Stockholm 17th March 2010
To all EFPP delegates
3rd Infant Observation Workshop
NEUROAFFECTIVE DEVELOPMENT AND EARLY
RELATIONSHIPS AS SEEN IN INFANT OBSERVATIONS
Stockholm 29th-31st October 2010
For 30-35 participants
Conference venue: Ericastiftelsen, Odengatan 9, 114 24 Stockholm
Guest speaker: Susan Hart
presenting a paper on:
“Basic principles of neuroaffective developmental psychology –
From arousal regulation, through emotional synchrony to
self-regulation and mentalization”.
Dear colleagues,
As you are all delegates within the EFPP, we ask you to convey this
information to people interested in the topic in your own country. Please,
spread the information regarding the Third Infant Observation Workshop in
Stockholm, 29-31 October, 2010. Further details can be found on the EFPP
website www.efpp.org
As an EFPP ‘Special Interest Group’ working party formed at the delegates’ meeting of March
2005 in Stockholm, we undertook the task of promoting Infant Observation as an essential
training instrument for psychotherapists in all the sections. The ongoing workshop has taken
place in most of the EFPP conferences during the last years, till the most recent one in Florence
2010.
In December 2005 the first EFPP Infant Observation Workshop took place in Athens, Greece.
There were 18 participants from Israel, Cyprus, Greece, Switzerland, Norway, Denmark and
Sweden. The invited main speaker was Prof. Didier Houzel from France, who presented an
extremely interesting paper on “Infant observation and psychic receptivity”. The conference had
as its special aim to address delegates from countries who had just started or were about to start
trainings, while the main focus was on the teaching of infant observation and the role of the
seminar leaders. Each part of the workshop started with a short presentation, but ample time was
allowed for the mutual exchange of ideas and thoughts among the participants.
In February 2008 the second workshop on Infant Observation and its applications took place
where the focus was upon the method of Infant Observation as a most useful tool for any
psychotherapist working in the field of psychoanalytic psychotherapy. That workshop was held in
Pisa, Italy. Jeanne Magagna from London, presented a paper on:"Thinking about crying; crying
and not thinking: The link between infant observation and psychotherapy". Some 40
psychotherapists working with adults, groups, children and adolescents came to this appreciated
workshop.
In October 2010, 29-31, the third workshop will be held in Stockholm, at the Erica Foundation.
The theme this time will be on neuroaffective development and the link between the brain,
attachment and the personality. The Danish psychologist Susan Hart is invited to be the main
speaker. She will speak on the extremely interesting link between attachment and the
neuroaffective development of the infant’s brain and the forming of the personality. Her
presentation will be closely linked to the other presentations of the workshop (e.g. observations
of child – caregiver and clinical material of psychotherapy sessions).
We repeat, as we did in earlier letters concerning the aim of infant observation:
The weekly observations of an infant in his/her family according to the Esther Bick
method has been constantly exposed in the EFPP conferences and is thoroughly described
in psychoanalytic literature, like the International Journal of Infant Observation and its
applications and books such as:
Briggs, A. (2002). Surviving Space. Papers on Infant Observation. The Tavistock Clinic Series.
London: Karnac.
Magagna J., Bakalar N., Icooper H., Levy J., Norman C., Shank C.(2005). Intimate
Tranformations. 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.
Cresti, L. Nissim, S. (2007). Percorsi di crescita:dagli occhi alla mente. Roma: Borla.
As we established from the beginning, every effort is made to keep the cost of the workshop
down to the minimum: Registration fee 150 EUR (1 500 SEK), including meals. We hope that
this third workshop, as it happened with the previous two, will function as “a potential space”,
where fruitful and interesting ideas can be shared and worked on.
Please read the attached file with the invitation and spread it further to your
own national network!
The working party for Infant Observation in the EFPP:
Britta Blomberg, Sweden
Anne Holländer, Denmark
Effie Layiou-Lignos, Greece
Simona Nissim, Italy
Miriam Rosenthal, Israel
britta.blomberg@ericastiftelsen.se
psykliah@post1.tele.dk
effie.lignos@gmail.com
simonan@tin.it
miriamrosenthal@bezeqint.net