Effects of Severely Disturbed Parents on Early Parent-Infant Interaction

Abstract

Pathogenic parent-infant relationship patterns endanger developmental processes of children.

Psychoanalysis with parents and their infants helps to diminish transgenerational repetition of maladaptive experiences of relationships. The aim of this extensive work is to transform dysfunctional relationship patterns and to change their self- and object-representations. The author gives an account of her experiences working in a counselling centre, where parents may come with their “problem babies”, infants with sleep and thriving disturbances or “cry babies”, and demonstrates the positive effects of a reconstructive and at the same time prospective work.