Description:
Ethnographic methods are used to investigate infant-toddlers relationships in an early childhood setting. The metaphorical and emotionally based concepts of holding [Winnicott, D. W. (1960). The theory of the parent-infant relationship. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 41, 585-595.] and container: contained [Bion, W. R. (1962). Learning from experience. London: William Heinemann.] provide complementary angles for interpreting pre-verbal, pre-symbolic, conscious and unconscious processes in the play of young children feeling and thinking, connecting and communicating with and in their bodies, sensually within interpersonal fields [Lewin, K. (1935). A dynamic theory of personality. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill]. Vitality affects [Stern, D. (2010). Forms of vitality: Exploring dynamic experience in psychology, the arts, psychotherapy, and development. Oxford: Oxford University Press] add the felt-tone of moving bodies to these interpretations. The complex relational ways in which these young toddlers played, co-creating interpersonal fields of play are the focus of this paper. (author abstract)
Resource Type:
Reports & Papers
Country:
New Zealand