Psychoanalytic Therapy with Infants and their Parents Practice, Theory, and Results

"Talking to babies is usually associated with "babyish" talk, or at the most, with "motherese"... This book is about "talking true" to the baby and to his/her parents altogether; naming their affects and wondering about their representations one of the other. ...The clinical vignettes used throughout the book illustrate, in a lively and simple manner, the ways the baby plays a role by its very presence in the therapy room... The author is one of the few clinicians who have dared to quantify the impact of psychoanalytical treatment." - Miri Keren, M.D., WAIMH President.

"This extraordinary, ground-breaking work introduces us to a newly emerging psychoanalytic field, that of the application of psychoanalytic theory and technique; not just to the traditional infant/mother dyad, but to the infant in his/her own right separately as well as together with mother. ... Central to the author's point of view is his innovative belief that even the youngest infants can communicate and understand communication by virtue of their ability to employ an inchoate, pre-lexical, affect-based language including, signs, prosody, gestures, and priming." - James S. Grotstein

"This book is not only fascinating. It also has the courage to open up a new and original thread of research in psychoanalysis, namely the exploration of the "basic grammar" of the baby worries. No child is too young to be listened to, understood and if necessary addressed. ...This is not only a ground-breaking text in the field of theory. It is also a comprehensive handbook, full of precious data on the practice of infant-parent psychotherapy. It will provide a revolution for all professionals working with babies." - Antonino Ferro, is President of the Italian Psychoanalytic Society and also Consultant Associate Editor of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis.

"Salomonsson's writing is clear, elegant and engaging. The fact that he draws from fields as varied as clinical work with infants, several veins of psychoanalytic theory, the philosophy of language, developmental psychology, neuropsychoanalyis, and Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde means that his readers are in for a bit of vigorous mental exercise. I believe that they will find the effort worthwhile and that, by the end, they will find that their own conceptions of the talking cure have expanded." - Paul M. Brinich, PsycCRITIQUES