The Underlying structures of interaction as forerunners of mentalization. From infant research to adult treatment

Authors

  • Marina Altmann de Litvan

Keywords:

mother-infant relationship, early development, mentalization, clinical material, no verbal language, intersubjetivity, scientific research, psychoanalytic process

Abstract

This paper presents the findings of an empirical research about the underlying structures in mother-baby interaction in brief psychotherapeutic treatments. The main findings reflects a unique pattern for each motherbaby dyad and allows the analyst to reinterpret what happens in the clinic, regarding each dyads’ characteristics, their difficulties and their potential for change. What does the knowledge of the existence of these underlying structures of interaction implies for psychoanalysis. The contribution of infant research to the adult clinic will be exemplified through two clinical vignettes.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

  • Marina Altmann de Litvan

    Miembro titular de la Asociación Psicoanalítica del Uruguay; Chair del Comité de Observación Clínica
    de la Asociación Psicoanalítica Internacional. 

References

Ackerman, S. (2010). Is Infant Research Useful in Clinical Work with Adults? Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 58, 1201-

Altmann de Litvan, M. (2013). Estructuras relacionales subyacentes en procesos psicoterapéuticos breves madre-bebé. Tesis de Doctorado no

publicada. Universidad de Buenos Aires, Facultad de Psicología, Argentina.

— (2014a) Diferentes caminos hacia la Mentalización: Exploración de los estados prerreflexivos y su relación con el sí mismo.

Revista Mentalización, 2. Disponible en: http://www.revistamentalizacion.com/ultimonumero/diferentes_caminos_hacia_la_mentalizacion.pdf

— (2014b) Irina: an adolescent. En M. Altmann de Litvan (Ed.), Time for change: tracking transformations in psychoanalysis (pp. 52-93).

London: Karnac.

Altmann de Litvan, M., Miller, D., & Bernardi, R. (2014) Three-level model for observing child patient transformations. En M. Altmann de Litvan (Ed.), Time for change: tracking transformations in psychoanalysis (pp. 303-309). London: Karnac.

Bakeman, R., & Brown, J. (1977). Behavioral dialogues: An approach to the assessment of mother-infant interaction. Child development,

(1), 195-203.

Baranger, M., Baranger, W., & Mom, J. M. (1983). Process and non-process in analytic work. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 64, 1–15.

Beebe, B., Jaffe, J., Buck, K., Chen, H., Cohen, P., Feldstein, S., & Andrews, H. (2008) Maternal depressive symptoms at 6 weeks predict motherinfant -month self- and interactive contingency. Infant Mental Health Journal. 29, 1–29.

Beebe, B., Jaffe, J., Feldstein, S., Mays, K., & Alson, D. (1985). Interpersonal timing: The application of an adult dialogue model to mother-infant vocal and kinesic interactions. En: T. Field & N. Fox (Eds.), Social perception in infants (pp. 217-247). Norwood: Ablex.

Beebe, B.; Jaffe, J. Markese, S., Book, K., Chen, H., Cohen, P., et al. (2010). The origins of 12-months attachment. A microanalysis of 4 month mother infant interaction. Attach Hum Dev. 2010 January, 12(0), 3–141. doi:10.1080/14616730903338985

Beebe, B., & Lachmann, F. (2002). Infant research and adult treatment: Co-constructing interactions. Hillsdale: The Analytic Press.

Bernardi, R. (2014). The three-level model (3-LM) for observing patient transformations. En M. Altmann de Litvan (Ed.), Time for change: tracking transformations in psyc hoanalysis (pp. 3-34). London: Karnac.

Bion, W. (1962). Learning from experience. London: Tavistock Publications.

— (1967). Second Thoughts. New York: Jason Aronson.

Bollas, C. (1979). The transformational object. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 60, 97–107.

Boston Change Process Study Group (2005). The “something more” tan interpretation revisited: sloppiness and co-creativity in the psychoanalytic encounter. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 32, 693–729.

Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment and loss. Volume I: Attachment. The International Psycho-Analytical Library, 79, 1-401.

Box, G., & Jenkins, G. (1970). Time series analysis: Forecasting and control. San Francisco: Holden-Day.

Cohn, J., Campbell, S., Matias, R., & Hopkins, J. (1990). Face-to-face interactions of postpartum depressed & nondepressed mother-infant pairs at 2 months. Developmental Psychology, 26, 15–23.

Cohn, J., & Tronick, E. Z. (1989). Specificity of infant’s response to mother’s affective behavior. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 28(2), 242-248.

Crockenberg, S., & Leerkes, E. (2000). Infant social and emotional development in family context. En C. H. Zeanah (Ed.), Handbook of infant mental health (2nd ed., pp. 60-90) New York: The Guilford Press.

De Litvan , M. A. (2007). Infant observation: a range of questions and challenges for contemporary psychoanalysis. International Journal of Psycho analysis, 88, 713–733.

DeCasper, A., & Carstens, A. (1980). Contingencies of stimulation: Effects on learning and emotion in neonates. Infant Behavior and Development, 4, 19-36.

DeCasper, A., & Fifer, W. (1980). Of human bonding: Newborns prefer their mother’s voices. Science, 208, 1174.

DeCasper, A., & Spence, M. (1986). Prenatal maternal speech influences newborn’s perception of speech sounds. Infant Behavior and

Development, 9, 133-150.

Emde, R. (1988). Development terminable and interminable. I: Innate and motivational factors. The International Journal of Psychoanalysis,

(2), 283-296.

Fagen, J., Ohr, P., Singer, J., & Klein, S. (1989). Crying and retrograde amnesia in young infants. Infant Behavior and Development, 12(1), 13-24.

Feldman R, & Eidelman A. (2003). Skin-to-skin contact (Kangaroo Care) accelerates autonomic and neurobehavioral maturation in preterm infants. Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology, 45, 274–281. PubMed: 12647930

Field, T. (1981). Infant gaze aversion and heart rate during face-to-face interactions. Infant Behavior and Development, 4, 307-315. doi: 10.1016/S0163-6383(81)80032-X

Fonagy, P. (2001). Attachment theory and psychoanalysis. New York: Other Press.

Fonagy, P., & Target, M. (1995). Understanding the violent patient: The use of the body and the role of the father. The International Journal of

Psychoanalysis, 76(3), 487-501.

Gergely, G., & Watson, J. S. (1996). The social biofeedback theory of parental affect-mirroring: The development of emotional self-awareness

and self-control in infancy. The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 77(6), 1181-1212.

Gotthold, J. J., & Sorter, D. (2006). Moments of Meeting. International Journal of Psychoanalytic Self Psychology, 1, 103-119

Haith, M., Hazan, C., & Goodman, G. (1988). Expectation and anticipation of dynamic visual events by 3.5 month old babies. Child

development, 59(2), 467-479.

Hernández, S. (2014). Leticia: the emergence of questions about herself. En Altmann de Litvan, M. (Ed.), Time for change: tracking

transformations in psychoanalysis (pp. 35-51). London: Karnac. (Publicación en español, en prensa).

Lyons-Ruth, K. (1999). The two-person unconscious: Intersubjective dialogue, enactive relational representation, and the emergence of

new forms of relational organization. Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 19(4), 576-617. doi:10.1080/07351699909534267

Lyons-Ruth, K., & Jacobvitz, D. (2008). Disorganized attachment: Genetic factors, parenting contexts, and developmental transformation from infancy to adulthood. In: Cassidy, J.; Shaver, P. (Eds). Handbook of attachment: Theory, research and clinical applications. 2. New York: Guilford Press, pp. 666-697.

Massie, H., & Campbell, K. (1983). The Massie-Campbell scale of mother-infant attachment in-dicators during stress (AIDS Scale). New York:

Basic Books.

Mergenthaler, E., & Bucci, W. (1999). Linking verbal and non-verbal representations: Computer analysis of referential activity. Psychology

and Psychotherapy, 72(3), 339-354. doi:10.1348/000711299160040

Nieto, M. (1965). Algunos problemas del analista como investigador. Revista de la Asociación Psicoanalítica del Uruguay, 1(VII), 5–27.

Papoušek, H., & Papoušek, M. (1997). Fragile aspects of early social integration. En L. Murray y P. J. Cooper (Eds.), Postpartum depression and child development (pp. 35–53). New York: Guilford Press.

Pelaez-Nogueras, M., Field, T., Hossain, Z., Pickens, J. (1996). Depressed mother’s touching increases infants’positive affect and attention in still-face interactions. Child Development 67, 1780–1792. PubMed: 8890507

Rayner, E. (1992). Matching, Attunement and the Psychoanalytic Dialogue. International Journal of

Psycho-Analysis, 73, 39-54

Schore, A. (1994). Affect regulation and the origin of the self: The neurobiology of emotional development. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Sander, L. (1995). Identity and the experience of specificity in a process of recognition. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 5, 579–593.

Stack, D., & Arnold, S. (1998). Changes in mothers’ touch and hand gestures influence infant behavior during face-to-face interchanges.

Infant Behavior and Development, 21, 451–468.

Stern, D. (1985). The interpersonal world of the infant: A view from psychoanalysis and developmental psychology. New York: Basic Books.

Stern, D., Sander, L., Nahum, J., Harrison, A., Lyons-Ruth, K., Morgan, A., et al. (1998). Noninterpretative mechanisms in psychoanalytic

therapy: The something more than interpretation. The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 79(5), 903-921.

Schwaber, E. A. (1981). Narcissism, Self Psychology, and the Listening Perspective. Annual of Psychoanalysis, 9, 115-131.

Trevarthen, C. (1980). The foundations of intersubjectivity: Development of interpersonal and cooperative understanding of infants. En D.

Olson (Ed.), The social foundations of language and thought: Essays in honor of J. S. Bruner (pp. 316-342). New York: Norton.

(1993). The self born in intersubjectivity: An infant communicating. En U. Neisser (Ed.), The perceived self: Ecological and interpersonal

sources of self-knowledge (pp. 121-173). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

(1998). The concept and foundations of infant intersubjectivity. En S. Braten (Ed.), Intersubjective communication and emotion

in early ontogeny (pp. 15-46). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Tronick, E. (1989). Emotions and emotional communication in infants. American Psychologist, 44(2), 112-119. doi: 10.1037/0003-

X.44.2.112

— (1998). Interactions that effect change in psychotherapy: A model based on infant research. Infant Mental Health Journal, 19,

–290.

— (2003). “Of course all relationships are unique”: How co-creative processes generate unique mother-infant and patient-therapist

relationships and change other relationships. Psychological Inquiry, 23(3), 473-491. doi:10.1080/07351692309349044

Weinberg, K., &Tronick, E. (1996). Infant affective reactions to the resumption of maternal interaction after the still face. Child

Development, 96, 905–914. PubMed: 8706534

Winnicott, D. W. (1960). The theory of the parentinfant relationship. The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 41(6), 585-595

Downloads

Published

2015-06-01

How to Cite

The Underlying structures of interaction as forerunners of mentalization. From infant research to adult treatment. (2015). Revista Uruguaya De Psicoanálisis, 120, 96-119. http://publicaciones.apuruguay.org/index.php/rup/article/view/268