Recognizing the infant as subject in infant‐parent psychotherapy
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8973075 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Frances Thomson Salo (1PO Box 2226, Caulfield Junction, Melbourne, VIC 3161, Australia ‐, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2007 |
| Volume | 88 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 961-979 |
| Publication date | 2007-08-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The International Journal of Psychoanalysis (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0020-7578 • E-ISSN: 1745-8315 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1516/d67x-384k-9888-210j |
| PMID | 17681902 |
| OpenAlex | W2033880890 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 7 |
| References cited | 14 |
Drawing on Winnicott's view of infants as subjects entitled to an intervention in their own right, infants as the referred patient have been seen in infant-parent psychotherapy for 20 years at the Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne, Australia. This is a radically different view of infant symptomatology than viewing it as only expressing an aspect of the mother's unconscious. The clinical pathway differentiates the therapy from much parent-infant psychotherapy. The author describes the theoretical model of a twofold approach to understanding the infant's experience through interactive dialogue between therapist and infant, and sharing this understanding with the parents, and illustrates it with cases of failure-to-thrive infants. She discusses two criticisms: first, that infant-parent psychotherapy may undermine the parents and, second, that brief parent-infant psychotherapy does not alter parents' insecure attachment status. Videotaped sessions often show rapid improvement; parents generally feel relieved. This approach potentially shapes not only parents' and infants' representations, but also their implicit knowledge of relationships-partly, it is suggested, through activating the mirror neuron system to bring about implicit memory change. Change may therefore be longer lasting than psychoanalytic theory presently conceives. The approach is relevant in an outpatient setting: gains were maintained long term in 90% of out-patient cases
Child psychotherapy · Developmental psychology · Intervention (counseling · Psychiatry · Psychoanalysis · Psychoanalytic theory · Psychotherapist · Subject (documents · Unconscious mind · Child and Animal Learning Development · Neuroendocrine regulation and behavior · Psychology · Psychotherapy Techniques and Applications
Looking Back Looking Forward
A randomized controlled trial of mother–infant psychoanalytic treatment
Therapeutic play within infant–parent psychotherapy and the treatment of infant feeding disorders
Transferences in parent–infant psychoanalytic treatments
The function of language in parent‐infant psychotherapy
Infantile defences in parent‐infant psychotherapy
Psychoanalysis with adults inspired by parent–infant therapy
The two‐person unconscious
The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition
Intervention in Transmission of Insecure Attachment
Dyadically expanded states of consciousness and the process of therapeutic change
Intrinsic motives for companionship in understanding
Transformations of early infantile experiences
Notes for a dialogue between psychoanalysis and neuroscience
The Psychoanalyst and the Baby
Rethinking therapeutic action
Dissociation and the Parent-Infant Dialogue
The ontogenesis of speech acts
| Unique citing works | 7 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,47 |
| Citation span | 2011 - 2025 (15) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 7 |