Watching, waiting, and wondering
Applying psychoanalytic principals to mother-infant intervention
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11276236 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Elisabeth Muir (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1992 |
| Volume | 13 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 319-328 |
| Publication date | 1992-01-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Infant Mental Health Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0163-9641 • E-ISSN: 1097-0355 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1002/1097-0355(199224)13:4<319::aid-imhj2280130407>3.0.co;2-2 |
| OpenAlex | W2085863969 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 15 |
| References cited | 4 |
There is general acceptance that the intergenerational repetition of relational patterns is transmitted within the interactions between mother and infant. The highly invested nature of the mother-infant relationship makes it a prime arena for the playing out of unresolved relational conflicts of the mother. This occurs through the mother's responses to her infant in which she projects into the infant certain disavowed but highly invested positive or negative attributes. This leads to the interactional re-creation of a whole relational system reflecting the mother's current and past relationship experiences. When a mother's conflictual past is unresolved and unmitigated by current relationships, her interactions with her infant are more driven by such perceptions than by real appraisal of the infant's actual attributes. The sleeping, eating, and behavioral management problems of infancy are often manifestations of such situations. A deceptively simple set of instructions to the mother, to become a nonintrusive observer of her infant and only interact at the infant's initiative, allows a role for the infant's initiative in changing interactions and thus potentially changing a relational system.
Developmental psychology · Intervention (counseling) · Perception · Psychoanalytic theory · Psychotherapist · Repetition (rhetorical device) · Set (abstract data type) · Attachment and Relationship Dynamics · Computer Science · Psychology · Psychotherapy Techniques and Applications · Social Psychology · Themes in Literature Analysis
The development and evaluation of the intervention model for the Florida Infant Mental Health Pilot Program
Psychotherapeutic intervention with mothers and children in day care
Interventions addressing infant mental health problems
Mother-child interactions during feeding
Challenges working with infants and their families
Termination as a therapeutic intervention when treating children who have experienced multiple losses
A Therapeutic Playgroup for Depressed Mothers and Their Infants
Watch, wait, and wonder
Reflective family play
Six‐month follow‐up of two mother–infant psychotherapies
Prevention, the appropriate target of infant psychotherapy
Disorders of excessive crying, feeding, and sleeping
Evaluating maltreated infants, toddlers, and preschoolers in dependency court
Videotaping as a therapeutic tool in psychodynamic infant– parent therapy
The psychiatric infant—family ward at Tampere University Hospital
| Citations per year | 0.47 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 1994 - 2021 (28) |
| Highly cited | No |