Prenatal intuitive coparenting behaviors

Micro-analytic research on intuitive parenting behaviors has shed light on the temporal dynamics of parent and child interactions. Observations have shown that parents possess remarkable implicit communicative abilities allowing them to adapt to the clues infants give and therefore stimulate the development of many of the infants' abilities, such as communication skills. This work focused on observing intuitive parenting behaviors that were synchronized and coordinated between the parents. We call them prenatal intuitive coparenting behaviors and used an observation task - the Prenatal Lausanne Trilogue Play procedure - to observe them. For this task, the parents role-play their first encounter with their future baby, represented by a doll. Two cases from a study on pregnancy after assisted reproductive technology are provided to illustrate how these behaviors manifest themselves. The observations from the first case suggest that expectant parents can offer the baby a coparental framework, whereas the observations from the second case show that opportunities for episodes of prenatal intuitive coparenting can be missed due to certain relationship dynamics.These kinds of observations deepen our knowledge of the prenatal emergence of the coparenting relationship and allow us to hone our strategies for intervening during pregnancy with couples who experience coparenting difficulties. Furthermore, these observations provide a novel and complementary perspective on prenatal intuitive parenting and coparenting behaviors

Framing the work: A coparenting model for guiding infant mental health engagement with families

: When working with families of infants and toddlers, intentionally looking beyond dyadic child-parent relationship functioning to conceptualize the child's socioemotional adaptation within their broader family collective can enhance the likelihood that clinical gains will be supported and sustained. However, there has been little expert guidance regarding how best to frame infant-family mental health therapeutic encounters for the adults responsible for the child's care and upbringing in a manner that elevates their mindfulness about and their resolve to strengthen the impact of their coparenting collective. This article describes a new collaborative initiative organized by family-oriented infant mental health professionals across several different countries, all of whom bring expansive expertise assessing and working with coparenting and triangular family dynamics. The Collaborative's aims are to identify a means for framing initial infant mental health encounters and intakes with families with the goal of assessing and raising family consciousness about the relevance of coparenting. Initial points of convergence and growing points identified by the Collaborative for subsequent field study are addressed

Initiating the dialogue between infant mental health and family therapy: a qualitative inquiry and recommendations

This qualitative study explores infant-family mental health experts' perspectives and experiences regarding the inclusion of infants in the family therapy setting. Infant socioemotional development is relational in nature and evolves in the context of both dyadic attachment relationships and broader multi-person co-parenting systems. Given this, we sought to understand why family therapy interventions involving families with infants rarely include the infant in a triangular or family systemic approach. Interviews were completed by clinical and/or research experts whose work integrates tenets of both infant mental health (IMH) and family theory and therapy. All interviewees brought at least 5 years of expertise and were actively engaged in the field. Interviewees expressed consistent beliefs that infants have a rightful and helpful place in family therapy approaches. They maintained that infants' innate social drive and communicative capacities position them to make meaningful and clinically significant contributions within family and systemic psychotherapy contexts. Noting that infants have remained on the periphery of these practices, experts advocated expansion and greater integration between IMH and family therapy, while preserving each field's distinctive identity. Experts reported that the interplay between IMH and family therapy fields has been uni-directional as family systems concepts are embedded within IMH approaches, but few IMH premises are incorporated in mainstream family therapy practices. The disconnect was attributed to multiple factors, including graduate and professional training and theoretical, clinical, research, and sociocultural barriers, which were mutually reinforcing. Experts also identified clinical gains for both infants and family members when infants were meaningfully included in family interventions. Common ground was identified between the disciplines, with a belief that relationally distressed young children and parents are best served by clinical engagement with their network of relationships. Results call for greater collaboration between disciplines to challenge existing traditions and to more fully include infants in mainstream family therapy. Recommendations for integration of family therapy and IMH in clinical, theoretical, research, training, and sociocultural domains are offered

Y a-t-il une place pour la psychothérapie individuelle en systémique ?

La clinique systémique est trop souvent identifiée à la thérapie de couple ou de famille au détriment de la psychothérapie individuelle. Cet article présente les résultats d'un groupe de travail de thérapeutes systémiciens qui ont longuement réfléchi à cette question. Après une revue bibliographique commentée sur le sujet, il propose un certain nombre de points critiques concernant la clinique de la psychothérapie individuelle d'orientation systémique

Prenatal Representations of Family in Parents and Coparental Interactions as Predictors of Triadic Interactions During Infancy

In this study, we explored the predictive role of family interactions and family representations in mothers and fathers during pregnancy for postnatal motherfatherinfant interactions during the first 2 years after birth. Families (N = 42) were seen at the fifth month of pregnancy and at 3 and 18 months after birth. During pregnancy, parents were asked to play with their baby at the first meeting by using a doll in accordance with the procedure of the prenatal Lausanne Trilogue Play (LTP; A. Corboz-Warnery & E. Fivaz-Depeursinge, 2001; E. Fivaz-Depeursinge, F. Frascarolo-Moutinot, & A. Corboz-Warnery, 2010). Family representations were assessed by administering the Family System Test (T. Gehring, 1998). Marital satisfaction and the history of the couple were assessed through self-reported questionnaires. At 3 and 18 months, family interactions were assessed in the postnatal LTP. Infant temperament was assessed through parent reports. Results show that (a) prenatal interactions and child temperament are the most important predictors of family interactions and (b) paternal representations are predictive of family interactions at 3 months. These results show that observational assessment of nascent family interactions is possible during pregnancy, which would allow early screening of family maladjustment. The findings also highlight the necessity of taking into account paternal representations as a significant variable in the development of family interactions