Nursery experience is now common for young children and their families. Questions of quality have focussed mainly on safety and early learning. The roles of subtle emotional processes in daily pedagogic interactions have received surprisingly little attention. This paper discusses the Tavistock Observation Method (TOM), a naturalistic method of observation underpinned by psychoanalytic conceptions and in which emotional experience is an integral part of observation narratives. The paper reports on a detailed evaluation of the use of an adapted version of TOM in nurseries in England and the contribution it can make to empirical exploration of emotional processes. A concurrent sister study will report on the use of A-TOM in Australia.