From Infant Observation to Working with Young Children and Their Parents
This program was presented on Saturday, April 9, 2005
Presenter: Lisa Miller
The Tavistock model of Infant Observation has been an essential element of training of child psychotherapists in Britain, and more recently, of practitioners across disciplines working with children and adults across the globe. This conference will focus on methods of working with young children and their parents and the clear links between the discipline of Infant Observation and this kind of work.
Taking Infant Observation as the starting point, Lisa Miller, one of the founding members of the Under 5's Service at the Tavistock Clinic, will describe this observational tradition as it developed at the Tavistock and it's applicability to clinical practice. She discusses the particular qualities, derived from an awareness of psychoanalytic ideas and insight, which distinguish the Tavistock method of brief interventions with young children and their families from other models of intervention. Participants will learn about the Under 5's Brief Intervention method as well as the model of parent work in which the child is the central focus of the treatment, but is not present in the session. Mrs. Miller provides illustrations of these models through her own case material and through discussion of a clinical case presented at the conference. Participants will have ample opportunity to raise questions and join the discussion throughout the morning.
Presenter
Lisa Miller trained as a child psychotherapist at the Tavistock Clinic where she then worked until her retirement in 2004. She was involved in clinical work, in teaching and training, and during the latter part of her career was head of the Child and Family Department. Among other interests, she is particularly attached to infant observation and to work with families with babies and very young children. She managed the Under 5's Service for many years and is editor of the International Journal of Observation.