accommodation & transfer | registration form | programme & registration form & site maps of venue and hotels as pdf-document

First workshop on Infant Observation

Psychoanalytic infant observation is a vital component in the training of child and adolescent psychotherapists, psychoanalysts and clinicians of allied professions. Its usefulness to clinical work is well established worldwide, as it enables clinicians to conceptualise the nonverbal and implicit interactive processes and can prepare psychotherapy trainees and enhance clinicians' capacity for perceptual and emotional receptivity. Through the training, the observers can develop 'empathic receptivity', as they unconsciously engage with primitive states of mind, when following the infant's emotional development within his/her family.

During the last EFPP conferences, presentations on infant observation have formed an ongoing theme. We have now extended this work and formed a working party within the EFPP with the aim of promoting a space for reflecting upon infant observation as a training method. The task of the working party is also to facilitate countries or sections that have not yet started a training in Infant Observation and are planning to do so.

Therefore we are inviting you to a workshop in Athens, (max.25 colleagues), on the 9th and 10th December 2005, focusing on:

• the practice of infant observation
  being an observer - containing primitive emotional states
  linking infant observation to clinical practice
• setting up and leading infant observation seminars
• development and support of seminar leaders

The guest speaker

Professor Didier Houzel, Caen, France

will present a paper on

Infant observation and psychic receptivity

Dimitris Anastosopoulos, (vice chair of the EFPP), will open the workshop. There will be plenty of time for reflection in small group discussions over the topics and exchange of experiences, thoughts, difficulties and hopes within the EFPP network.

We look forward to welcoming you to Athens.
The working party, (EFPP, child section delegates)

Britta Blomberg (Sweden), Anne Holländer (Denmark),
Effie Layiou-Lignos (Greece), Miriam Rosenthal (Israel)

The method of weekly observations of an infant in his/her family according to the Esther Bick approach is thoroughly described in literature like:
Briggs, A. (2002). Surviving Space. Papers on Infant Observation. The Tavistock Clinic Series. London: Karnac.
Miller, L. Rustin, M & M, Shuttlewoth, J. (1993). Closely Observed Infants. London: Duckworth
Reid, S. (ed) (1997). Developments in Infant Observation. The Tavistock Model. London: Routledge.
Sternberg, J. (2005). Infant Observation at the heart of training. London: Karnac.

The whole programme incl. registration form, accomodation & flights and site maps can be downloaded either as pdf-document.

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