who practices primarily at the Tavistock Clinic in London. This book reflects over a decade of clinical experience using the technique of brief, parent -infant psychoanalytic therapy with infants and their families who present with sleep problems. The reader is provided with a comprehensive review of several relevant texts that are then integrated into a single theoretical perspective to guide treatment. The reviews focus on the ontogenesis of infant sleep -wake physiology, the psychological development of the infant (attachment, separation, and individuation), the association between parent working models and parent -infant interaction, and on the contextual effects of environmental stresses and illnesses on family function. In a comprehensive, yet focused, way, Daws, in short, reviews the components and complexities of a transactional model of parent -infant interaction as it affects normal and aberrant infant -toddler development particularly in the area of sleep and waking.
The book is organized into three parts: Part 1 sets the tone by defining the epidemiology and varied presentations of infant sleep problems and by describing the methods of brief psychoanalytic treatment in the context of an extensively reviewed clinical case. Part 2 attempts to review and integrate biological and psychological descriptions and theories of REM and NREM sleep, circadian and ultradian rhythms, dreams and nightmares, and attachment, separation, and individuation. Finally, Part 3 addresses the greater "ecologic niche" in which the infant lives that, for Daws, includes the infant's daytime experiences, particularly feeding and weaning, the infant's temperament, the parents' own relevant childhood experiences in terms of their adult working models of attachment and parenting, current family and marital stresses, including cultural influences that give rise to parental expectations and disappointments about their infant, and specific illness conditions of parent and infant, such as maternal depression, psychosomatic illness and premature birth, that affect parent -infant interactions.
The greatest strength of this book is the tremendous breadth of clinical experience that the author brings to the subject. Clinical vignettes of infants and families abound throughout, illustrating theory and practice. Daws' writing style is lively and holds the reader's attention. Her descriptions of psychodynamic issues, reflected in parental dreams, past experiences and current parent -infant interactions, are lucid, and her therapeutic interpretations and interventions seem directly linked to improvement of symptoms and the growth of the parent -infant relationship. Her point, stated clearly at the outset and reiterated throughout, is that "the interchange between parents and a baby about going to bed and getting to sleep is one of the crucial transactions between them . . . and that