The Bernard L. Pacella, MD Parent Child Center

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STUDYING THE MUTUALLY INFLUENCING FORCES IN THE DYAD

During the last decade, psychoanalysts have become more cognizant of the need to develop empirical investigations of psychoanalytic concepts and psychoanalytically informed interventions. While The Parent Child Center's primary interest is in the emotional education and well-being of parents and children, we have recently initiated our first formal study aimed at increasing our empirical knowledge-base.

From Our Observational Experience

Our observational experience during our first nine years with mother-baby and mother-child groups has highlighted the extent to which emotional factors in the other (for example, calmness, anger, anxiety, depression) may influence not only her interactions with her child – but also the rate and timing of the child's developmental milestones. Conversely, we observed that a child's developmental spurts or lags influence a mother's emotional state and interaction with her child.

These observations become especially meaningful as a child begins to act autonomously, and conflicted interactions between mother and child start to occur. We see this dramatically when a child begins to object to the mother's "No." During the second year of life, the situation intensifies. This period is a complicated one for mothers and toddlers. The toddler needs to master autonomous activities, particularly ones involving his or her own body. The mother needs to exercise judicious control, intervening protectively, educationally, and pleasurably, while allowing the toddler maximum expression; this requires management of both her toddler and her own reactions.

Susan Sherkow, MD, Leads Research Program

Under the leadership of Susan Sherkow, MD, and with Lissa Weinstein, Ph.D., a pilot study began two years ago at the Center to focus our attention more deliberately on these issues. Using a process-notes technique to record observations of mother, child, and mother-child dyad, we have documented that a mother responds differently to her toddler than she did during the child's infancy. This is particularly true when a mother is angry. We also have documented that by the age of 24 - 30 months, children express their anger and frustration primarily in a mode similar to the way their mothers do.

The Interaction Between Mothers and Babies

Using more rigorous empirical methods to collect raw data, our current research program continues the efforts of this pilot project as we empirically study common psychoanalytic concepts, such as "anal phase." Children's play and their interaction with their mothers will be videotaped. Semi-structured interviews with mothers will be recorded on audio tape. Using these tools, we will evaluate a mother's report of her reactions to her child, the interactions between them, and the child's play and behavior. In this way, we hope to further our understanding of the interactions between mother and toddler, particularly the aggressively charged ones. Our research plan will enable us to study dyads cross-sectionally (in different situations) as well as longitudinally (over time). We will also benefit by the establishment of a library of audio and video recorded data for future research.

The Processing of Emotional Information

Because symbolization operates in the construction of emotional meaning and the mastery of unpleasant realities (see, for example, Blos, 1976), we will study the ways in which a mother's capacity to symbolize helps her to mitigate anxiety and other unpleasant affects, and enables her to help her child learn to contain and transform difficult situations. In order to do so, we will adapt the theories and techniques developed by Wilma Bucci, Ph.D., Visiting Research Scholar at The New York Psychoanalytic Institute and Research Consultant to The Parent Child Center.

Bucci (1997) has hypothesized that in order to account for the processing of emotional information, one has to take into account three systems of representing and processing information. The first two are nonverbal systems, subsymbolic (visceral feelings) and symbolic (images). The third is the symbolic verbal system (words). She has proposed a psychological function, referential activity (RA), by which the two nonverbal systems are connected to one another and then connected to the verbal symbolic system. Using Bucci's methods, we will evaluate each mother's symbolizing capacity via the assessment of RA and then correlate the RA indicator with psychological and play measures.

Our research has been made possible by the generous support of the Friends of The Parent Child Center, the International Psychoanalytical Association, the Glass Fellowship from the American Psychoanalytic Foundation, and the Erma Brenner Research Grant and Award. Our research has been enriched by the efforts both of Cheryl Williams, Erma Brenner Fellow (and former psychology extern at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute and current Ph.D. candidate at Yeshiva University), and of Christopher Christian, Ph.D., Glass Fellow (and a candidate at The New York Psychoanalytic Institute).

Blos, P. (1976) The Split Parental Imago in Adolescent Social Relations – An Inquiry into Group Psychology. Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 31:7-33.

Bucci, W. (1997) Psychoanalysis and Cognitive Science: A Multiple Code Theory. New York: The Guilford Press.

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