Ilene S. Lefcourt was the Director, led the mother-baby-toddler groups, and provided developmental consultation to parents for over 35 years at the Sackler Lefcourt Center for Child Development in New York City. She taught child psychiatry residents and parent-infant psychotherapy trainees about her work. She supervised psychology and social work students and organized study groups for colleagues. The Center closed when the Covid pandemic began. Ms. Lefcourt now does private parent consulting. The focus of her work is the first three years of development, parenthood, and the parent-child relationship.

Ms. Lefcourt has been a faculty member at the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research Parent-Infant Program since 1995.  She is a member of the Margaret S. Mahler Child Development Foundation Board dedicated to, “Increasing understanding of  a child’s psychological and emotional development…” Occasionally, she is a guest teacher at parent-infant programs.

Ms. Lefcourt is the author of Parenting and Childhood Memories: A Psychoanalytic Approach to Reverberating Ghosts and Magic, Mother-Baby-Toddler Group Guide: A Psychodynamic Approach, and When Mothers Talk: Magical Moments and Everyday Challenges from Birth to Three Years. Her forthcoming book is, Mothers and Daughters: The First Three Years.