Final remarks on the psychoanalytic observation of children: origins and recent developments, training, and research, its significance for psychotherapy, and other fields of psychosocial work. Vienna April 19–21st, 2024

This paper outlines three principal aims of psychoanalytic infant observation as it has been developed according to the ‘Tavistock model' since the 1940s. These are concerned with the personal and professional development of observers; with infant observation as a form of research; and with the therapeutic practice of infant observation. It considers how social differences which have hitherto been somewhat neglected in the psychoanalytic field can be taken into account in infant observation, without loss to its primary purpose which is concerned with understanding the the interactions, both conscious and unconscious, of observers, infants and their families.