Subject of study—mother/infant dyad Infant and mother are equal participants in interaction Focus of study—how each member of dyad influences other member Infancy—Systems/Behavioral Models

Contrasts with Organismic/Psychoanalytic Models Infant’s subjective experience not important—only behavioral manifestations Infant accurately apprehends reality and real aspects of mother Mother, therefore, has a real influence on infant (Bowlby as Klein’s supervisee) One-person versus two-person model—both members of dyad are equally responsible for construction of shared reality IImplications for interactions between couples IImplications for interactions between patient and therapist Absence of aggressive, sexual drives

Stern’s Model of the Origins of Infant Psychopathology The first relationship—to mom—is prototype for all future relationships Successful mother-infant interaction—affect regulation  Based on mother’s ability to interpret optimal levels of infant arousal  Based on infant’s threshold of stimulation and organization of affect  Based on mutual ability to negotiate a meaningful, shared dialogue (goal-correctedness)

Failure of affect regulation MMaternal overstimulation/infant hyperarousal No opportunity to regulate flow of affective information and thus feel in control of external or internal world Contingently overstimulating mothers Noncontingently overstimulating mothers (“better to respond badly than to be nonresponsive”) Effects on infant Dissociating—splitting all perception Motoric inhibition (“going limp”) Infant exceptionally sensitive to stimuli (e.g., drug- exposed infants) Severely protective behaviors Withdrawing behaviors

 Maternal understimulation/infant hypoarousal Incompetence in performing stimulating behaviors that produce optimal levels of arousal Interferences in performing these behaviors (e.g., depression) Mothers who feel rejected and in turn reject the infant (under or overstimulating?) Effects on infant—feeling that infant cannot control external world or internal state Infant exceptionally insensitive to stimuli—mother must work harder

PParadoxical stimulation Stimulating only at times when infant is in pain or danger Mother’s interest becomes associated with self-inflicted pain Origins of sado-masochism Avoiding full contact and full disengagement Engagement and disengagement are prototypes for attachment and separation later in development

Bowlby/Ainsworth’s Model of the Origins of Infant Psychopathology Evolutionary theory—mother and infant try to maximize protection (stimulated by fear, fatigue, or sickness) from external danger through two behaviors  Proximity-seeking  Contact-maintenance Outcomes when survival is threatened through caregiver unavailability  Anxiety  Anger  Disbelief at loss  Searching for reunion  Detachment

Homeostasis (regulation) of feelings of security PPhysiological control systems—anxiety, anger, searching EEnvironmental control systems—emotional availability Failures in secure attachment AAttachment behavior de-activated—defensive exclusion (avoidant infants) Interference with loving and being loved because fear of rejection “False self” or narcissism develops

 Attachment behavior hyper-activated (resistant/ambivalent infants) Inconsistency in mother’s availability and responsiveness Preoccupation and intense anger develops (BPD?) Implications: Developmental pathways to clinical depression (Brown & Harris, 1978)  Severe current adverse event—personal loss or disappointment  Absence of companion in whom to confide (secure 6 age)  Difficult living conditions—feelings of insecurity  Loss of mother before age 11

Other developmental outcomes AAvoidant infants Aggressive toward peers Noncompliant Avoidant AAmbivalent infants Easily frustrated Not persistent Not competent

Developmental Sequences in Other Populations (DS, Maltreatment) DS infants proceed through same developmental sequences but at slower rate—integration of ecological self is difficult  Linguistic representations of self are less mature and differentiated  Ecological self is intact—able to perceive nature of relationship between the person and environment

Maltreated infants develop self differently SSelf-recognition accompanied by negative affect (shameful or bad feelings about self) IInternal state language less mature, less elaborated, less able to discuss internal states of self and other, less able to discuss negative internal states (“false self”)