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

Family coordination in families who have a child with autism spectrum disorder

Little is known about the interactions of families where there is a child with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The present study applies the Lausanne Trilogue Play (LTP) to explore both its applicability to this population as well as to assess resources and areas of deficit in these families. The sample consisted of 68 families with a child with ASD, and 43 families with a typically developing (TD) child. With respect to the global score for family coordination there were several negative correlations: the more severe the symptoms (based on the child’s ADOS score), the more family coordination was dysfunctional. This correlation was particularly high when parents had to play together with the child. In the parts in which only one of the parents played actively with the child, while the other was simply present, some families did achieve scores in the functional range, despite the child’s symptom severity. The outcomes are discussed in terms of their clinical implications both for assessment and for interventio

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

Documenting a time-bound, circular view of hierarchies: a microanalysis of parent-infant dyadic interaction.

This article presents a new theory that separates the levels of communication and relates them circularly, namely, by separating time from space/meaning variables. Documenting this proposition requires sequential microdescriptions--a far-out project in the field of family therapy. In an extensive study of clinical and nonclinical families, starting with available microanalytic data on nonverbal parent-infant dialogue, distinct time organizations have been found to modify the degree of circularity between the levels of interaction according to the observed types of engagement, that is, consensual, conflictual, and paradoxical. The double description of the dyad as a totality versus the dyad as a framing/developing organization imparts crucial information on how development proceeds in dyadic, co-evolutive systems, and presumably in larger ones too. In this perspective, a model is elaborated and then applied to a case description in our therapeutic consultation

A systems perspective on the integrative child psychiatry approach. Discussion of paper: "Working here and now with the individual and family system: A case of a traumatized child"

In this discussion, after a few general comments, I will propose a systems reading of the intervention so elegantly described by Kaija Puura. I will draw parallels between the therapeutic and the family groups as framing-developing systems and formalize the steps taken by the family toward healing under the influence of the therapist's team. En esta discusión, después de algunos comentarios generales, propongo una lectura sistemática de la intervención tan elegantemente descrita por Kaija Puura. Buscaré paralelos entre los grupos terapéuticos y de familia como sistemas de desarrollo enmarcado y formalizaré los pasos tomados por la familia hacia la cicatrización bajo la influencia del equipo del terapista. Après quelques commentaires généraux, je proposerai dans cette discussion une lecture systémique de l'intervention si élégamment décrite par Kaija Puura. J'établirai des parallèles entre les groupes thérapeutiques et familiaux en tant que systèmes d'encadrement-développement et je formaliserai les étapes de guérison franchies par la famille grâce à l'influence de l'équipe thérapeutique. In dieser Diskussion, werde ich nach einigen allgemeineren Aussagen, eine systemische Lesart der von Kaija Puura so eingängig beschriebenen Intervention vorschlagen. Ich werde darin Parallelen zwischen der therapeutischen und Rahmengebenden Familiengruppen ziehen, und die Schritte der Familien hin zu einer Heilung unter dem Einfluss des Therapeutenteams formalisieren

The Child and the Couple: From Zero to Fifteen

This paper presents an exploratory study of two contrasting cases observed longitudinally, using the different versions of the LTP procedure from infancy to adolescence, to evaluate the continuity of family processes, coparenting, and children's triangular communication. Two cases, matched for SES and gender of the children, were selected from a sample of 50 volunteer families. One family had a functional alliance, while the other had a detouring coalition. We begin with descriptions of the family interactions, the coparenting alliance and the children's triangular communication at 18 months, followed by brief descriptions of their LTPs at 3 and 9 months as well as at 5 years. Finally, we present the LTP for adolescents and their parents, which involves a discussion task rather than play (LTP/Discussion). Detailed excerpts contrast the interactions of the two families once the children were 15 years old. These descriptions show the continuity of family processes, particularly "three-way" communication in the family with a functional alliance vs. "two-against one" communication in the family with a coalition. Data from microanalysis of gaze and affect, during the LTP/Discussion, provide a second way of assessing communication patterns. The microanalysis revealed great discrepancies between the families at adolescence, not only in terms of the pattern of gaze interaction, but also with respect to the valence of affects. In the functional alliance, fun and affection dominated and gaze patterns were typical of three-way communication. Gaze patterns of restricted communication, lack of empathy and hostility characterised the detouring coalition