Meeting of Marie Couvert, author of The Baby and the Drive, with Bubble & Speak

To support its welcoming activities and the professional development of our welcomers, Bubble & Speak has held a study group for more than five years. The group meets every other month on Zoom, until recently, with a focus on the texts of Françoise Dolto. The group is open to anyone interested in a psychoanalytic approach to work with very young children.

In September 2025, we began studying the fascinating book, The Baby and the Drive: Lacanian Work with Newborns and Infants (Routledge, 2021), by the Belgian psychoanalyst Marie Couvert, based on her Lacanian approach to working with babies thought to be at risk of autism.

To our delight, Marie Couvert, accepted our invitation to come to London to meet with us, to share her clinical experience and to discuss her book.

We were honoured to welcome Marie to University College London on Saturday, 22 November 2025.

The two-hour-long presentation included footage from clinical sessions, shown with participants’ consent, and a very rich discussion with the audience. There were 15 participants in the talk, 11 nationalities being represented, multicultural London in the Bubble & Speak team.

Amongst other things, Marie reminded us that, above all, analysts should remain open to learning from babies who always have something to communicate to us, whatever their developmental and psychic difficulties may be.

The meeting was followed by a joyful Mediterranean cuisine lunch.