Parent-Infant Psychotherapy

The Parent-Infant Program, under the direction of Talia Hatzor, PhD, provides an intensive two-year training in the normal development and disorders of infancy and toddlerhood, with a focus on parent-child relationships and treatments. A foundational component of this program involves weekly one-hour in-home baby observation; this unique experience, wherein PIP participants follow a newborn through the first two years of life, is based on the internationally renowned Tavistock method. In addition, each student will be assigned an individual supervisor and will gain experience in intervening with a parent-child dyad. We facilitate matching PIP participants with both the infant observation settings and with their clinical placements.   

Monday evening coursework comprises two sections. The first class, from 6:00-7:30PM, is a seminar devoted to the ongoing experience of infant observation. The second class, which is shared with CAPP participants for the first semester, meets from 8:00-9:30 and is organized around a series of scholarly and clinical topics.  In year 1, we read and discuss a range of psychoanalytic and attachment-based theories about early mental life and begin to examine dyadic and other interventions that enhance parent-infant relationships and support babies’ developmental progression. Our syllabus includes readings from and conversations about major theorists and researchers (e.g., Freud, Klein, Winnicott, Bion, Mahler, Bowlby, Stern, Fonagy, Maine, Salomonsson, Lebovici, and more). In year 2, we look more closely at the potential challenges and psychopathologies of parenting and early childhood, including topics such as problems of pregnancy and the postpartum period, developmental issues, grief and mourning, the emergence of separation anxieties, intergenerational trauma, and disorders of eating and sleeping. Specific techniques in the clinical work with parents and infants will be taught. 

The parent-infant program welcomes clinicians and scholars from several backgrounds who are interested in gaining in-depth knowledge of and experience with 0-3 populations and their parents; past participants have included psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, occupational therapists, and pediatricians.  We welcome clinician who work with children and are interested in expanding their knowledge and skills to work with under three, and clinician who work with adults and are interested in expanding their understanding in how to work with the infant-parent relationship. 

Infant Observation

The practice of Infant Observation Tavistock Model is a specific modality which uses naturalistic observation of an infant in its family setting to help students develop skills that are part of the “psychoanalytic attitude,” and a basis for clinical work in parent/infant psychotherapy, or psychoanalytic practice with children or adults.
 
Each student visits a family with an infant for an hour a week starting from just before the birth through the baby’s first two years. In the home, observers take up a background stance of friendly attentiveness, taking in whatever is happening in the ordinary life of the baby for that hour without taking notes.
 
Because of this unique experience, the student develops the capacity to observe a mother and baby, living through and resolving routine and difficult situations in their own ways. With the help of the seminar, the observer learns to process the inclination for judgmental and blaming thoughts which arise when anxiety is stirred.  Often, the observer’s containing presence can have a positive effect on mothers, enabling them to think for themselves about their babies, and to respond to their baby from that empathic place.
 
Along with developing sensitivity and precision in observation, the course teaches how to think freshly and inductively from observation, including trying to understand how the developing infant is making sense of the world.  

For further information regarding Infant Observation, contact course instructor Dr. Talia Hatzor at thatzor@gmail.com, or 917-439-8714.

Program Fee

Child Psychotherapy Training tuition will be $4,000 per year for either program. This program does not qualify for the Columbia University Tuition Exemption Program.

Please review the Psychotherapy Division's Refund and Cancellation Policy.