Intimate Transformations

Jeanne Magagna was Head of Psychotherapy Services at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children for twenty-two years. She also worked for ten years at Ellern Mede Centre for Eating Disorders in London. She received professional qualifications as a child, adult and family psychotherapist and a doctorate from the Tavistock Clinic. Formerly, Jeanne was the vice-president and joint coordinator of training for the Centro Studi Martha Harris Tavistock model trainings in Florence and Venice. She edited 'Universals of Psychoanalysis' and jointly edited 'Psychotherapy with Families and Intimate Transformations: Babies with their Families' (Karnac Books, 2004). Her special interest is applying the understandings of infant observation to work with children suffering from communication difficulties and anorexia nervosa.

'This is a pioneering book, first in its study of the power of our brothers and sisters to shape our identities and personalities, and second, in the successful use of video conferencing to contain the intense feelings evoked in all close observers of young infants. The observations themselves make a gripping read. It is vital reading for everyone concerned with the developments of small children.'- Anne Alvarez, PhD, MACP, Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist'Remarkable for its breadth and depth, Intimate Transformations is a vivid demonstration of infant observation and its value for the study of human development, psychotherapy practice, education, and institutional consultation. Intimate Transformations immerses therapists in the world of early experience and unconscious fantasy and brings us face to face with the precious resource of our own inner world. The contributors' detailed descriptions are important reading for therapists, parents and educators. They plunge therapists deep into a discussion of the primitive fantasies that underlie the distress of adult patients. they give parents more than a glimpse of subtleties that escape their attention when they are on the front line raising their own children.'- Jill Savege Scharff M.D., M.R.C. Psych, Co-Director International Psychotherapy Institute Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Georgetown University, Washington DC, Teaching Analyst, Washington Psychoanalytic Institute

• Introduction -- Observing Babies in Their Families -- The origins of self-esteem in infancy -- The sibling link -- The role of the mother in developing the capacity to bear emotion -- One, two, three, baby you and me: baby’s experience of self and others -- Oedipal anxieties, the birth of a new baby, and the role of the observer -- Applications of Infant Observation studies -- Fear of massacre and death: containing anxiety in the neonatal intensive care unit -- Keep on knocking but you can’t come in: rejection as a defence against emotional pain in the NICU -- The shadow of your smile: intrusion or engulfment -- Learning from infant observation: understanding adults in psychoanalytic psychotherapy -- The Infant Observation Seminar Group -- Teaching infant observation: developing a language of understanding -- Teaching infant observation by video-link -- Infant observation augmented by the affective learning experience -- Learning through affective group experience -- Concluding remarks