The window of opportunity for prevention in families with various risk factors is wide open during pregnancy and in the first few months postpartum. This time of 'maternal preoccupation' offers a unique in depth view into the complexity of factors brought together by parents' own history, baby's state and social/environmental circumstances. In these few months parents can be engaged to allow us to address painful issues that deeply affect the parent-infant relationship. The frame to hold such a delicate, powerful and primitive emotional balance needs to be a strong and flexible structure with the concept of psychological holding and containment as it's base.

The paper examines the challenges of successfully creating a therapeutic relationship with families through home-based parent-infant psychotherapy. Ways of regarding the therapeutic frame and the client-therapist relationship in home-based prevention work are examined and supported by case examples from the work of the Early Intervention Program.