The Infant-Parent Institute has specialized in clinical services, professional training and research related to the optimal development of infants and their families since 1986. Michael Trout, founder and director of the Institute, is a graduate of the Infant Mental Health Training Program at the University of Michigan, under Professor Selma Fraiberg.

We were active for many years working with children in the foster care and adoption systems; conducting divorce mediation involving young children; treating adults whose depression, marital problems or parenting struggles have arisen out of conflicted experiences in the first few years of life; and offering parent support and guidance groups.  With the closing of the clinical practice of the Institute at the end of 2015, those services are no longer available at the Institute.

More than 2,200 clinicians across North America have participated in our Institute-based training programs. In addition, we have developed 15 training videos that are used in clinics, homes, agencies and universities around the world.

Mr. Trout remains active in writing and in teaching.

We remain informed by our view of human beings not as collections of flaws and disorders, but as walking representations of each person's best efforts to adapt to his or her own earliest experiences with love and connection.