Table Of ContentTHOMSON-SALO Prelims_THOMSON-SALO Prelims 10/11/2017 11:36 Page i
CHAPTERTITLE I
ENGAGING INFANTS
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ENGAGING INFANTS
Embodied Communication
in Short-term
Infant–Parent Therapy
Frances Thomson-Salo
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First published in 2018 by
Karnac Books Ltd
118 Finchley Road, London NW3 5HT
Copyright © 2018 to Frances Thomson-Salo
The right of Frances Thomson-Salo to be identified as the author of this
work has been asserted in accordance with §§77 and 78 of the Copyright
Design and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior written permission of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A C.I.P. for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 78220 591 3
Edited, designed and produced by The Studio Publishing Services Ltd
www.publishingservicesuk.co.uk
email: [email protected]
Printed in Great Britain
www.karnacbooks.com
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CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vii
ABOUT THE AUTHOR ix
INTRODUCTION xi
PART I
ENGAGING THE INFANT IN INFANT–PARENT THERAPY
CHAPTER ONE
Recognising the infant as subject 3
CHAPTER TWO
What an infant brings 25
PART II
ENGAGING INFANTS IN PERINATAL SETTINGS
CHAPTER THREE
Infants and their parents in the perinatal period 41
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vi CONTENTS
CHAPTER FOUR
Infants with young parents 67
CHAPTER FIVE
Infants and their parents in neonatal intensive care units 81
PART III
ENGAGING INFANTS IN PAEDIATRIC SETTINGS
CHAPTER SIX
Infants and their parents in paediatric settings 105
CHAPTER SEVEN
Infants and their parents in therapy groups 127
CHAPTER EIGHT
Relating to infant and parent in the context 149
of family violence
PART IV
TOWARDS UNDERSTANDING SUCCESSFUL OUTCOMES
CHAPTER NINE
Countertransference in infant–parent therapy 161
CHAPTER TEN
The therapeutic alliance, the presence of the 181
therapist, and transformational moments
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Responding to infants and interpreting transference 193
CHAPTER TWELVE
Revisiting mechanisms of change in infant–parent therapy 207
AFTERWORD 215
REFERENCES 217
INDEX 227
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I especially acknowledge Campbell Paul, long term colleague who
has unstintingly shared many insights. I also thank others who
have shared their experience including Dilys Daws, Juliet Hopkins,
Brigid Jordan, Sarah Jones, Ann Morgan, Sue Morse, Michele Meehan,
Meredith Banks, and Bev O’Sullivan.
I am grateful to those families I have known who have enabled
other families to be helped; all have been de-identified or composite
vignettes given, with as little background as possible. I hope that if
any one recognises themselves they will feel they have been described
in a respectful way.
I thank the following publishers for kind permission to draw on
previously published papers:
Chapters One, Three, and Six draw in part on Thomson Salo (2007).
Recognizing the infant as subject in infant–parent psychotherapy.
International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 88: 961–979.
Chapter 1 also draws in part on Thomson-Salo & Paul (2015).
Looking forward, look back: hospital-based infant–parent therapy
with Chinese families living in Australia. Australasian Journal of
Psychotherapy, 33: 35–52.
Chapters One and Two draw in part on the paper Thomson-Salo
et al. (1999). “Free to be playful”: direct therapeutic work with infants.
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viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Infant Observation Journal. The International Journal of Infant Observation
and Its Applications, 3: 47–62.
Chapter Two draws in part on Thomson-Salo & Paul (2010). Being
there: the “something more” that the baby brings to the therapeutic
process. Australian Association for Infant Mental Health Newsletter, 23:
1–4.
Chapter Two includes some ideas from an earlier paper, Thomson-
Salo & Paul (2011). Reconsidering parental sexuality, and infantile
sensual excitement and greed: what is lost in infant mental health
without these concepts? The Signal, 19: 7–12; a fuller version has been
published in 2017: Understanding the sexuality of infants within care-
giving relationships in the first year. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 27:
320–327.
Chapters Two and Ten also draw in part on Thomson-Salo & Paul
(2015). Why do infants laugh? A transformational moment in the
therapeutic encounter. Australian Association for Infant Mental Health
Newsletter, 28: 2–4.
Chapter Four draws in part on Thomson-Salo (2014a). A preven-
tive attachment intervention with adolescent mothers: elaboration of
the intervention. In: R. Emde & M. Leuzinger-Bohleber. (Eds.), Early
Parenting and the Prevention of Disorder: Psychoanalytic Research at
Interdisciplinary Frontiers (pp. 343–357). London: Karnac.
Chapter Five draws in part on the chapter, Thomson-Salo (2014c).
Care of the long-stay infant and parents. In: R. J. Martin, A. A.
Fanaroff, & M. C. Walsh (Eds.), Neonatal–Perinatal Medicine, Volume 1,
(10th edn) (pp. 642–646). Philadelelphia, PA: Elsevier.
Chapter Six draws in part on Thomson-Salo & Paul (2014). Levels
of feedback, levels of interaction. The Australian Association of Infant
Mental Health Newsletter, 27: 6–7.
Chapter Seven draws on a 1994 talk I gave at the Sydney Institute
for Psychoanalysis, Therapeutic Interventions in Postnatal Depression:
Groupwork, and on the 1997 paper co-authored with C. Paul, Infant-led
innovations in a mother baby therapy group. Journal of Child
Psychotherapy, 23: 219–244.
Chapter Eight draws in part on Thomson-Salo & Paul. (Eds.)
(2008). The Baby as Subject. Melbourne: Stonnington Press.
Chapter Eleven draws in part on Thomson-Salo (2015). Interpreting
in the infant transference. Australian Association for Infant Mental Health
Newsletter, 28: 2–5.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Frances Thomson-Salo, Associate Professor, trained in the UK as an
adult and child psychoanalyst and is a member of the British
Psychoanalytical Society and of the Australian Psychoanalytical
Society, of which she is a past president. She is a training analyst, and
was overall chair of the Committee on Women and Psychoanalysis
for the International Psychoanalytical Association from 2009–2015.
She is Series Editor for Karnac’s “Psychoanalysis and Women” series
and a member of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of
Psychoanalysis.
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