Who observes whom? Infant observation observed: an experience of setting up an infant observation skills training in India

This paper describes the travails of setting up an infant observation seminar as part of a psychotherapy training course in Delhi, India. It focuses on the attempts of potential observers to find suitable infants and explores the difficulties faced when setting up these observations, by placing them in a cultural context. The paper also discusses the meaning of Nazar, (the Evil Eye) and the place of women in society in India. The paper brings attention to the suspicion with which infant observation is viewed and explores why this is and how to make it less so, in order that observation can become more acceptable and useful in the Indian sociocultural context.