Maternal representations: A clinical and subjective phenomenological view

The relationship — as represented — is proving to be of growing value in our thinking about clinical problems such as “intergenerational transfer.” It is also an extremely positive influence in our thinking about how the interpersonal world is remembered, abstracted, and lived. Yet, the nature of a “represented relationship” remains unclear. This paper is an attempt to clarify some of the problems and areas for needed study regarding this concept. The mother's representation of her infant and of the people in her own life who have played “maternal roles” will be taken as the model. First, we will explore the richness and complexity of these representations and conclude that, for clinical purposes, different models are used to simplify this richness and render it therapeutically useful. Three models will be discussed. The first is the disfortion model which measures the distance between the mother's subjective experience of her interaction or relationship with another and some objective, observable “reality.” The model of overdeter-mining themes is a second model, largely the inspiration of psychoanalysis but inclusive of Bowlby's theory of attachment. Here psychobiological and/or psychodynamic themes organize the clinical material. Finally, a coherence model is discussed. Here the motive is goodness of the narrative construction rather than the historical “truth.” A second issue discussed is the capacity to represent dyads vs. triads and actual vs. second-hand narrated relationships. These issues are crucial for notions not only about the nature of such representations but also their limitations in understanding family interactions and relationships, i.e., where many members are concerned. A third issue concerns the nature of the subjective experience for a mother when a representation of her infant or herself in relation to the infant is “activated.” There exists here an unknown typology of experience. Finally, we will discuss what all of the above have to contribute to our further understanding of the nature of represented relationships.     

John Macmurray,Spirituality, Community and Real Schools

This paper suggests that the work of the Scottish philosopher John Macmurray provides a valuable contribution to debates on spirituality, education, and schools as communities. In particular by recognizing the nature of the spiritual in everyday activities of people in communities, by focusing on the overall aims of schooling, and by rejecting dualism, idealism and materialism, Macmurray was able to describe how schools might properly be organized. The paper aims to investigate some of Macmurray's insights, to see how they might help transform one's vision of schooling.     

The case of Sophie

The analysis of a girl from ages 3 to 5 years old offers a clinical illustration of an alternative theory of change. In this theory the process of change is organized around nodal points of exchange between patient and analyst, designated as “now moments” and “moments of meeting.” In the case presented, these moments were preceded by an intensification of affect and were accompanied by a sense of openness and ambiguity. As often as not they were nonverbal and sometimes did not even involve symbolic representation. The process resulted in a progressively expanded repertoire of ways of being together and ways of doing things together. In a parallel and mutually influencing track, the child was telling me a story that gave meaning to her world, and increased the coherence of her sense of self. © 1998 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health     

Outcome evaluation in brief mother-infant psychotherapies: Report on 75 cases

The effects of brief mother–infant psychotherapies (maximum of 10 sessions) were examined in cases of functional and behavioral disturbances in children less than 30 months old. Seventy-five mother-infant dyads were assessed prior to treatment, at 1 week, and 6 months after therapy ended. The outcome measures were changes in the infant's symptoms, the behavioral interactions between mother and infant, and maternal representations. The effect of two forms of intervention—Psychodynamic Therapy and Interaction Guidance Therapy—were compared. Results indicated a significant symptom reduction; dyadic interactions became more harmonious (mothers became less intrusive and infants more cooperative). Maternal self-esteem grew significantly and negative affects decreased. Improvements lasted as least several months, with some positive improvement detected at the 6-month follow-up. No major difference in outcome was found between the effects of the two forms of intervention. Within the limitations of research in a clinical context, this study suggests that brief mother–infant psychotherapies are a cost-effective method of early intervention.     

The activation of maternal representations

While a mother watches her infant or toddler during everyday life, there is a moment-by-moment triggering of thoughts, feelings, memories, and trajectories into the future. To access this inner experience as it emerges, a micro-analytic interview technique was devised. Through a series of probes this interview repeatedly guides the mother between the concrete details of her child's behavior and the subjective responses evoked by these observations. This window to the mother's subjective world allows a rich scrutiny of its architecture and dynamic process, permits cross-fertilization with recent developments in cognitive science, and serves as an entry point for therapeutic efforts.     

Psychopathology in mothers of children with failure to thrive

An association between maternal psychopathology and failure to thrive (FTT) has been reported previously, but no prior investigators have used both operationalized diagnostic criteria for psychopathology and a control group in their studies. Twenty-eight mothers of children with FTT and 22 mothers of normally developing control children were assessed for psychopathology by the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R–Nonpatient Version (SCID-NP) and the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R–Personality Disorders (SCID-II). Affective disorders, personality disorders, and the COoccurrence in an indvidual of these two types of disorders were found at higher rates in mothers of children with FTT compared to controls. These results clarify prior reports of an association between failure to thrive and maternal psychopathology and may have implications for treatment approaches to FTT.