Psychoanalytic observation in community and primary health care education

Summary

This paper describes a psychoanalytic observation seminar that was set up as part of an MA in Community and Primary Health Care programme. The seminar was intended for senior professionals outside psychotherapy trainings, drawn from the health and social-care fields. The author outlines the way in which a conventional infant-observation model was adapted for this group, enabling the students to observe both individual subjects and also diverse primary-health and community-care settings. The advantages of such a learning experience are discussed; and also the inevitable anxieties stirred by it. Several examples of observations are provided, showing how students were helped to negotiate and explore challenging primary-health and community-care settings.