Early years an infant mental health - Assignment Example

Early years an infant mental health (PART In line with the case study which looks at the broader of infant mental health, the chapter ofthe reading with the heading “shaky foundations and their consequence” is critically analyzed for its findings and conclusions. Generally, the author supports that notion that love has mostly been mistaken for attachment by most parents and so in an attempt to deliver secure attachment, such parents tend to feel that the love they give to their little once is enough (Brazelton & Cramer, 2010). Meanwhile, there are very important components of attachment that makes it go beyond love (Jones, Prilleltensky & Riemer, 2009). With this said, it will be emphasized that all forms f attachment involves love but not all forms of love involves attachment (Davis & Wallbridge, 2008). The findings of the chapter therefore reviewed that the reason behind most questionable actions that have been showcased by some adolescents and adults such as social withdrawal and cruelty is the direct consequence the absence of secure attachment for these people when they were young (Bion, 2013). According to the attachment theory, there are long term effects on the kind of relationships that exists between people (Purves et al, 2008). More closely to this, secure attachment and bonding principle explains that the relationship’s effect is even more dominant at the very early stages of a person’s life. By combining the ideas of attachment theory to secure attachment bonding therefore, a realization is had that parents hold an innate responsibility to bond and attach well with their babies as a way of building a position life-long effect that will determine the way these children get along with other people and with the world around them (Prior and Glaser, 2006). With the points made above, the use of circle of security will be identified as a vivid example of a strategy for gaining attachment that distinguishes love from secure attachment (Breggin & Breggin, 2009). One important aspect of the circle of security intervention that is going to be a immense help to subjects in the case study, especially the caregiver is that the intervention focuses not just on the child or the mother but on both the parent and the child. This is because Szalavitz and Perry (2010) examples that as a secure attachment bonding intervention, circle of security focuses attention on a child’s emotional connection with the primary caregiver, who in this case is Emma. This type of emotional connection takes a very long walk in the life of the child and caregiver, starting from birth and developing at a very rapid rate into the first two years of the child’s life, and thereafter. The core merit of the circle of security therefore has to do with the fact that the nature attachment and bond that needs to be developed between the mother and child will start right from the onset of the intervention because it does not isolate the emotional needs of the child from the series of tasks that are designed in equipping the caregiver with the skills of offering secure attachment. Another important aspect of the proposed intervention is that it is made up of well identified stages that make it possible for the service provider to clearly identify the needs of the patient and rightly apportion remedies to them (Daws, 2009). For example the pre-intervention stage is to undertake a child and caregiver classification and rating that seek to rightly measure and quantify the degree of child and caregiver problem. This is however done as a product of the assessment procedures that are carried out. In often times, the child and caregiver classifications and ratings will be undertaken as a codification process for the results that are gathered at the pre-intervention level. For example from a child’s perspective where videotapes and questionnaires are used in the assessment data collection, a clinical psychologists will code the results using a number of codification systems such as Ainsworth’s classification system for infants as outlined in Ainsworth et al, (1978) or the Preschool Attachment classification system as outlined in Cassidy and Marvin (1992). From a parent’s perspective, the use of Caregiver Behavior Classification System, as outlined in Marvin and Britner (1995) is recommended. In totality, the classification and ratings will be necessary in defining the intensity of care that will be needed in mitigating the problem according to its depth of effect. The logic with this process is that until the right level of problem is identified, the issuance of treatment may be only based on arbitrary assumptions, which could have negative consequence on the recovery rate (Early childhood research network, 2010). Essentially therefore, the importance of giving children very good foundations is hailed by the writer as the best intervention for unforeseen future social dynamic troubles for adults (Edgar, 2012). From a personal viewpoint, this position taken by the author will be agreed with based on the provisions of other important studies and research findings. In a recent publication, Rutter (2012) found that adults who responded more positively to attachment assessment variables for their childhood days were those who were also scored higher with social integration variables (Rutter & Smith, 2011). Psycho-mentally, a different research work that was committed to finding the background of adults who had records of aggression and violence, it was realized that most respondents who were identified as being aggressive and violent were people whose parents were identified to have had problems with attachment while raising their kids (Sameroff & Emde, 2010). This presentation is therefore coming in a strong advocacy for the need for there to be proper monitoring of children at the earliest stages of their lives, not just by their mothers but also by clinical psychologists who have the professional knowhow to diagnose and identify parents who have problems with attachment. Whiles doing this, the need to use mother and child centered interventions is highly recommended. This is because in most cases, attempts by clinical psychologists to help parents with these kinds of problems have failed because the interventions have been made to be widely distanced from the beneficiaries (Denzin & Lincoln, 2009). A new era of hope and change is therefore declared now, involving a time when clinical psychologists will make the needs and wants of their patients their needs and wants; and strive on the verge of commitment until the need successes are achieved. (PART 2) Introduction As far as the relationship between parents and babies are concerned, there are two major challenges that have easily been identified in literature. The first of these has to do with parents who do not offer any form of bonding at all to their babies and those who offer a kind of bonding that is not secure attachment bonding (Sroufe et al, 2005). Even though the second scenario may be the worst case scenario, the second case is equally not acceptable and demands professional attention. This is because when any form of bonding, such as love bonding is made to replace secure attachment bonding, the desired results on babies are not achieved (Mason, 2012). In the current case, a combination of the two kinds of problems indicated above can be identified. This is because Emma seems to be totally withdrawn from Chanelle, not offering any form of bond at all in most of the cases. In situations where she attempts to make her presence felt also the right form of bonding is not given. An intervention that seeks to address both forms of problems is therefore needed. Circle of Security Intervention Circle of security will be found to be a very popular and old form of secure attachment intervention that has been used over the years to treat specific cases of parent and child attachment disorders. Generally, circle of security will be identified as a preventive intervention that is undertaken by putting emphasis on parent education and psychotherapy remediation (Hughes and Owen, 2009). Generally, therapists will opt for circle of security intervention when there is the need for a total shift from a risky pattern of attachment on the part of caregivers to a new paradigm of ethically and socially appropriate and acceptable developmental pathway (Howe, 2013). From this indication, the reason and justification of the selection of circle of security intervention for Emma and Chenelle can be clearly identified. That is, Emma is currently found to be in a very critical and crucial problematic attachment situation, which when corrected, can bring so much trouble for she and her little Chenelle. As part of the intervention, there will be the need to increase Emma’s sensitivity and responsiveness to Chenelle, improve Emma’s ability to reflect on her Chenelle’s behavior, actions, feelings and thought, and finally to create an avenue for Emma to reflect on her personal history, based on which she will develop the need to change her current care giving pattern towards Chenelle. Standardized pre-intervention assessment procedures Assessment procedures The very first stage of assessment procedure when using the circle of security intervention is to undertake an assessment procedure, that seeks to measure the degree of withdrawal that the facilitator will be dealing with. This means that assessment procedures are carried ahead of the actual stages of intervention, making it fall under the pre-intervention stage of the whole intervention. For a typical 20 week intervention, the assessment procedures could be made up of 10 days of data collection from the field where the intervention will be delivered. Marvin et al (2002) have explained that for a typical 20 weeks of intervention, “the assessment is used to identify risk and resilience factors in their interactions, design individualized intervention goals, and measure change.” In effect, the assessment procedures will help in setting aim and specific objectives of the intervention, as well as help in setting a scope within which strategies and interventions will be delivered. It has however been noted in modern practice that the kind of feedback that is received as part of the assessment procedures must not be fixed and unchangeable but changeable in the course of the intervention when the need arises (Miles, Newman and Warren, 2011). Constructing intervention goals The last pre-intervention procedure that is undertaken ahead of the execution of the circle of security intervention has to do with the construction of intervention goals. The construction of intervention goals is the direct outcome of the first two forms of pre-intervention procedures that take place. It would be noted that at the classification and rating stage, there are major classifications set for each of the caregiver and the child. For each of these major classifications, there must be a specific goal that is set in addressing the classification that is identified. Below is a typical example of a major classification and goal that Marvin et al (2002) outline in their study: Benefits of Circle of Security Intervention to Emma as a Caregiver Interactive in nature Another major advantage of the circle of security is that it is highly interactive in nature. By interactivity, reference is being made to the fact that this intervention involves the caregiver to a very large extent in the delivery of methodological change. With specific emphasis to Emma, it would be noted that the degree of withdrawal that she has made her little Chenelle experience so far is massive and far fetching. To this end, the best form of intervention that can address her situation is one that gives her practical hands on experience to secure attachment right from the onset (Purbrick, 2012). This way, most forms of withdrawals that have been experienced by Chenelle can be made up for within a very short period of time. It would be noted that unlike love bonding which is task-oriented, secure attachment bonding focuses directly on what is happening at a specific moment of intervention (Thompson and Thompson, 2008). If the latter premise is used, much of the child’s nonverbal clues, which have been identified to be fright of Emma would be used to suggest to Emma, the kind of emotional response she should give in exchange to her child’s feelings. Easy to adapt to Lastly, it would be noted that the circle of security is highly easy to adapt by any caregiver of any background. By background, reference is being made to the degree of withdrawal that has been experienced so far, as well as the knowledge of the caregiver on secure attachment bonding. In this regard, regardless of the fact that Emma’s care of withdrawal can be described as the worst case scenario, there is still much opportunity for her to make amends with the use of circle of security. This is because the circle of security intervention is a very systematic process that will ensure that changes that are being sought are delivered through series of comprehensible and adaptive stages of intervention protocols. In a typical situation, a 20 week intervention protocol can be designed to ensure that there is sufficient time for the care giver to adapt to the various forms of changes that are being delivered to her. Where the facilitator recognizes the need for extension of time, it is always possible that the intervention will be widened to suit the rate of adaptability of the caregiver. References Ainsworth, M. D. S., Blehar, M. C., Waters, E., & Wall, S. 1978. Patterns of attachment: Psychological study of the Strange Situation. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Bion, W. R. 2013. Attention and interpretation. In particular: “Container and contained” pp. 72-82. London: Karnac Books. Brazelton, T. B., & Cramer, B. G. 2010. The earliest relationship: Parents, infants and the drama of early attachment. Reading, MA: Addison- Wesley. Breggin, P. R., & Breggin, G. R. 2009. 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