Investigation of the Therapeutic Process in Early Interaction

Abstract

Multiple studies within Psychoanalysis focused in the early relationship mother-baby. Those studies led to the implementation of various psychotherapeutic approaches. The current integration of other scientific domains and those coming from the empirical methodology allow to have a new lens in order to study the effect of the therapeutic interventions in dyads of mothers and babies.
We summarize different theories related to the concept of attachment. We then present the empirical methodology we use for the study of the psychotherapeutic process in psychoanalytic consultations with mothers and babies, with the aim of showing and discussing the relevance of the results of this study to the clinical practice. A session is presented both from a clinical and research perspective using videotaped and textual material. The Therapeutic Cycles Model (Bucci, Mergenthaler) and the Attachment Indicators Scale (Massie, Campbell) are used in order to study the relation between the verbal interventions and the attachment non verbal system during the session. The article tries to show the type of knowledge that the use of research methodology and the integration of other disciplines (linguistic, informatic, cognitive psychology, neuroscience) can bring into the psychoanalytic practice.