Thinking About Infants and Young Children: (The Harris Meltzer Trust Series)

This book describes some of the important aspects of the development of infants and young children from birth to school age. It is illustrated by vignettes of scenes between parents and children and it touches on many of the questions and feelings evoked by the intense emotional relationship between parents and children.

About the Author :
Martha Harris (1919-1987) read English at University College London and then Psychology at Oxford. She taught in a Froebel Teacher Training College and was trained as a Psychologist at Guys Hospital, as a Child Psychotherapist at the Tavistock Clinic, where she was for many years responsible for the child psychotherapy training in the department of Children and Families, and as a Psychoanalyst at the British Institute of Psychoanalysis. Together with her first husband Roland Harris (a teacher) she started a pioneering schools counselling service. With her second husband Donald Meltzer she wrote a psychoanalytical model of The Child in the Family in the Community for multidisciplinary use in schools and therapeutic units.

Review :
'Martha Harris's book Thinking about Infants and Young Children is truly a seminal work. It remains as lively, insightfuland relevant as Martha Harris was as a teacher. This is a book that has not dated. It has accompanied me in my professional work, from London to Melbourne, since 1975, as a valuable resource to me as both clinician and teacher of infant observation.'- ANN CEBON, Psychoanalytic psychotherapist (Tavistock), Melbourne, Australia'What makes this book so attractive? Is it the way it raises problems without putting the blame on parents? Is it the deep understanding of children? Is it the simplicity of expression with which complicated and important issues are discussed? All these qualities made the book a great source of inspiration for me.'MIRIAM BOTBOL, Author, Bebe, bienvenido al mundo; founder member of the Psychoanalytic Group of Barcelona, Spain'Psychic growth is a very complex process throughout childhood. There is no recipe for rearing a child, no good or bad way per se to treat him. Parents must be able to observe each of their children and think about them individually. In limpid language, Martha Harris gives many wonderful illustrations of this way of "observing and thinking".'- DIDIER HOUZEL, Psychoanalyst, professor of child psychiatry, a founder of the GERPEN mother-baby research group, Caen, France'The Italian edition of this book, published in 1972, was immediately a huge success because it was not aimed at offering advice to parents and educators, but rather at a psychological understanding of the child that would improve the ambience and environment in which he was being brought up. Its step by step account of childhood includes aspects that were hardly taken into consideration at that time - such as sexuality, death, and parental divorce or separation. The author's depth of thought and ease of expression have maintained readers' interest over the years, as has been confirmed by the editions of 1985, 1999 and 2009.'- ROMANA NEGRI, Child psychotherapist and professor of child neuropsychiatry, University of Milan, Italy'Thinking about Infants and Young Children has become a classic in Brazil since its publication in Portuguese in 1988. Thanks to this book both specialist and ordinary readers have had the opportunity to become acquainted with basic psychoanalytical concepts relevant to both the emotional development of the infant and to parental functions.'- MARISA PELELLA MELEGA, Psychoanalyst, founder of the Mother-Baby Study Centre, Sao Paulo, Brazil'It is a pleasure to have a new edition of this lovely book, which encompasses so many core aspects of the life of the baby, his parents and siblings. Mrs Harris describes with clarity the development of these first relationships. I have for years recommended this book to baby observation teachers and professionals interested in the emotional development of the infant and work with parents. It is written in such a captivating and lively way that many parents also have found it very useful in thinking about their infants.'- MARJA SCHULMAN, Child psychotherapist (Tavistock), Helsinki, Finland