This book brings together some of Margaret Rustin's finest papers in the areas of infant observation, theory, research and literature. Drawing on more than 50 years of psychoanalytic practice, the author offers a richly layered exploration of the central place of close observation and imagination in illuminating the inner worlds of children and young people.

Illustrated with vivid clinical examples, the collection engages with a broad range of themes including the place of interpretation in child psychotherapy, the experience of shame in childhood, dreams and play in child analysis and the challenges of clinical research. A final section turns to literature and drama, tracing the vital connections between imagination and psychic life.

Essential reading for child psychotherapists, psychoanalysts and child analysts, as well as all those training as mental health professionals, this book will also appeal to anyone with an interest in the emotional dimensions of human experience.

Margaret Rustin is a child and adolescent psychotherapist and child analyst. She was head of Child Psychotherapy at the Tavistock Clinic 1985-2009 and played a major role in the extension of child psychotherapy training across the UK. Since retiring from the NHS, she works in private practice and teaches in many different countries. She has edited and written widely, most recently Finding a Way to the Child: Selected Clinical Papers 1983 - 2021 (2023).

Kate Stratton is a psychoanalyst and child and adolescent psychotherapist in full-time private practice. She is co-editor of the Tavistock Clinic Series and an assistant editor for the New Library of Psychoanalysis Series. She worked for twenty years in the Adolescent & Young Adult Service at the Tavistock Clinic where she continues to teach and supervise.

Simon Cregeen is a child and adolescent psychotherapist and couple psychoanalytic psychotherapist. Formerly head of Child Psychotherapy in Manchester and Salford NHS CAMHS, he now works in independent practice. He teaches and supervises and is co-author of Short-term Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy with Adolescents with Depression: A Treatment Manual (2016).