Mothers’ competence profiles and their relation to language and socioemotional development in Chilean children at 12 and 30 months

The study of early parental competences is relevant because such competences are related to children’s development; however, most studies have considered competences using a variable-centered approach in which each parental competence is examined in isolation. This paper approaches these competences using a person-centered approach, generating profiles that combine different competences in Chilean mothers assessed when their children were aged 12 months and again at 30 months. The aim of this study was to generate and compare these profiles and to analyze the associations of these profiles with children’s language and socioemotional skills. Mother-child interactions in the contexts of storytelling and free play were videotaped at two different times. Ninety mother-child dyads were assessed using the Adult Sensitivity Scale (E.S.A.), the Evaluation of the Mentalization of Significant Caregivers, the Checklist of Observations Linked to Outcomes (PICCOLO), Bayley’s language scale and the Functional Emotional Assessment Scale (FEAS). Profiles of mothers’ behaviors were identified through person-centered within-group analyses of six aspects: sensitivity, mentalization, affection, responsiveness, encouragement, and teaching. Cluster analyses yielded three similar profiles for mothers at both ages: highly competent, average competent, and poorly competent. The mothers’ profiles were related to maternal age, socioeconomic status (SES) and educational level, and the mothers improved their profiles at the 30-month assessment. The mothers’ profiles were related to children’s language and socioemotional outcomes at both ages. These results and their applicability to promotion and intervention programs are discussed.     

“Everything Is Interrelated”

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that “everything is interrelated,” especially in relation to health, ecology, economy, and climate change, as various authors have stated. The motto is the leitmotif of Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato si’ and leads to his proposal of an integral ecology. This article deepens the implications of the latter in the encyclical and in other works and shows how the Catholic Synod of Bishops for the Pan-Amazon Region is an example of the reception and application of integral ecology in a given context. Based on this, the article proposes some conclusions, taking into account the theme of the next assembly of the World Council of Churches in 2022.     

Preschoolers’ Thoughts on the Concept of Time

Abstract

This study aimed to examine preschool children’s epistemological views in the context of the concept of time via their drawings of the time machine. The study was conducted with 30 five-year-old children (17 girls and 13 boys) attending state and private preschools in the academic year 2018/2019. The data collection tools used in the study were the Test for Creative Thinking - Drawing Production TCT-DP, Children’s Thoughts on Time Questionnaire (CTTQ) and Children’s Epistemological Views Questionnaire (CEVQ). Of the mixed methods typologies, the fully mixed sequential dominant status-qualitative design was employed. The results obtained from the study indicated that the time machine drawings of almost half the participating children included creative elements and logical thinking products. In addition, 40% of the children’s responses reflected sophisticated epistemological views such as scientific, imaginative/science fiction-based, divergent and eccentric approaches and non-authority figures regarding the concept of time. In conclusion: contrary to Piegatian interpretation, our results show that five-year old children can demonstrate abstract scientific understanding regarding the concept of time and preschoolers’ epistemic approach has a critical role in determining their development of abstract cognitive concepts.     

Analytic attitude – focus or embodiment? Subtle communications in the transference/countertransference relationship

The paper considers a ‘befallment’ that occurred in the course of analysis at a time when the focus of work was too much at a conscious level, dissociated from the patient’s embodied and visceral depths. A rigidly held attitude of focal attention is considered as potentially a defence against embodied experiences of overwhelm and vulnerability that may haunt shadowy realms which remain unlit by the narrow beam of conscious awareness. Rather as a dream drifts in from the unconscious, an enactment by the analyst brought neglected aspects of the transference and countertransference relationship into the room. Later, the patient’s own dreaming mind offered images that suggested an underlying dynamic. These subtle communications, alongside the patient’s attitude toward the analyst’s lapse, are considered as factors in the achievement of greater embodied integration. The analyst’s difficulty in arriving at a formulation of such events is discussed, along with the necessity of holding such ‘befallments’ in mind over long periods of time before any explanation can be adumbrated.     

Hertzmann,Leezah & Newbigin,Juliet (Eds.). Sexuality and Gender Now: Moving Beyond Heteronormativity. The Tavistock Clinic Series. London: Routledge. 2019. Pp. 358. Pbk. £29.99.

In this paper the author argues that trans-identification and its associated medical treatment can constitute an attempt to evade experiences of psychological distress. This occurs on three levels. Firstly, the trans person themselves may seek to evade dysregulated affects associated with such experiences as attachment trauma, childhood abuse, and ego-alien sexual feelings. Secondly, therapists may attempt to evade feelings, such as fear and hatred, evoked by engaging with these dysregulated affects. Thirdly, we, as a society, may wish to evade acknowledging the reality of such trauma, abuse and sexual distress by hypothesizing that trans-identification is a biological issue, best treated medically. The author argues that the quality of evidence supporting the biomedical approach is extremely poor. This puts young trans people at risk of receiving potentially damaging medical treatment they may later seek to reverse or come to regret, while their underlying psychological issues remain unaddressed.     

The agony of integration and the blessings of finitude – facing ‘extinction points’ and moments of madness

This paper explores the inevitable pain that integration requires in our individuation process. The unspeakable agony we defended against in order to survive we now experience consciously, including moments of going out of existence at the core of our madness. Clinical examples are given of these ‘extinction points’ and the abject helplessness analysand and analyst suffer in the face of this destructiveness. The first and second witness to this process (usually the analyst and the psyche itself) and the primordial creative life force are recognized in the process of recovery, a recovery that recoups the blessings of our finite human living.