Psychodynamic Therapy with Infants and Parents (abbr. PTIP) aims to relieve emotional disturbances within the parent(s), the baby, and/or their interaction, for example, postnatal depression and anxiety, infant distress with breastfeeding and sleep, and attachment disorders. It rests on
attachment theory
Attachment theory is a psychological, evolutionary and ethological theory concerning relationships between humans. The most important tenet is that young children need to develop a relationship with at least one primary caregiver for normal ...
and
psychoanalysis
PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might b ...
.
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts ...
suggested that a modification of his method could be applied to children, and child analysis was introduced in the 1920s by
nna Freud.,
elanie Klein and Hermine Hug von Hellmuth. Klein speculated on infantile experiences to understand her patients' disorders but she did not practice PTIP.
Donald Winnicott
Donald Woods Winnicott (7 April 1896 – 25 January 1971) was an English paediatrician and psychoanalyst who was especially influential in the field of object relations theory and developmental psychology. He was a leading member of the Briti ...
, a pediatrician and analyst, focused on the mother-baby interplay in his theorizing and his brief parent-child consultations, but he did not work with PTIP.
Definitions
PTIP was introduced by
Selma Fraiberg
Selma Fraiberg (1918–1981) was an American child psychoanalyst, author and social worker. She studied infants with congenital blindness in the 1970s. She found that blind babies had three problems to overcome: learning to recognize parents fr ...
and
Françoise Dolto
Françoise Dolto (; November 6, 1908 – August 25, 1988) was a French pediatrician and psychoanalyst.
Biography
Born as Françoise Marette, she was the daughter of an affluent far-right royalist family of traditional Catholics in Paris. Her Als ...
after World War II. Fraiberg was trained in the ego-psychological tradition, while Dolto was a pupil of
Jacques Lacan. Another section
Attachment-based therapy (children) Attachment-based therapy applies to interventions or approaches based on attachment theory, originated by John Bowlby. These range from individual therapeutic approaches to public health programs to interventions specifically designed for foster car ...
complements the present one. A related method was developed by Esther Bick at the Tavistock Clinic in London,
psychoanalytic infant observation
Psychoanalytic infant observation is a distinct empirical case study method in psychoanalytic and psychotherapy training which was developed at the Tavistock Clinic in London by child psychoanalyst Esther Bick. In 1948 she collaborated with ...
, aiming to enhance therapy students' skills and to train clinicians who work with babies. This article focuses on "the phase prior to word presentation and the use of word symbols", that is, up to 18 months of age.
A
psychodynamic
Psychodynamics, also known as psychodynamic psychology, in its broadest sense, is an approach to psychology that emphasizes systematic study of the psychological forces underlying human behavior, feelings, and emotions and how they might relate t ...
perspective sees humans as struggling with unconscious urges that impact on their character, relationships, interests, passions, conscious attitudes, and cognitive capacities. PTIP focuses both on patients' behaviors and feelings as well as their unconscious motives for developing and maintaining them. Supportive elements are limited, though the therapist's "holding" or "containing" the patient's distress does have such ingredients. Other methods are more supportive and encourage the mother to change her behavior with the baby; developmental guidance, infant massage, interaction guidance, and Marte Meo. They are not covered here.
Parents strive consciously to bond with the child and provide a fertile ground for
attachment. Simultaneously, their unconscious impulses may run in opposite directions. Psychoanalytic theory often regards the mother as the baby's primary object, especially, her body parts or functions that stimulate the infant's fantasy life. Her bodily closeness with the foetus and the child will add unique qualities to their relationship. Yet, modern fathers are involved with their babies and some therapists argue that they should be invited more often in PTIP.
A late development
Sigmund Freud viewed the baby as involved in passionate relationships with his parents. He also uncovered infant-like remnants in every adult's personality. This affects the
countertransference
Countertransference
is defined as redirection of a psychotherapist's feelings toward a client – or, more generally, as a therapist's emotional entanglement with a client.
Early formulations
The phenomenon of countertransference (german: G ...
, the therapist's emotional reactions to the patient, even more so if the patient is a baby. The PTIP therapist is prone to a "massive identification with the child… it is not always easy to control one's reactions to
he baby'spositive or negative provocations". This may explain why PTIP took a long time to develop. Also, the notion of psychoanalysis as a "talking cure" led to the idea that the primary therapy data are words, rather than all the "representations or signifiers of process". This, too, may have prevented analysts from treating babies. Those from the tradition of
ego psychology
Ego psychology is a school of psychoanalysis rooted in Sigmund Freud's structural id-ego-superego model of the mind.
An individual interacts with the external world as well as responds to internal forces. Many psychoanalysts use a theoretical c ...
advise against attributing mental capacities beyond the baby's developmental time-table. This may make them reluctant to view the baby as an active participant in therapy. A final reason for the late development of PTIP might be that the high prevalence of postnatal depression and infant emotional disturbances, was demonstrated only recently. Many "baby worries" emerge at Child Health Centers without the mother feeling that she needs psychotherapy herself. It is the baby who functions, through various symptoms, as the alarm-clock.
PTIP methods: A survey
Infant-parent psychotherapy
Selma Fraiberg
Selma Fraiberg (1918–1981) was an American child psychoanalyst, author and social worker. She studied infants with congenital blindness in the 1970s. She found that blind babies had three problems to overcome: learning to recognize parents fr ...
formulated brief crisis interventions, interaction guidance-supportive treatments, and infant-parent psychotherapy. The first focused on problems arising from a "circumscribed set of external events". The second aimed at guiding parents with a more limited psychological-mindedness and was more of an "educational technique". Infant-parent psychotherapy, in contrast, was a PTIP method used when a baby reminded the parents of "an aspect of the parental self that is repudiated or negated", for example a painful childhood memory. This "ghost in the nursery" marred the parent's interactions with the baby, who got engulfed in the parental neurosis and developed an emotional disturbance himself. The treatment goal was that "the pathology which had spread to embrace the baby" could be withdrawn and the mother-baby relationship improve. In randomized controlled trials (RCT), Fraiberg's method was about as efficacious as Interaction Guidance (Robert-Tissot et al.) and Watch, Wait and Wonder (Cohen et al.), though the effects were slower in coming. Compared with a non-intervention group, its results were superior (Lieberman et al.). Lieberman and Van Horn also wrote a comprehensive monograph, see under "Further reading".
Therapists in Geneva, work with less disadvantaged families than Fraiberg. Some publications were published in English. Their thinking resembles Fraiberg's but they focus more on the mother's psychopathology, for example, her self-preoccupation. The infant's symptoms might express "a repressed tendency in the parent", which enters into a "core conflictual relationship" with the baby and will be enacted in therapy. These clinicians seem to regard the child as less of an active therapy participant than did Fraiberg.
Therapeutic consultations
The interventions of
Serge Lebovici at the Centre Alfred Binet in Paris resembled Winnicott's therapeutic consultations and Fraiberg's crisis interventions. Whereas Fraiberg suggested the mother's trauma might build up to forming the "ghost", Lebovici focused more on how her
unconscious infantile sexuality colored her relationship with the baby. The baby's presence in sessions stimulated the therapist's metaphoric function, which he used to understand the roots of the dilemmas of mother and child.
Some books by
Françoise Dolto
Françoise Dolto (; November 6, 1908 – August 25, 1988) was a French pediatrician and psychoanalyst.
Biography
Born as Françoise Marette, she was the daughter of an affluent far-right royalist family of traditional Catholics in Paris. Her Als ...
, another Parisian psychoanalyst, were translated into English but they do not cover her work with infants (see, however,). She thought a baby may understand some literal meaning of the therapist's words. This is refuted by research,. On the other hand, babies seem to grasp that words indicate something special though they do not understand their literal sense. Dolto claimed that when parents conceal painful or embarrassing facts it may stunt the baby's development, as when a mother wishes to protect her baby and conceal her personal worries. This creates a paradoxical situation for the baby who might sense mother's painful affects beneath her care-taking. Dolto thought words impacted on the baby via the parent's courage in pronouncing embarrassing emotional truths: "Before the age of words, the presence of a mother speaking to her infant is a nourishment more valuable than the milk she offers at the breast".
Other Parisian therapists focus on psychosomatic disorders, which they link theoretically to infantile distress.
Mother-infant psychoanalytic treatment
Like Dolto, the Swedish psychoanalyst Johan Norman sought to establish a relationship with the infant, who he thought possessed a primordial subjectivity and an
intersubjectivity
In philosophy, psychology, sociology, and anthropology, intersubjectivity is the relation or intersection between people's cognitive perspectives.
Definition
is a term coined by social scientists to refer to a variety of types of human interac ...
. He also thought the baby sought for containment from the therapist, and that she had a "unique flexibility in changing representations of itself and others that comes to an end as the ego develops". Early therapy was thus recommended. He addressed the baby about emotional processes but disagreed that she can understand the lexical meaning of words.
Questions about the baby's role in PTIP become less puzzling once we clarify that human communication takes place at various levels, among which the verbal is only one. Many analysts today use concepts by the American philosopher of
Semiotics
Semiotics (also called semiotic studies) is the systematic study of sign processes ( semiosis) and meaning making. Semiosis is any activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, where a sign is defined as anything that communicates something ...
,
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce ( ; September 10, 1839 – April 19, 1914) was an American philosopher, logician, mathematician and scientist who is sometimes known as "the father of pragmatism".
Educated as a chemist and employed as a scientist for t ...
to describe the therapeutic process. They can help us understand the communicative levels in PTIP treatments. A similar perspective is used by infant researchers who micro-analyze the interactive mismatches of certain mother-infant interactions.
The infant as subject
Therapists in Melbourne work with babies to "enter treatment through the infant's world rather than primarily through the parents' representations". They develop a relationship with the baby in presence of the parents, believing that "the infant as subject" needs engagement in his own right. They, too, are convinced that a baby may direct emotions towards a therapist but in some contrast to Norman, they do not privilege promoting the baby's negative affects towards him/her.
Watch, Wait and Wonder
This technique (WWW; from the Hincks-Dellcrest Center in Toronto) has been compared with Fraiberg's mother-infant psychotherapy in an RCT. Its proponents argue that if a mother does not perceive and respond to her baby's signals, a secure
attachment will not develop. The therapist asks her to get on the floor, observe the baby, and interact at the baby's initiative. Mother becomes an "observer of her infant's activity, potentially gaining insight into the infant's inner world and relational needs". The therapist is "watching, waiting, and wondering about the interactions between mother and infant" (p. 437). The method also contains supportive elements in providing "a safe, supportive environment…". See also.
The PIP team at the Anna Freud Centre
Parent-Infant Psychotherapy (PIP) at the
Anna Freud Centre
The Anna Freud Centre (now renamed the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families) is a child mental health research, training and treatment centre located in London, United Kingdom. The Centre aims to transform current mental health ...
in London integrates Freudian
metapsychology
Metapsychology (Greek: ''meta'' 'beyond, transcending', and ''ψυχολογία'' 'psychology') is that aspect of any psychological theory which refers to the structure of the theory itself (hence the prefix "meta") rather than to the entity it d ...
with infant research, attachment theory and
developmental psychology. The authors use a psychoanalytic framework and wish to promote "the parent-infant relationship in order to facilitate infant development" (p. 25), support the baby's "attachment needs" towards his caregivers (p. 8), and scaffold him to help in his "emotional regulation" (p. 26). The baby is seen as a "partner in the therapeutic process" (p. 79). The overall goal is to support his "beginning mentalization and emotional regulation" (p. 75).
The impact of the setting and the clinical sample
Most authors worked in public health clinics, whereas Norman's cases were drawn mainly from his private practice and were long, high-frequency treatments with what seemed well-motivated parents. Fraiberg often treated mothers with a low educational and economic status, which also applies to the London PIP team. The Melbourne therapists treat severely sick children and their parents. Such factors will influence the parents' trust in the clinician, motivation for therapeutic work, and economic and practical means of taking part in treatment.
Outcome research
PTIP therapists have published clinical studies in various scientific journals. Randomized controlled trials (RCT) are increasing: Most used follow-up periods of up to six months, except two with a follow-up of four years.
Many problems pertain to evaluating PTIP. Mother and baby are at different developmental levels and during infancy, emotional experiences may change swiftly. The baby's health is inferred through questionnaires or mother-baby recordings. Another
validity
Validity or Valid may refer to:
Science/mathematics/statistics:
* Validity (logic), a property of a logical argument
* Scientific:
** Internal validity, the validity of causal inferences within scientific studies, usually based on experiments
** ...
problem is that most studies were made at the clinical center where the investigated method was developed. Thus, we do not know if it is equally effective in other circumstances. This may explain why a recent Cochrane review only found some evidence of improved infant attachment but none concerning parental mental health. This is in contrast to several RCTs, which did find effects on maternal depression. Plausibly, the Cochrane study comprised several samples of different socio-economic and psychiatric characteristics. Some methods may be efficacious if the clinician takes such pre-treatment factors into consideration and recommends "the right treatment for the right family". Another meta-analysis found, in contrast, minor treatment effects on infant development and mental health, and significant effects on parent-infant relationship and parenting ability. To sum up, research methods need further development and we need studies from more centers.
Training and organization
There are courses, for example, at the
olumbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Researchand the Anni Bergman Parent Infant Training Program in New York, the
Anna Freud Centre
The Anna Freud Centre (now renamed the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families) is a child mental health research, training and treatment centre located in London, United Kingdom. The Centre aims to transform current mental health ...
and the
Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust
The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust is a specialist mental health trust based in north London. The Trust specialises in talking therapies. The education and training department caters for 2,000 students a year from the United Kin ...
and the School of Infant Mental Health in London,
nternational Psychoanalytic University Berlin the University Sackler School of Medicine in Tel Aviv, the "Säuglings-Kleinkind-Eltern-Psychotherapie" or SKEPT in München, Centro Studi
Martha Harris in Italy, the Eriksson Infant Mental Health Certificate Program in Chicago, the Infant-Parent Program at the
University of California, San Francisco
The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a public land-grant research university in San Francisco, California. It is part of the University of California system and is dedicated entirely to health science and life science. It con ...
, training programs in Barcelona organized by the Spanish Psychoanalytical Society, and in Buenos Aires at the Hospital Italiano. The members of the World Association of Infant Mental Health (WAIMH)
are therapists and researchers. Its congresses contain presentations of detailed PTIP case material and outcome studies. The WAIMH consists of local associations, which also host regular conferences.
References
{{reflist
Works cited
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The ''Infant Mental Health Journal'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering developmental psychology. It was established in 1980 and is published by Wiley-Blackwell. It is the official journal of the World Association for Infant Me ...
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Françoise Hivernel (1943-2022) was a French-born academic archaeologist, psychoanalyst, writer and translator.
Early life
Hivernel was born to Raymonde Beque and André Hivernel in Versailles during World War II. Her brother Jacques Hivernel, wa ...
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*Zeanah, C. (Ed.). (2009). Handbook of infant mental health (3 ed.). New York: The Guilford Press.
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Further reading
*Acquarone, S. (2004). Infant-parent psychotherapy. London: Karnac Books.
*Baradon, T., Biseo, M., Broughton, C., James, J., & Joyce, A. (2016). The Practice of Psychoanalytic Parent-Infant Psychotherapy - Claiming the baby (2nd ed.). London: Routledge.
*Emanuel, L., & Bradley, E. (Eds.). (2008). "What can the matter be?" - Therapeutic interventions with parents, infants, and young children. London: Karnac Books.
*Lieberman, A. F., & Van Horn, P. (2008). Psychotherapy with infants and young children - Repairing the effects of stress and trauma on early attachment. New York: The Guilford Press.
*Paul, C. & Thomson-Salo, F. (2014). The baby as Subject. Clinical Studies in Infant-Parent Psychotherapy. London: Karnac Books.
*Pozzi-Monzo, M. E., & Tydeman, B. (Eds.). (2007). Innovations in parent-infant psychotherapy. London: Karnac Books.
*Salomonsson, B. (2014). Psychoanalytic therapy with infants and parents: Practice, theory and results. London: Routledge.
*Salomonsson, B. (2018). Psychodynamic interventions in pregnancy and infancy: Clinical and theoretical perspectives. London: Routledge.
Psychotherapy by type
Psychodynamics