The Psychoanalytic Approach to Infant Observation - Essay Example

Psychodynamic Counselling and Psychotherapy Introduction: Observing an infant who has not yet achieved self-regulation, emotional and behavioural patterns are significant in building the infant's personality that is woven into the immediate relationship context. Infant observation provides a practical opportunity to the young counsellors to experience infancy in context with child development while analysing the effects of sexual identity, family status, society, race and culture on infant development (Reid, 1997, p. 6). Counsellors not only learn through observing personally the infants' pleasures and pains that later identifies their physical, cognitive and emotional personalities, but also learn about the 'involvement' factor in mother-child relationship. The psychoanalytic approach to infant observation enables the counsellor to better understand the emotional and psychological needs of the infants which the elderly people feel and share with their loved ones. An infant counselling starts as soon he is born and lasts till his second birthday, this gives enough time to the counsellor learners to identify good and bad experiences of the infant in context with the parents' interaction. Counsellors appreciate this relationship in context with the growing theories of traditions, and perspectives central to developmental psychopathology, including attachment, psychodynamic, family systems, and transactional ecological theories (Wiggins & Carter, 2004, p. 5). As we continue to advance our understanding of the circumstances that effects infant's development and attitude, we realise the parenting or care giving framework continues to emerge as a central construct. Observation defined: Infant observation is the best way to analyse early human development of child rearing in context with those blessings that the nature has preserved for the infant. Parental love, understanding and attachment are the examples that nurtures and grooms the infant to the day when he or she becomes a significant part of the society. Observation when defined in terms of relationships is the consideration of the parental understanding of infant's physical, cognitive, emotional and mental needs that are to be fulfilled in accordance with their environment, social surrounding and culture. Observation simplifies the counselling work to highlight through a variety of mental health issues in infants that defines the best ways to include the relationship perspective in assessment practices that further continues to elude clinicians. It is through observation that infants are assessed through employing parent-child relationship paradigm when assessing the mental health of the infant or young child and describe structured clinical evaluation procedures and domains for assessment when evaluating parent-child relational quality and determining relational diagnoses or attachment classifications (Wiggins & Carter, 2004, p. 6). Tavistock Approach about Infants Observation: Tavistock Model highlights the significance of establishing earliest relationships which helps psychoanalytic counsellors and professionals to assess and review theoretical developments in infants' observation and its impact on clinical practice. The Tavistock model offers a good example of how to observe a child with the emphases on learning techniques to make sense of the world of the subject both through applying theory and through developing self-awareness (Howe et al, 1999, p. 180). . The assessment of infant mental health recognizes the inextricability of the infant parenting relationship in clinical setting. This clinical tradition of infant mental health escorts to the creation of parent-infant psychotherapy with both psychodynamic/systems approaches (Lieberman, Silverman, & Pawl, 2000) and interaction educational approaches (McDonough, 2000). Another focus of the Tavistock Model is on the early relationships significance in the developmental sciences and considerations of mental disorder in infancy and early childhood. Sroufe and Fleeson (1986) proposed that infants, who develop certain "internal working models" or "mental representations" of relationships with their parents, incorporate both sides of the parent-child relationship that shape the establishments with peers. If true, then children who enjoy warm, nurturing relationships with their parents would be expected to be more empathic, nurturing, and socially competent with peers than would children whose parents are rejecting, inconsistently responsive, or abusive, and this pattern has been reported (Lamb et al, 2002, p. 43). The Tavistock Model provided me an opportunity to learn different aspects of 'observation' by utilising attachment theory particularly in context with the infant-mother relationship. A high-quality mother-infant relationship is central to a child's healthy development and it is within this first intimate relationship that a child begins to develop a foundation of security, learns to regulate emotion, master basic language and cognitive concepts, and establishes relational patterns that are carried forward into later stages of development. The quality of the mother-infant relationship depends upon the mother's behaviour, particularly her sensitivity to the baby's cues and signals and her ability to attune her response to the baby's needs and characteristics. Research also points to various factors that underlie a mother's sensitivity and responsiveness; knowledge and understanding of child development, realistic attitudes and expectations about child rearing, and healthy resolution of the mother's issues about how she was cared for in her own childhood. But the mother-infant relationship does not develop in a vacuum, as it is subject to the influence of factors beyond the simple dyad. For example, mothers who have a positive relationship with their infants are supported, both emotionally and instrumentally, by others in their network of family or friends. The mother-infant relationship not only develops in a framework of family and larger social systems but also takes shape within a developmental course that is influenced not only by current ecology, but by ecological forces that operated in earlier stages of the mother's life. It seems reasonable to expect that there are, within all levels of ecology past and present factors that either support or hinder a mother's ability to sustain the sensitive care an infant needs and therefore affect the quality of the mother-infant relationship (Fitzgerald et al, 2002, p. 84). On observing a mother, I analysed the enthusiastic behaviour which indicated the mother's desire to learn everything she could about her baby even before giving birth to the baby (Reid, 1997, p. 115) After the baby is born, a mother closely observes her baby by going into minute details of baby's sucking, breathing and all sorts of visual and audible preferences to which she researches into her own laboratory of love and affection. A mother notices each and every reaction of her baby's emotions and analyse her temperament at every level. However I find that understanding emotional development in infants presents formidable challenges to counsellors because infants cannot introspect and report on their subjective experiences in the ways that adults can. The consequence takes the form of inextricability that is linked to the development of emotional expressions in infancy. Facial expressions of a baby reliably reflect underlying emotional arousal in their behaviour which is visible through their gestures only a mother can understand, therefore the primary benefit of this level of detail is that it enables the researcher to specify precisely and unambiguously when a particular emotion is being experienced, as well as delineating specific transitions or fluctuations between emotions and the temporal course of emotional arousal and decline. Studying facial expressions of an infant is especially useful when counsellors studying the baby's emotional reactions to social events such as the approach of an unfamiliar adult in which short-term changes in the infant's facial expressions, may reveal significant changes in the infant's appraisal of the stranger. These anatomically based minute illustrations typically require the coding of videotaped records at very slow speeds; they provide a level of detail and sophistication that more general systems cannot provide. For example, I visualised four types of smiles in infants, smiling alone in a simple manner i.e., involving neither cheek raising nor mouth opening, cheek-raise smiling without mouth opening, open mouth smiling without cheek raising, and open mouth cheek-raise smiling (Lamb et al, 2002, p. 335). I assessed emotional expressions in babies by indicating the extent to which babies subject to negative emotions like anger and sadness. Sadness, another early emerging emotional expression has been observed in infants as young as 2 months of age and is found out on observing in situations when mothers play with their 3-month-old infants and then suddenly become impassive and unresponsive. This attitude hurts the babies by showing signs of withdrawal, 'wariness', and sadness in their facial and postural expressions. Expressions of fear and sadness are also visible in infants of depressed mothers. Throughout various stages of infant development, the baby is characterised by marked, sudden, unpredictable changes in state along with obvious levels of arousal and distress and by poor coordination of movements. Infant's behaviour becomes more organised over time as internal neural control mechanisms develops particularly my observation suggests that during the first 2 months, caregivers have a major impact on the baby's state of arousal. In situations where babies feel discomfort or distressed, adults intervene to soothe them and even when babies are drowsy they become alert when held erect at the adult's shoulder. Most of the infants in the periods of alertness learn more about their caregiver's environment while when infants are outside the alert period, they can learn little about their environment either social or physical. Because the caregivers who are close by can be felt, smelled, heard, and seen when infants are alert, babies may come to learn a great deal about them, and rapidly learn to associate their presence with alertness and the relief of distress (Thompson, 1998). My observation fulfilled the notion what researchers suggest that babies rapidly test their parents to what extent they are responding to them by expecting their parents to respond when they cry, and so begin to quit crying as soon as they hear or see their mothers approaching, rather than when they are actually picked up. The social attitude of the second phase of infant development reveals that babies during this phase are far more coordinated behaviourally than they were earlier. Their arousal level is less visible with larger proportions of their time utilise in alert states. In early face-to-face interactions I noticed the adult assumes major responsibility for keeping the interaction going in which babies smile or stick out their tongues, and adults respond with similar actions. Two-to three month-olds begin to respond with boredom, distress, or withdrawal when their mothers adopt unresponsive 'still-faces' instead of behaving in their typical interactive fashion (Moore, Cohn, & Campbell, 2001). How would I prefer to use the 'observation' in becoming a counsellor Observation helped me to analyse and detect those aspects of infant development that are often overlooked and are treated harshly. As a counsellor I recognised the primacy of the damage caused to many clients by their early experiences of inadequate or harmful parenting. Instead of using a traditional approach that most of the counsellors and psychotherapists have adopted that attempts to repair the damage of early years development in a variety of ways, this observation along with Tavistock approach provided me a new vision of why not prevent our infants from various emotional and psychological disorders at an early stage. This way we would be able to save a generation without any additional efforts or counselling sessions and expenses. Observing an infant is not just an observation, it is an in-depth analysis of how and in what possible manners we could make our generation think, act and behave in a social environment while adopting a normal attitude in the long run. Increasingly, however, those with a counselling training and background are recognising the importance of preventive intervention and are starting to explore areas of proactive work or 'psycho education' (Bayne et al, 1996, p. 220). According to my observation parenting education and support is the foremost area that requires this field of interest. According to my research and observations, the way the caregiver and infant interact has a significant effect on the maturation of the infant's nervous system, emotions and sense of self and when the non-verbal communication or gestures of parent and child is attuned the infant experiences positive emotions. However, unfamiliar behaviours, negative emotions or a blank face of the mother often cause the infant to produce and show negative signs. Various reciprocal interactions between child and parent, as the child seeks recognition for his or her talent, abilities, lovability and general sense of goodness, are crucial for developing positive core-self emotional schema. Therefore my learning of infant observation has helped me to differentiate between the causes that in the long run make the child positive or negative. I think counselling requires dedication to think how can it be prevented. This does not mean avoiding counselling but to nourish and groom the infant with love and wisdom so that an extent is reached where counselling sessions are of no use. Conclusion Observing an infant does not necessarily mean to become a good counsellor, observation is required to assist the parents in case they need any help. Parenting is a delicate area for intervention of any kind, fraught with sensitivity, charged with emotion and often guilt. In the UK where parenting is considered as a solely private matter, and intervention as intrusion, there is no other way to avoid abnormal situations where children grow with some psychological disorders. Good observation produces good counselling that can incite confident parenting resulting in confident and brilliant children, a happy generation. This is what I have learned so far through observation and this is what I think would make me a good counsellor - to accept challenge is how to intervene in this process to optimise the conditions, skills and opportunities for all parents to have the chance to provide 'good enough' parenting for their children. References Bayne Rowan, Horton Ian & Bimrose Jenny, (1996) New Directions in Counselling: Routledge: New York. Fitzgerald E. Hiram, Karraker Hildebrandt Katherine & Luster Tom, (2002) Infant Development: Ecological Perspectives: Routledge Falmer: New York. Howe David, Brandon Marian, Hinings Diana & Schofield Gillian, (1999) Attachment Theory, Child Maltreatment, and Family Support: A Practice and Assessment Model: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates: Mahwah, NJ. Lamb E. Michael, Bornstein H. Marc & Teti M. Douglas, (2002) Development in Infancy: An Introduction: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates: Mahwah, NJ. Lieberman, A. F., Silverman, R., & Pawl, J. H. (2000). "Infant-parent psychotherapy: Core concepts and current approaches" In: Handbook of infant mental health (2nd ed., pp. 472-484). New York: Guilford Press. McDonough, S. (2000). "Interaction guidance: An approach for difficult-to-engage families" In C. H. Zeanah, Jr. (Ed.) Handbook of infant mental health (2nd ed., pp. 485-493). New York: Guilford Press. Moore, G. A., Cohn, J. F., & Campbell, S. B. (2001). "Infant affective responses to mother's still face at 6-months differentially predict externalizing and internalizing behaviours at 18 months" In: Developmental Psychology, 37, 706-714. Reid Susan, (1997) Developments in Infants Observation: The Tavistock Model. Routledge: London. Thompson, R. A. (1998). "Early socio personality development". In W. Damon & N. Eisenberg (Vol. Ed. ), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 3. Social, emotional, and personality development (pp. 25-104). New York: Wiley. Wiggins Rebecca Delcarmen & Carter Alice, (2004) Handbook of Infant, Toddler and Preschool Mental Health Assessment: Oxford University Press: New York. Read More