Closely Observed Infants

This revised and updated edition introduces the practice of infant observation within the setting of ordinary home life, covering its key principles, theoretical ideas and methods. Building on the work of Freud, Melanie Klein, Esther Bick and Winnicott, it shows how the capacity to learn from direct observation can be developed. Written for those working in child health, early years education, childhood studies, social work, psychology, psychiatry and others concerned with young children’s wellbeing, the new edition describes recent developments in the psychoanalytic understanding of babies and young children. The new edition links a psychoanalytic understanding of babies and young children growing up within family and caring relationships to recent scientific research.The chapters in Part 1 have been written to reflect new work in the field, including the emergence of observation on-line, the effects of the Covid 19 Pandemic, social changes in family structures, and the place of infant observation in contemporary psychoanalytic thinking.Part 2 consists of four observations from the original edition, and six new observations, including one undertaken in China. These have been selected to reflect the ethnic diversity and the variety of family forms which are encountered by observers of infants today