Participants observe a baby from birth until two years of age, paying close attention to how they relate to their carers and environment. Observing an infant fine- tunes your ability to notice intricate and subtle detail and recall sequences of interactions. By reflecting on your observations in a small seminar group, you then build up a picture of the unfolding inner world of the infants and their relationships.
The seminars offer a place to ‘feel into’ or empathically imagine the baby’s experience, to be curious and to explore ideas about what might be going on in the baby’s inner world.
The aims of the course are to help you to:
- Develop a keen understanding of the ways in which human beings develop
- Witness the intense psychosomatic experience of the human infant
- Enhance your attunement to non-verbal and pre-verbal communication
- Sharpen all your observational skills
- Deepen your attentiveness and analytic attitude
- Enrich an appreciation of counter-transference experiences
- Enhance clinical practice
The group and the seminar leader will help you to identify a suitable family who are expecting a baby. Participants then visit the infant in their family setting from birth. People observe until the baby’s second birthday. However, if the student is a PPA trainee, they are only required to undertake a one year observation, although they may choose to extend this until the baby’s second birthday.
In the seminars each participant presents their observations in turn for confidential group discussion. The discussion is a chance to clarify, amplify and explore ideas about what might be happening at all sorts of levels. It can be especially fascinating to discover more about non-verbal and pre-verbal communication, early states of mind and to see the difference between the various infants’ personalities and experiences.
This two-year course provides an opportunity to develop knowledge and understanding of human development through direct observation of an infant during its early life. The body of knowledge is drawn from the main psychoanalytic schools. The course contains experiential and some theoretical learning.
On satisfactory completion of the Infant Observation Paper participants are awarded a Certificate by the bpf. Those opting not to write will receive a Certificate of Attendance.