Teaching observation to non-clinical students: continuing thoughts

Abstract

In this short paper the author continues to explore thinking around the teaching of observation to students who are not planning to become clinicians. Is it relevant? What is its impact? Using experiences from two groups and comments from students themselves, she suggests that infant and young child observation is not only the province of pre-clinicians Á there is a profound learning experience inherent in the task, having, as she suggests, its roots in the primal relationship between infant and caretaker, and the vital role of this in the unfolding of psychic life.

Infant observation and research: a reply to Steven Groarke

“…Their primary conceptual reference seems to be to psychoanalytic ideas, as we see in Esther Bick's work, and in papers on infant observation by Edwards (2008Edwards ( , 2009. Infant observation is conceived as a different locus of application, that is all.…”