Book Description

This book has the hard task to cover an interdisciplinary area in which psychoanalysis has to deal with infant research. The development of infant research methodologies is illustrated in the present book by the contribution written by Beatrice Beebe, whose 'journey' leads us through the 'creating' of a discipline with its creators, her traveling companions, such as Daniel Stern, Frank Lachmann, Joseph Jaffe and many others. Trevarthen's chapter is a discussion of his work with T. Berry Brazelton, passed away on March 2018. Brazelton used his trust and enjoyment of innocent company to greet a newborn infant as a friend, and he showed that the baby is read to share friendship with mother and father, giving them joy. Brazelton's belief in innate human nature transformed pediatric care and early diagnosis of developmental disorders, guiding treatment, not 'of' the baby, but 'with' him/her as an individual with unique expressions of vitality. The last two chapters, instead, deal with clinical implications of infant research. Tronick's contribution focuses on mother-infant dyad as well as on analyst-patient one, conceived as open dynamic systems, capable of meaning making, in which coherence is at best imperfect, and coordination alternates with mismatching. In open dynamic systems messiness itself is inherent to the process of meaning making because of limitations in their capacity, their different time scales, the many polymorphs of meaning that have to be integrated, and because of the many kinds of meaning making processes (including affective, cognitive, memorial, linguistic, bodily and psychodynamic meaning making processes, such as a dynamic unconscious, projective identification and transference). Dyadic states of consciousness Tronick writes in the chapter are joint creations and, as such, bring together the messy, unpredictable and inchoate features of two individuals' state of consciousness, not just the messiness of one. But meaning meaning processes and security making ones, though normally overlapping each other, are not the same, and this heterogeneity between motivational systems (Lichtenberg et al., 2011) can cover the heterogeneity of psychopathological conditions. Lyons-Ruth and colleagues' chapter is focused on the representational world of the mother, particularly on the assessment of mother's representation of role-confusion in her relation with her child. The authors call attention to the dimension of sexualisation in the relationship, a high indicator of role-confusion. This emerging body of work points to the importance of being alert to indicators of role-confusion in the clinical setting. The findings can inform and enrich counselling and psychology practice by familiarizing clinicians with how to listen for indicators of role-confusion while talking with parents about their relationship with the child.