Brief interventions with parents, infants, and young children: A framework for thinking

Abstract

In this article, I give an overview of the “Brief Intervention Model of work with Under Fives,” focusing on ways in which observational skills, awareness of transference and countertransference phenomena, and addressing the underlying feelings thereby conveyed, can facilitate understanding and change. Two clinical vignettes illustrate the application of psychoanalytic thinking to work with the Under Fives Model and the fluctuating shifts of attention involved in trying to understand the meaning of what is being expressed. This includes the use of the clinicians’ own emotional experience to work out “what the matter can be” (Emanuel & Bradley, 2008)