Being able to see your child: the journey of a single mother in a MBT group for high-risk parents, through her representations of the child

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the parental representations of the child, through the case study of one participant in a mentalization-based intervention for parents of young children aged one – two years old, involved with the child welfare system as a result of their child’s maltreatment. A single mother’s representations of the child are analysed during the programme, through a qualitative lens. Narrative Processes Coding System (NPCS) and Thematic Analysis (TA) are used in combination, to elicit the mother’s representations by identifying language modes and themes from her narratives about both her own and other children. The maternal representations of the child appeared to be less negative as the programme reached its end. The mother’s reflexive language grew significantly in the middle phase of the programme and regressed during the last phase. However, the combined use of NPCS and TA showed an overall richer and less negative portrayal of the child during the ending phase. These findings suggest that during the course of the programme, the mother’s journey through her representations of the child, was characterised by progressions and regressions. There was also an emotional richness in the last phase of the programme that indicates the mother’s engagement in the group and her overall positive journey towards the development and the strengthening of a less negative representation of the child. Despite its limitations, this study hopes to provide insights for clinicians establishing and promoting interventions that aim to empower parents to clearly see their children.

KEYWORDS:

• Parental representations of the child
• high-risk parents
• MBT intervention
• children under 5s
• qualitative single case study

Acknowledgments

We are indebted to the participant of this study and to all the participants who took part in the MBT-parenting programme.

We also would like to express our gratitude to the creator of the MBT-programme who shared valuable comments and suggestions on an earlier version of this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Videos were often used throughout the programme as tools to facilitate reflection among the group members (e.g., the strange situation video).

2. Displacement is ‘the idea that feelings connected with a person or situation are displaced onto another person or object, which is safer than expressing the real conflict verbally or physically’ (Senko & Harper, 2019, p. 39).

3. Please see section ‘4.1 Early phase: The external mode and the different child’ for more details.

4. Please refer to footnote n.1.

5. NPCS and TA are described in the previous 2.0 Method section.

6. The still-face experiment (Tronick et al., 1978) was developed to portray the natural human process of attachment between a baby and mother, and then the effects of non-responsiveness on the part of the mother. It shows how an infant after a few minutes of interaction with a non-responsive and expressionless mother rapidly grows confused and frustrated, and begins to cry.

7. This information became available to the researcher following completion of the analysis of the data of the current study, in order to avoid biases.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Maria Grazia Sara Sicilia

Maria Grazia Sara Sicilia is a child and adolescent psychotherapist, currently working predominantly with children under the age of five years old and their parents/carers, within a NHS CAMHS outreach service in London. She has worked in various CAMHS services, including a specialist looked after and adoption team, offering short and long term treatments to young children, school-aged children and adolescents, as well as support to their families and to professionals around the child. This paper is based on research undertaken as part of her doctoral training as a child and adolescent psychotherapist at IPCAPA, the Anna Freud Centre and UCL.

Saul Hillman

Saul Hillman is a senior research fellow at the Anna Freud Centre and an honorary lecturer at University College London. He teaches and supervises across several different postgraduate programmes through both institutions. Within his research role, he has primarily managed and worked on studies around attachment and mentalization. Much of his work has been in the field of children who were either looked-after or adopted. His research interests are attachment, mentalization, measure development, looked-after children, adoption and trauma.