Biography

Rigina Saakian is a psychiatrist and psychotherapist, child psychoanalytic psychotherapist, member of the Association of Child Psychoanalysis (Moscow) (in turn a full member of the EFPP) and a leader of seminars on infant observation.
Trained as a paediatrician, Rigina specialized as a paediatric anaesthetist and intensive care specialist, working for two years in a paediatric intensive care unit. Her interest in the mental world of children led her to change her medical focus. After completing medical training as a child psychiatrist and then as a psychotherapist, she began working with orphans with mental health issues. Her search for a deeper understanding of the child psyche led her to explore the psychoanalytic approach to child psychotherapy. Along with like-minded colleagues, she helped organize a training program for child psychotherapists in Russia, supported by British child psychotherapists affiliated with the Tavistock Clinic and working in the Kleinian tradition. Together with the same colleagues, she also founded the Association of Child Psychoanalysis in Moscow.
After observing an infant as part of her training, she became interested in this method and completed a two-year training supervision with Jeanne Maganga, learning to herself lead infant observation groups. She currently practices as a child and adolescent analytical psychotherapist, teaches the fundamentals of psychoanalytic theory during training for child psychotherapists and leads infant observation groups for training participants and other professionals