The development of Japanese mother–infant feeding interactions during the weaning period

During the weaning period, infants are not skilled at self-feeding and caregivers play a prominent role in feeding. Solid feeding is therefore an inherently collaborative and interactive process between infants and caregivers. The present study examined how caregivers and infants coordinate their solid feeding interactions, based on naturalistic longitudinal observations of three Japanese mother–infant dyads. The main results were as follows. Four or five months after weaning (about 10–11 months of age), children's mouth movements and mothers’ arm movements became more synchronized, and the success or failure of coordinated feeding became independent on children's gaze behavior. During this same period, both mothers’ and children's body movements accelerated. Specifically, children's food-intake motions and mothers’ food-carrying movements became faster together, although before 10–11 months fluctuations of these motions were not as correlated. Finally, at 9–11 months of age rhythmic body movements became frequent. From the first day of weaning, all three mothers swayed their bodies rhythmically while feeding, and about 2–3 months later their children also began to sway as they ate, at first infectiously but later spontaneously. These observations indicate how specific behavioral development contributes to mother–infant coordination in feeding.     

Early interactive behaviours in preterm infants and their mothers: Influences of maternal depressive symptomatology and neonatal birth weight

The study evaluated the quality of preterm infant–mother interactions, considering severity of birth weight (ELBW and VLBW) and maternal depression, compared to full term babies. 69 preterm infants (29 ELBW and 40 VLBW) and 80 full-term (FT) infants and their mothers were recruited. At 3 months of corrected age, the quality of mother–infant interaction was evaluated through Global Rating Scales; moreover, infant level of development and maternal depression were assessed through Griffith Development Mental Scales and Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale. Results showed adequate sensitivity in preterm infants’ mothers and higher involvement with their infants, compared to full term mothers, but ELBW ones exhibited an intrusive interactive pattern and a higher prevalence of depressive symptoms. The study underlined the relevance of paying special attention to both ELBW infants and their mothers, in order to support the parenting role and the co-construction of early interactions.     

Investigating Maternal Touch and Infants' Self‐Regulatory Behaviours during a Modified Face‐to‐Face Still‐Face with Touch Procedure

Maternal touch and infants' self‐regulatory behaviours were examined during a modified Still‐Face with Touch (SF + T) procedure. Mothers and their 5½‐month‐old infants participated in one period of Normal interaction followed by three SF + T periods. Maternal functions of touch, and infants' self‐regulatory behaviour, affect, and attention were evaluated. Contrary to a typical SF procedure, the amount of smiling remained high while fretting remained low. High levels of maternal touching and variations in the functions of maternal touch were observed across periods. Playful touch remained high while there was an increase in nurturing touch and a decrease in attention‐getting touch from the Normal to all SF + T periods. Similar amounts of self‐regulatory behaviours were observed across periods with the exception of a decrease in bidirectional exchanges during the SF + T periods. Finally, across periods, maternal touch and infants' self‐regulatory behaviours were found to be temporally organized with infants' affect and attention. Examining how mothers use touch when other forms of communication are absent increased our understanding of the role of touch in infants' emotion regulation. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Eighteen‐month‐olds’ memory for short movies of simple stories

This study investigated twenty four 18‐month‐olds’ memory for dynamic visual stimuli. During the first visit participants saw one of two brief movies (30 seconds) with a simple storyline displayed in four iterations. After 2 weeks, memory was tested in the visual paired comparison paradigm in which the familiar and the novel movie were contrasted simultaneously and displayed in two iterations for a total of 60 seconds. Eye‐tracking revealed that participants fixated the familiar movie significantly more than the novel movie, thus indicating memory for the familiar movie. Furthermore, time‐dependent analysis of the data revealed that individual differences in the looking‐patterns for the first and second iteration of the movies were related to individual differences in productive vocabulary. We suggest that infants’ vocabulary may be indicative of their ability to understand and remember the storyline of the movies, thereby affecting their subsequent memory.     

On Murray Jackson's 1961 ‘Chair,couch and countertransference’

One of the problems facing psychoanalysts of all schools is that theory has evolved at a much faster pace than practice. Whereas there has been an explosion of theory, practice has remained, at least officially, static and unchanging. It is in this sense that Murray Jackson's 1961 paper is still relevant today. Despite the rise of the new relational and intersubjective paradigms, most psychoanalysts, and not a few Jungian analysts, still seem to feel that the couch is an essential component of the analytical setting and process. If the use of the couch is usually justified by the argument that it favours regression, facilitates analytical reverie and protects the patient from the influence of the analyst, over time many important psychoanalysts have come to challenge this position. Increasingly these analysts suggest that the use of the couch may actually be incompatible with the newer theoretical models. This contention is strengthened by some of the findings coming from the neurosciences and infant research. This underlines the necessity of empirical research to verify the clinical effectiveness of these different positions, couch or face‐to‐face, but it is exactly this type of research that is lacking.     

Judgment of infant cry: The roles of acoustic characteristics and sociodemographic characteristics

Adult judgments of infant cry are determined by both acoustic properties of the cry and listener sociodemographic characteristics. The main purpose of this research was to investigate how these two sources shape adult judgments of infant cry. We systematically manipulated both the acoustic properties of infant cries and contrasted listener sociodemographic characteristics. Then, we asked participants to listen to several acoustic manipulations of infant cries and to judge the level of distress the infant was expressing and the level of distress participants felt when listening. Finally, as a contrasting condition, participants estimated the age of the crying infant. Using tree‐based models, we found that judgments of the level of distress the infant was expressing as well as the level of distress listeners felt are mainly accounted for by select acoustic properties of infant cry (proportion of sound/pause, fundamental frequency, and number of utterances), whereas age estimates of a crying infant are determined mainly by listener sociodemographic characteristics (gender and parental status). Implications for understanding infant cry and its effects as well as early caregiver‐infant interactions are discussed.     

Doing things differently: an appreciation of Meltzer’s contribution

In this paper I wish to draw attention to aspects of Donald Meltzer’s ways of working which characterised his practice as a psychoanalyst and which I consider important in appreciating his originality. Several central themes are described and elaborated including: the central relevance of child analysis and the unity of child and adult analysis; the value of working in a clinical group with colleagues; the revision of psychoanalytic theory; joint research and writing projects; Meltzer’s recognition of the power of infant observation as a tool for learning; the commitment to a wider psychoanalytic culture; the particular contribution to the Tavistock child psychotherapy training. Examples from Meltzer’s written archive, both his books and papers, are used to demonstrate and illuminate these themes, alongside clinical material from child psychotherapy work brought to the author’s attention in supervision.     

THERAPISTS’ EXPERIENCES OF MOTHER–INFANT PSYCHOANALYTIC TREATMENT: A QUALITATIVE STUDY

As part of a larger research project in Sweden, a qualitative study investigated psychotherapists’ experiences of mother–infant psychoanalysis (MIP). A randomized controlled trial compared two groups of mother–infant dyads with psychological problems. One had received Child Health Center care, and the other received MIP. Previous articles on long‐term effects have found that mothers who had received MIP were less depressed throughout a posttreatment period of 3½ years, and their children showed better global functioning and psychological well‐being. The present study's objectives were to describe the therapist's experiences of MIP and deepen the understanding of the MIP process. Six months after treatment began, all therapists were interviewed. Transcribed interviews with therapists from 10 (of 33 total) MIP treatments were randomly selected and analyzed in detail by thematic analysis. Therapists worked successfully with mother and infant together and found different ways of cooperation during MIP sessions. Therapists reported overall positive experiences; however, in cases where mothers needed more personal attention, it would be important to adapt the method to them.