigned to the factors of organizational
structure and culture and those related to the characters of individual
children and care workers. This study shows that a highly capable
care-giver who is able to keep several children in mind can make a
334 michael rustin

group care model work well—but also that where a child is assigned
and attached to an individual carer, the arrival of a younger child with
its own needs of the carer can lead to some problems of sharing. Well-
conducted case studies, just as in the clinical tradition of psychoanalysis
itself, allow for the subtle exploration of complex systems in a way that
no other kind of research can do.
Both the Viennese study and Elfer’s work demonstrate the potential
value of Young Child Observation as a method of research. Its distinc­
tive virtue is that it makes the experience of the child the primary meas­
ure of the quality of the institutions that care for them and provides
a powerful means of ascertaining what that experience is. This book
demonstrates the scope and need for a much broader use of Young
Child Observation, in training and in other ways.

Notes
1.  According to the regulations of the Association of Child Psychotherapists in
the United Kingdom.
2.  On the idea of clinical facts, see the special issue (Vol. 75, 1994) of the Inter­
national Journal of Psychoanalysis edited by David Tuckett.
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INDEX

absent object, in internal world, 156–158 in nursery:

abstract thought, capacity for, 272, 273 anxiety-provoking nature of, 297
Adamo, S. M. G., ix, xvii, 1–23, 26, demands on practitioners, 296–
58–79, 85, 98, 116, 135–161, 164, 298
205–210, 316, 332 to nursery staff, 258, 296, 299, 312,
Adamson, L. B., 260 316–­­318
aesthetic experience, 221 cost of, 298–301
aggressiveness, child’s, splitting and parent–child, 102
projection of, 62 to peer, 53
Ahnert, L., 277, 293, 296 and separation, 329
Allcroft, B., 242, 243, 255 to single carer, 333
Allhusen, V., 296 to staff, versus peer interaction,
alpha function, 104 317–318
Alvarez, A., 160, 168, 178, 216, 220, 221, attachment figure, secondary, 304, 310
261, 264, 266 attachment interactions, in nursery, 296
ambivalence of nursery staff, towards attunement, observation rooted in,
observer, 201 87–88, 330
analytic figure, identification with, 87 autism, 262, 266, 267
analytic method of observation, 6 autistic child(ren), 60, 331
Anna (nursery observation): attunement autistic features, 211
with observer, 87–88, 330 autistic spectrum, 211, 216, 242
Anna Freud Centre, 6–8, 59 observation of child on, 216–223
anticipatory identification, 160 Awdry, Rev. W., 241
Antonio (observation): Captain
Antonio’s balloon, 98, 123–134, baby part of self, child’s identification
327 with, 74
anxiety(ies): Bacchini, D., 210
catastrophic, 32 bad breast, 264
primitive, 13, 27, 70 as primitive mental space, 263
separation, 164, 123–134, 205–210, bad genital mother, 63
316, 327 Bain, A., 164, 296, 297, 310
ART: see assisted reproductive Bakeman, R., 260
technologies Ballard, R., 101
Asperger’s syndrome, 118 Barnes, J., 102
assisted reproductive technologies Barnett, L., 6, 164, 203, 296, 297, 310
(ART), 99 Baron-Cohen, S., 262
impact of, 102–103 Barrie, E. M., 216
asthma, 189 Barrows, K., 273
attachment(s), 100, 101, 111, 143, 164, basic assumption, “fight–flight”, 202
309–318 Bates, E., 261
insecure, 103 Beeson, C., 102

351
352 index

beginnings and endings, 39, 332 Broucek, F., 261

difficulties with, 38 Brown, L., 102
behaviouristic observation, 6 Bruner, J. S., 261
Belsky, J., 296 Burhouse, A., xviii, 257, 259–273
Benigni, L., 261 Burlingham, D., 6, 314, 315
Bick, E., xiii, 59, 70 Butterworth, G., 261
fear of “falling to pieces”, 327  
“hard armour suits”, 120 Camioni, L., 261
observation method of, 9, 12–14, 225, Caper, R., 264, 266
258, 323 Capote, T., 160
second skin, 131, 332 Carter, A., 103
skin container, 170 Cassidy, T., 102
and Tavistock Clinic, 12–14 castration anxiety/complex, 62, 134
Bion, W. R., 42, 266 catastrophic anxiety, 32
alpha function, 104 catastrophic change, 48
catastrophic anxiety, 32 Catherine (participant observation):
catastrophic change, 48 child “on autistic spectrum”
container–contained: in special needs preschool,
concept of, 104 216–223
relations, 323 Catty, J., 311
containing function, 172 Centro Studi “Martha Harris”:
containing object, 109, 112 Naples, 205
containment by caregiver, need for, Rome, 160
265 Chatoor, I., 104
functioning group, 173 child(ren):
group mentality, 202 impact of day care on, 203
K links, 265 in local authority care, 240
maternal reverie, 104, 327 removed from parents (observation:
space for thinking, 327 Paul), xiii, 213, 239–255, 327
thought arising from unthinkable, thoughts and feelings, observation
271 methodology to elicit, 317
thought formation, 263 traumatized by earlier major endings
birth: in life, 38
beginning and abrupt ending, 32 child development, 1, 2, 6, 27, 59, 167,
of second baby, oedipal anxieties 254, 257, 333
around, xiii psychoanalytic account, 42–57
Blessing, D., xvii, 94, 211, 215–223, 331 psychological research on,
Block, K., xvii, 211, 215–223, 331 contemporary, 322
Blümel, R., 294 child observation group, dynamics in,
Bock, A., 294 80
Bolz, M., 278 Child Psychotherapy Training,
Boston, M., 263 Tavistock, 59
boundaries, managing, 84 child–sibling relationship, 258
Bowlby, J., 36, 329 Clark, A., 317
Bradley, J., 293, 318, 321 Clarke-Stewart, A., 296
breast-feeding, 34, 35, 68, 100, 105 Clifford, R. M., 278
“breast” and “no breast”, 263 Cody (observation): ability for triadic
Brenner, N., 6, 7, 59, 77 thinking and linking, and
Bretherton, L. I., 261 psychological and emotional
Briggs, S., 282 development, 257, 267–273
Britton, R., 60, 76, 111, 153, 257, 266, 323 cognitive and linguistic skills, 261
primal family triangle, 67, 265 Coles, P., 81, 83
Brooks-Gunn, J., 296 Colpin, H., 102
 index 353

computer games, use of, 92, 94 dialogue, concept of, 261

constructive activities, and restoration, Di Cagno, L., 160
177 Dickinson, E., 215
container, not large enough, 139 Dickson, L., 104
container–contained, 104, 266, 323, 327, Diem-Wille, G., 282
330 dinosaurs, play with, use of, 199, 200,
internalized model of, 266 212, 227–238
relations, 327 Dolto, F., 12
relations between, 323, 330 Donaldson, J., 89
containment, 11, 62, 88, 138, 144, 146, Drugli, M. B., 297
170, 177, 198, 260, 272, 329 Dunn, J., 314, 315
infantile, 271 dyadic interactions and ability to think,
/lack of containment, 176 link, and act triadically, 260–
maternal, 91 263
by mother, 76 dyadic thinking, 271
parental, 90  
of psychic pain, 69 early childhood learning, “competency”
symbolic, 205 view of, 2
void of, 64 early years education, xii, 2
countertransference, 77, 215, 272, 322, Ebbeck, M., 296
323, 326, 328 Eckstein-Madry, T., 277, 283, 294
reactions, observers’, 9 eczema, 170
Crick, P., 77 Edgcumbe, R., 6
Cryer, D., 278 Edwards, P. R., 102
cultures, transitions between home and Edwards, R., 102
school, 192–204 Egan, J., 104
Czada, S., 294 Elfer, P., xviii, 258, 281, 282, 295–319,
  332–334
Dahlberg, G., 296, 298, 315 Eliot, T. S., 144
Daisey (observation): interactions in envy towards mother, girl’s, 56, 66
nursery, 304–319 epistemophilic instinct, child’s, 21, 75,
Datler, M., xviii, 258, 274–294, 310, 332, 264, 327
333 Ereky-Stevens, K., 277, 279, 280, 288,
Datler, W., xviii, 258, 274–294, 297, 310, 294
332, 333 Erikson, E. H., 163, 168
Davenhill, R., 282 “evenly hovering attention”, 329
Daws, D., 104 exclusion and inclusion, dynamics of,
day care, impact of, on children, 203 2
Dearnley, K., 296  
de Bernières, L., 123, 129, 131 Fagan, M., xix, 27, 80–95, 330
Dechent, S., 310, 319 Faizul (observation): boy with absent
Degotardi, S., 298 father, 163, 167–178
Delion, P., 331 falling as symptom, 70–71
Demyttenaere, K., 102 family therapy, systemic, ix
denial of reality, omnipotent, 185, 191 family triangle, primal, 67, 265
Dennis, E., xviii, 26, 163, 179–191 father:
depression, maternal, 87 absent, 163, 167–178
depressive anxiety(ies), 75, 118, 154 boy’s identification with, 56
depressive feelings, 119 child’s turning to, 62–64
depressive position, 48, 63, 151, 177, 259, exclusion of, from mother–daughter
263–265, 271 dyad, 267
developmental phases, constant Fatke, R., 288
interplay between, 167 Fayolle, A.-M., xix, 212, 224–238
354 index

fear of “falling to pieces”, 327 Giorgia (observation): child’s response

feeding difficulties/disorders, 99, 106 to stillbirth of sibling, 98,
and mother–infant relationship, 135–160
103–104 girl(s):
feeding patterns, healthy, establishment ambivalence towards mother as good
of in infants, 104 figure, 56
fertility treatments, 99 envy towards mother, 56, 66
fetishism, 134 Goldschmied, E., 296, 297
“fight–flight”, basic assumption, 202 Goldschmied, J., 296
flexible thinking, 262 good breast:
foetus, initial condition of, 26 /bad breast and penis, triangulation
Fonagy, P., 265 of, 264
foster care, 84, 239, 244, 245, 247, 253, –mother, 63
254 good father, identification with, 56
Fox’s Earth project, Naples, Italy, 10–12 good internal mother, 91, 94
free association, 324 Greek vase depicting mother and child,
freedom, children’s, and observation, 5 and child’s search for second
Freud, A., 25, 59, 77, 314, 315 object, 60–62
analytic method, 6 Grenner, K., 278
infantile sexuality, 3 Gretton, A., 331
Jackson, War, and Hampstead Grier, A., xix, 19, 97, 99–112, 328
Nurseries, 5–9 Grossmann, K., 291, 293
nursery as no-man’s land of affection, group care, of children in nursery, 9, 164,
xiii, 26 333, 334
Nursery Observation, 323 Gruffalo, The, 89
Psychoanalytic Infant Observation,  
323 Hampstead Nurseries, London, 5–9, 323
Young Child Observation, 9 Harms, T., 278
Freud, S., 56, 81, 134 Harris, M., xix, 25, 26, 42, 48, 53–54, 55,
Beyond the Pleasure Principle, 172, 178 75
Little Hans, 323 Heiss, E., 288, 294
New Introductory Lectures on Psycho- Helena (observation): child’s struggle
Analysis, 62 to find herself at nursery, 26,
oedipal rivalries, 328 163–164, 179–191
Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, Henry, C., xx, 97, 113–122, 328
328 Henry (observation): progress from
Friedmann, M., 7 dependency to independence,
frustration, oral and anal, 62 311
Funder, A., 277, 279, 281, 288–294, 297, Hindle, D., 84
310 Hinshelwood, R. D., 11
Furgiuele, P., 261, 264 Hirschsprung’s disease, 224, 225
Fürstaller, M., xix, 258, 274–294 Hobson, R. P., 260, 263
Hofer, B., 294
Gaddini, E., 19, 63, 76 Hoffer, W., 6
Galison, P., 326 Höhn, K., 292
gamete intrafallopian transfer (GIFT), Holmes, J., 329
99, 102 Hopkins, J., 297, 310
gender, shaping of, and identification, Houzel, D., 331
98 Hover-Reisner, N., xx, 258, 274–294
genital primacy, 60 Hoxter, S., xiii, 13, 59, 79, 146
Getson, P., 104 Hubley, P., 260
Gibson, G., 241
GIFT: see gamete intrafallopian transfer idealized chosen baby, identification
Giono, J., 123 with, 86
 index 355

identification: Kaplan, P., 102, 103

with adult role, projective rather than Kappler, G., 277, 294
introjective, 147 Katrina (observation): weaning, 34–35,
with good father, 56 40
between mother and baby, Katschnig, T., 294
unconscious processes of, 327 Kennedy, H., 6
with observer, 19 Kercher, A., 292
task of, boy’s more difficult, 55 key teacher, in nursery, 9
inclusion and exclusion, 93, 196–198, Klauber, T., 293
257, 259 Klein, M., 56, 81, 112, 178, 180
dynamics of, 2 analysis of Richard, 42, 79
independence, struggle towards, xiii, 97, child development, 48
98, 113–122 construction of inner world, 163
infant, development of in first 18 depressive anxieties, 118
months (a fairy-tale), 42–48 depressive position, 48, 63, 151, 177,
infantile anxieties, 25, 69 259, 263–265, 271
infantile containment, 271 epistemophilic instinct, 21, 75, 264,
infantile sexuality, 3 327
Infant Observation, 13, 32, 34–37, 76 good relation to mother as crucially
vs. Young Child Observation, 1, important for baby, 103
15–16, 80–88, 321–323 importance of mother’s attitude
infertility: towards her infant, 104
cultural negation or denigration of, inside of mother as place of danger,
101–103 68
maternal, 97 internal parental object, 168
insecure attachment, 103 memories in feeling, 27, 30
internalized objects, 233 mourning lost actual external loved
internal parental object, 168 object reactivates unconscious
internal world, absent object in, 156–158 phantasies of lost internal
interpersonal and psychological skills, “good” objects, 103
261 new desire towards father, 62
introjection, 104, 262, 271 oedipal constellation as appearing
between mother and baby, before genital primacy, 60
unconscious processes of, 327 oedipal feelings of rivalry and hatred
in vitro fertilization (IVF), 99, 102, 103, against mother, 64
232 oedipal rivalries, 328
Isaacs, S., 9, 78, 323 omnipotence as manic defence, 170
Malting House School, 3–5 paranoid-schizoid position, 177, 271
IVF: see in vitro fertilization and depressive position, move to,
  263
Jackson, S., 296, 297 phantasy of being trapped inside
Jackson Nurseries, Vienna, 5–9 mother’s body, 108
James (nursery observation): child play analysis, 16, 180
already traumatized by earlier play therapy, 323
major endings in his life, 38 projective identification, 118
Jedletzberger, A., 294 spitting or vomiting, 107
Jeffries, S., 241 weaning, 34
joint attention skills, 257, 261–266 wish to appropriate contents of
absence of, and autism, 262 mother’s body, 252
Jonathon (observation): transitions K links, 265
between cultures, 164, 192–204
Lamb, M. E., 296
Kakar, S., 101 language, development of, 261
Kaltseis, R., 294 laparoscopy, 102
356 index

Laurie (observation): struggle towards Menvielle, E., 104

independence, xiii, 97, 98, Menzies, I. E. P., 297
113–122 Merker, H., 292
Lazar, R. A., 281, 285, 294 Midgley, N., 323
Leach, P., 296 Miller, L., 137, 272
Leboyer, F., 32 mind, development of, theory of, xii, 2
Lee, S., 296 Mitton, D., 242, 243, 255
Leslie, G. I., 103 Molly (observation): child cared for
“Little Hans”, Freud’s patient, 323 by nanny, and complexities of
lost object, persecutory or depressive establishing observer’s role,
relationship with, 158 89–92
Lucia (observation): second baby and Montessori school, 180
observer’s paternal function, Moss, P., 296, 298, 317
65–79 mother(s):
Lucy (observation): young girl’s entry and baby:
into nursery school, 39–40 identification between, 327
Ludwig, M., 103 interactive space between, 215
  bad genital, 63
Magagna, J., xx, 2, 13, 14, 26, 58–79, 91, body of, child wanting to appropriate
116, 135, 136, 151, 161 contents of, 252
Main, M., 265 depression of, 87
Maisons Vertes, France, 12 girl’s ambivalence towards as good
Malmberg, L., 279 figure, 56
Malting House School, Susan Isaacs, 3–5 girl’s identification with, 56
manic defence(s), 140, 170, 177, 178, 191 good breast–, 63
Manning-Morton, J., 296 good internal, 91, 94
Marco and Paolo (observation): child’s inside of, as place of danger, 68
investigations of sexuality, 20 lap of, experience of falling out of, 68
Maria (observation): child unhappy at oedipal feelings of rivalry and hatred
nursery, 37 against, 64
Mario (observation): “the house is a projective identification with, 67
boat”, anxieties of separation, relationship to, internalization of, 241
164, 205–210, 316, 332 separation from, 29, 65, 163
Marzano, E. M., 64, 79 “thinking breast” of, 85
masculinity: mother–child conflicts, observer’s
“gang” type of, 56 negotiation of, 111–112
phallic type of, 56 mother–daughter dyad, 267
masturbation, 62, 65 father’s exclusion from, 268
maternal container, 91 mother–infant relationship, 330, 331
maternal depression, 87 and feeding difficulties, 103–104
maternal infertility, 97 mourning process, 136
maternal projections, 104 “multiple indiscriminate care”, 297
maternal reverie, 104, 327 Mundy, P., 260
meconium, 224 Music, G., 257, 322
mega-colon, 224  
Melhuish, E., 296 Naples, Italy:
Meltzer, D., xx, 14, 26, 42–57, 202, 203, Centro Studi “Martha Harris”,
221 Naples, 205
development of infant, in first 18 Fox’s Earth project in, 10–12
months (a fairy-tale), 42–48 narcissistic injury, child as, 102
memory(ies): narrative methods of observation, based
in feeling, 27, 30 on Tavistock method, 317
traces, 30, 33 National Autistic Society, 242
 index 357

Negri, R., 26, 42, 48, 75 observation(s):

Neubauer, P. B., 83 analytic method of, 6
neurological disorder, 267 Antonio (Captain Antonio’s balloon:
neutrality of observer, 5, 11, 77, 80, 326 the Oedipus complex), 123–134
newborn, 27, 33, 136 behaviouristic, 6
helplessness of, 32 Cody (triadic thinking and linking,
nightmares/night fears, 45, 65–67, 267 ability for, and psychological
“no such thing as a baby” (Winnicott), and emotional development),
330 257, 267–273
nursery(ies)/nursery school(s): consent issues, 17
attachment interactions in, 296 Daisey (interactions in nursery),
demands on practitioners, 296–298 304–319
day care, young children’s ending of, and arrival of new
development in, 274–294 baby (Shaun: complexities of
entry into, 39–40 establishing observer’s role),
experimental projects within, 9–12 92–94
function of, 295 Faizul (boy with absent father), 163,
interaction with peers in, 314–315 167–178
micro-society of, 192 Giorgia (child’s response to stillbirth
noise levels in, 33 of sibling), 135–161
as no-man’s land of affection, xiii, 26 gradual termination of, 78
organization of, ethos and cultures at Helena (child’s struggle to find
root of, 258 herself at nursery), 26, 163,
peers in, interactions with, 295–319 179–191
residential, 315 Henry (progress from dependency to
sensory over-stimulation in, 25 independence, 311
as social context, 295–296 home-based, 237, 311
staff, young children’s relationships James (child already traumatized by
with, 295–319 earlier major endings in his life,
starting, 242, 243 in nursery), 38
transition from, to school, 40 Jonathon (transitions between
transition to, from home, 29–40 cultures), 164, 192–204
unhappy child at, 37 Katrina (weaning), 34–35, 40
war-time, residential, 314–315 Laurie (struggle towards
young staff in, relative immaturity independence), 113–122
of, 198 Lucia (second baby, and observer’s
nursery attachment(s), 296, 298, 309, 316 paternal function), 65–79
anxiety-provoking nature of, 297 Lucy (young girl’s entry into
Nursery Observation(s), 8, 12, 59, 77, nursery), 39–40
87, 323 Maria (child unhappy at nursery), 37
Nursery Observation seminar, 8, 59 Mario (“the house is a boat”:
nursery staff separation anxieties), 164,
attachments to, cost of, 298–301 205–210, 316, 332
interactions with, 312–314 mixed (Simone: second day at
need for support for, 164 nursery school), 48–56
nursery work, and role of Work Molly (child cared for by nanny and
Discussion, 318–319 complexities of establishing
Nutbrown, C., 296 observer’s role), 89–92
  narrative methods of, based on
object: Tavistock method, 317
second, child’s search for, 60–62 nursery-based, 19, 22
symbolic, 123–134, 327 Anna (observation rooted in
O’Brien, J., 241 attunement), 87–88
358 index

observation(s) (continued): conscious memories of own

nursery school and issues of childhood, 84
separation (Mario: “house is a and family, psychic space between,
boat”), 205–210 238
Paolo and Marco (child’s institutional pressure on, 87
investigations of sexuality), 20 male, particular problems of being,
participant, 211, 215, 224, 225, 331 174–178
dimensionality in, 215–223 negotiation of mother–child conflicts,
in special needs preschool: 111–112
Catherine (child potentially on neutrality/neutral stance of, 5, 11, 77,
autistic spectrum), 211, 215– 80, 326
223 paternal function of, 64–75
Tom (boy suffering from chronic position of, in difficult situations, 2,
illness), 212, 224–238 77
Paul (Thomas the Tank Engine: relationship with:
transitional objects), xiii, 213, developments in, 144–145
239–255, 327 observation, 174–177
Paulina (Young Child Observation as role of:
research tool), 274–294, 333 dynamic nature of, 85
psychoanalytic, 25, 212, 321, 325, 326 issues of intimacy and distance
training in, 241, 254, 255 in, 86
Rita (child feeling as if falling from re-definition of, 85–88
mother’s lap), 79 separation from, 74, 159
Robert (young boy unable to settle in as support for parents of child with
nursery), 30–38 grave illness, 237
Shaun (arrival of new baby and as threatening figure, 21
ending of observation: transference and countertransference
complexities of establishing feelings of, 77
observer’s role), 92–94 triadic thinking in, 271–272
Sian (interactions in nursery), obsessional mechanisms, defensive use
299–304, 309–318 of, 178
Simone (second day at nursery O’Donnell, R., 104
school), 26 oedipal anxieties, 58, 75, 265, 326, 328
Sophie (violent behaviour of young oedipal complex, pregenital, 60
girl who had been in several oedipal conflict(s)/struggles, 1, 15, 87,
children’s homes), 38 124, 125, 135, 148, 161, 257, 267,
Suraj (Asian child with feeding 269
difficulties, conceived via IVF), oedipal constellation, 60
99–112 oedipal couple, 149
triadic thinking in, importance of, oedipal desire(s), 242, 243, 252
259–273 and phantasies, 146
observational frames, 324 oedipal development, child’s, 82, 100,
observation group, 80, 287 111
observation methodology, to elicit oedipal feelings, 116, 119
children’s thoughts and of rivalry and hatred against mother,
feelings, 317 64
observation seminars, place of theory oedipal knowing, 124
in, 27 birth of, 131–134
observer(s): oedipal organization, 60
child’s identification with, 19, 76 oedipal pain, 149, 150
child’s use of (observation), 191 oedipal rhythm, 124
complexities of establishing observing father and son, 127–129
observer’s role, 89–92 oedipal rivalries, 328
 index 359

oedipal situation, 112, 121, 149 Pearson, E., 298

elaboration of, 153 peer interaction versus attachments to
psychoanalytic understanding of, 328 staff, 317–318
oedipal stage, 328 Pence, A., 296, 298
oedipal transitions, 332 penis, concept of, 264
oedipal triangle, 266 persecutory anxiety, 144, 151, 154
oedipal triangular space, 265 infant’s, 103
Oedipus complex, 257, 259, 323, 329 personal identity, sense of, 192
and capacity for triadic thinking, Peterson, G., 292
263–267 Pfundner, H., 294
and development of the depressive Pines, D., 103
position, 63 placenta, link with, 32
pregenital, 60 play analysis, 16, 180
omega function, 104 play therapy, 323
omnipotence, infantile, 81, 134, 170, 216, potty training, 271
264 pregenital Oedipus complex, 60
omnipotent defences, 190 pre-oedipal anxiety, 124, 129–131
omnipotent denial of reality, 185, 191 pre-oedipal dyadic or earlier
Onassis, J., 183 fragmented thinking, 271
oral and anal frustration, 62 primal family triangle, 67, 265
oral gratification, desire for, 144 primary intersubjectivity, 260
oral sadism, split-off and projected, 68 primary maternal preoccupation, 124
Organisation for Economic Cooperation primary object, gratifications and
and Development, 296 frustrations related to, 62
organizational defences, 254 primitive anxiety(ies), 13, 27, 70
O’Shaughnessy, E., 109, 326 primitive mental space, bad breast as,
over-stimulation, sensory, in nursery 263
school, 25 private space, 58, 66, 67, 136
  meaning of, 75–77
Page, J., 296 observer’s, in seminar, 77
Paolo and Marco (observation): child’s provision of for child, by observer,
investigations of sexuality, 20 70–73
paranoid anxieties, 103 projection(s), 27, 94, 101, 262–264
paranoid-schizoid position, 177, 263, maternal, 104
271 of oral aggression, 118
parental containment, 90 and splitting of child’s
parent–child attachment, 102 aggressiveness, 62
parent–child relationship, 258 unconscious processes of, between
parents, child removed from mother and baby, 327
(observation: Paul), xiii, 213, projective identification(s), 76, 87, 97,
239–255, 327 118, 139, 143, 148, 156, 262, 323
participant observation, 211, 224, 225, with mother, 67
331 realistic, 266
in special needs preschool, 215–223 projective testing, 266
Pasquetto, E., 160 psychic space, between family and
paternal figure, ambiguous, boy’s observer, 238
identification with, 56 psychoanalytic knowledge, observer’s
Paul (observation): Thomas the Tank use of, 9
Engine, as transitional object, psychoanalytic observation, 25, 212,
xiii, 213, 239–255, 327 325, 326
Paulina (observation): Young Child training in, 241, 254, 255
Observation as research tool, widening scope of, 321–324
274–294, 333 psychoanalytic thinking, 22, 324
360 index

psychotic children, 60 Salzberger-Wittenberg, I.:

Pullan-Watkins, K., 102 see Wittenberg, I.
Purdy, J., 102 Sapisochin, G., 161
  Scaife, M., 261
Quinodoz, J.-M., 326 Schaefer, S., 104
  Schäufele, U., 294
Rance, S., 273 Scheffler, A., 89
Raphael-Leff, J., 103 Schieve, L. A., 103
Ravetto, F., 160 Schlecht, D., 278
reality testing, 266 Schwediauer, L., 274–276, 289–294
Reddy, V., 262 secondary attachment figure, 304, 310
reference in speech, ability to use, 261 second baby, birth of, xiii, 26, 58, 64
reflective space, 76 second skin, 131, 332
three-dimensional, seminar as, 272 second-skin formation, 131
regression, 76, 228 Segal, H., 62, 63, 153, 264
to splitting mechanisms, 63 self-observational capacity, 153
reparative impulses, child’s, 63 Selleck, D., 296
reparative work and restoration of seminar group and role of theory, 88–94
internal family, 156 seminar leader as container, maternal
research group, 287 and regulatory (paternal)
research project, “Toddlers’ Adjustment function of, 88
to Out-of-Home Care”, 276–278 sensory over-stimulation in nursery
data collection and statistical school, 25
analyses, 279–281 separation:
use of Young Child Observation, from mother, 29, 65, 163
281–288 from observer, 74, 159
research tool, Young Child Observation separation anxiety(ies), 32, 100, 110,
as (Paulina: observation), 267
274–294 experience of, 85, 123–134, 327
residential war-time nursery, interaction difficult, 242
with peers in, 314–315 separation issues, 15
Rhode, M., 158 separations and transitions, facing, 205
“Richard”, Klein’s analysis of, 42, 79 Serlin, M., xxi, 213, 239–255, 327, 331
Rigardetto, R., 160 setting, reliability and consistency of,
Rita (observation): child’s experience of 326
falling from mother’s lap, 79 sexual difference, child’s discovery of,
Robert (observation): young boy unable 82
to settle in nursery, 30–37 sexuality, child’s investigations of, 20
Robertson, J., 6, 36 Shallcross, W., 178
Rome, Italy, Centro Studi “Martha shared affects, 257
Harris”, 160 sharing, difficulties in, 82
Rosenbluth, D., 36 Shaun (observation): arrival of new
Rosenfeld, D., 64, 70 baby and ending of observation,
Rustin, M. E., ix, xxi, 1–23, 77, 85, 137, complexities of establishing
164, 192–204, 213, 244, 293, 318, observer’s role, 92–94
321, 324 Shpancer, N., 281
Rustin, M. J., ix, xxi, 76, 77, 137, 213, 244, Shuttleworth, J., 137, 282
281, 288, 321–334 Sian (observation): interactions in
Rutter, M., 296 nursery, 299–304, 309–318
  sibling(s):
sadism, 63, 270 new, birth of, 21, 62, 83, 163, 242
oral, split-off and projected, 68 stillbirth of, child’s response to,
projection of, 264 135–160
 index 361

sibling love, 81, 83 Tavistock model of Young Child

sibling order, importance of, 83 Observation, 298
sibling relationship(s), xii, 80, 81 use of, 281, 282, 286, 288, 293
good and bad aspects of, 290–292 Tavistock Nursery School, 13, 59
love and rivalry within, 84 Tavistock Observational Studies course,
sibling rivalry, 81–83, 170 80
Siegel, D. J., 265 Tavistock Training, place of Young Child
Sigman, M., 260 Observation in, 59–60
Simone (mixed observation): second Taylor Buck, E., 164, 192–204
day at nursery school, 26, 48–56 theory, role of, and seminar group,
Simpson, D., 118, 122 88–94
Sintrovani, P., 102 theory of mind, 261, 265
skin container, 170 thinking, flexible, 262
Skogstad, W., 11, 284 “thinking bench”, 7
social defence systems, 297 “thinking breast”, 85
Sophie (observation): violent behaviour third object, infant’s need for, 264
of young girl who had been in third position, 67, 257, 262, 265, 323
several children’s homes, 38 mental, 271
space for thinking, 327 Thomas the Tank Engine:
special needs preschool, participant Paul (observation), xiii, 213, 239–255,
observation in, 211, 215–223 327
speech patterns, evolution of, 324 significance and enduring popularity
splitting, 63, 71, 86, 111, 112, 118, 143 of, 241–244
and projection of child’s Thorp, M., 296
aggressiveness, 62 three-dimensional mental space, 271
Squires, J., 102, 103 Tietze, W., 278
Steinhardt, K., 282 “Toddlers’ Adjustment to Out-of-Home
Steptoe, P., 102 Care”: research project, 276–
Stern, D., 260 294
Stern, M., 273 use of Young Child Observation,
Sternberg, J., 84, 332 281–288
Stevenson, R. L., 164 Tom (participant observation): boy
stillbirth of sibling, child’s response to, suffering from serious illness,
135–160 212, 224–238
Stokes, J., 202 training in psychoanalytic observation,
Stump, D. J., 326 241, 254, 255
substance use, 239 transference, 77, 153, 322, 323, 326
Suraj (observation): Asian child with transference–countertransference
feeding difficulties, conceived relationship, 326
via IVF, 19, 97, 99–112 transition(s):
Sutcliffe, A. G., 102 between cultures, child’s, 192–204
symbolic containment, 205 poor or callous management of, 332
symbolic play, 154 transitional object(s), 213, 239–255, 327
symbolic representation, 213 transitional phenomena, 249
space of, 27 transition process(es), 276, 279–282, 286,
symbol use, 261 288–293
systemic family therapy, ix evaluation of, 279
  study of, 281
Tager-Flusberg, H., 261 successful, definition of, 277
talion law, 79 transmission of mind, between infant
Tavistock Clinic, ix, xiv, 36, 79, 321 and caregiver, 262
Child Psychotherapy Training, 59 Trevarthen, C., 260, 315
and Esther Bick, 12–14 triadic mental space, 264
362 index

triadic thinking, 257 weaning, 14, 35, 81, 105, 267, 271
capacity for, and Oedipus complex, Katrina (observation), 34–35, 40
263–267 and turning towards father as “ideal
link with development, 259–273 container”, 62
linking and acting, and dyadic Weizsaecker, E., 294
interactions, 260–263 Wellner, B., 278
in observer, 271–272 Whisky, 241, 242
triangular dynamics, 60, 259 whole objects, recognition of, 263
triangular mental space, 264, 265 Williams, M. H., 60, 62, 104, 221, 225
triangular relationship(s), 259, 263, 323 Wininger, M., 294
triangular space: Winnicott, D. W., 33, 81, 250, 323
oedipal, 265 mother, relationship to,
and third object, 264 internalization of, 241
triangulation, 264 “no such thing as a baby”, 330
development of, 257 play, patterns of, 241
Tronick, E. Z., 260 playing, role of, 251
Trunkenpolz, K., 281, 282, 294 primary maternal preoccupation, 124
Tustin, F., 13, 59 transitional object(s), 241, 249, 327
  abandonment of, 250, 253
unconscious mental life, 326 transitional phenomena, 249
Undheim, A. M., 297 Wittenberg, I., xiii, xxii, 25, 29–41, 332
United Nations Convention on the Work Discussion, 212, 293, 314, 321, 331
Rights of the Child, 317 role of, in nursery work, 318–319
Urwin, C., 112, 263, 273, 282, 332 Work Discussion Seminar, 212
   
Vandemuelebroecke, L., 102 Yeo, B., xxii, 163, 167–178
Verdelli, F., 79 Yim, H., 296
videotapes/video recordings/ Young Child Observation (passim), 2
videography, 6, 279, 281, 288, vs. Infant Observation, 1
289 methodology, 258
rating of, data from, 292 object of study of, 324–331
used in the research project, 278 place of, in Tavistock Training, 59–60
Volterra, V., 261 as research tool, 274–294
  structure of, 321
Waddell, M., ix, 84, 167 Tavistock model of, 281, 282, 286, 288,
“waiting bench”, 7 298, 293
Wakelyn, J., 331 as therapeutic resource, 331
Warden, S., xxi, 98, 123–134, 327 value of, 331–334
War Nurseries, London, 5–9, 323 Young Child Observation seminar,
war-time nursery, residential, 13, 14, 58, 59, 80–95, 135, 205,
interaction with peers in, 282–284
314–315  
Watillon-Naveau, A., 331 Zaphiriou-Woods, M., 7