Processing affect 2

Question 1

affective communication

Answer 1

• co-ordinated patterns of interaction underpin healthy emotional development
• what happens when affective communication is atypical?
• modern caregiving practices have become increasingly divergent to that which the human genus spent over 90% of its existence (Hewlett and Lamb, 2005)

Question 2

disrupted communication

Answer 2

• Video-interaction studies show that infants are sensitive to time lags (Henning & Striano, 2011)
  
  • Frequent short looks in depressed mothers (e.g., break mutual gaze within 1-2s lag; Feldman, 2007)
  • Switching pauses are longer and more variable (Zlochower & Cohn, 1996)

Question 3

parenting practices

Answer 3

• Safety, feeding and social practices
  
  • Comparison of mothers with (N=867) and without (N=4007) depressive symptoms at 2-4 months post-partum
  • Analysis adjusted for age, race, marital status, education, employment, income, and previous motherhood

Question 4

socio-emotional practices

Answer 4

• Significantly lower odds for breastfeeding and social interactions in adjusted models
  
  • 19% reduced odds for showing book
  • 15% reduced odds for each playing and talking
  • 33% reduced odds for following routines
  • Association between maternal core beliefs and feeding problems (Blissett et al., 2005)

Question 5

disturbed infant interactions

Answer 5

• infant temperament predicted development of parent depression (Murray et al, 1996)

Question 6

arousal

Answer 6

• Infant needs ongoing co-modulation of arousal & raw experiences: No ability to repress content (Schore, 2012)
  
  • Depressed mothers were less likely to attempt repairs of interrupted interactions and more likely to capitulate (Field, 2010; Jameson et al., 1997)
  • • Triggers alarm state
  • Fight or flight: State of hyperarousal
    Freeze or collapse: State of immobility

Question 7

arousal 2

Answer 7

• sympathetic ANS - high energy intersubjective field of psychobiological attunement, rupture, and interactive repair
• parasympathetic ANS - low energy intersubjective field of psychobiological attunement, rupture, and interactive repair

Question 8

arousal 3

Answer 8

· Failure to integrate affective experiences can render
· them unendurable
- Infant withdraws (Emde, 1983; Tronick & Beeghly, 2011)
· Infant are meaning-makers (Tronick, 1989)
- Loss of co-experiencing  Loss of safety and trust
- Adaptation: Emotionally unavailable adult no longer violates infant expectations (e.g., Hernandez-Reif et al., 2007)
· Relational Hurt  Fragile self-system
- Infants of depressed mothers (see Field et al., 1989; Field, 1992; Field, 2010)
- 15% of infants in low risk families (not physically maltreating) evidence defensive adaptation and disorganisation (van IJzendoorn et al., 1999)

Question 9

“This is a most uncomfortable state of affairs, especially because the psyche of the individual gets ‘seduced’ away into this mind from the intimate relationship which the psyche originally had with the soma. The result is a mind-psyche, which is pathological” (Winnicott, 1954, p. 203)