Reflections on the theoretical contributions and clinical applications of parental insightfulness

ABSTRACT

This paper outlines the theoretical antecedents that contextualize parental insightfulness and examines this concept’s value in assessing parental functioning and in monitoring treatment progress with parents and young children who experience mental health and relationship problems. As a concept, parental insightfulness provides a much-needed bridge linking important aspects of attachment theory with their psychoanalytic origins, including early contributions that conceptualize parenting as a developmental process that furthers the unfolding capacities of the adult self. The paper examines the compatibility between the dimensions of parental insightfulness and the criteria for a healthy adult sense of self. The empirical body of knowledge generated by the concept of parental insightfulness is briefly reviewed as the basis for using the concept as a valuable tool for the empirical exploration of intrapsychic, interpersonal, and clinical processes in parents and their children.

KEYWORDS:

• Parental insightfulness
• parenting as a developmental process
• adult sense of self
• insight
• parental attributions

Acknowledgement

I thank the Irving Harris Foundation for its support of the work of the Child Trauma Research Program in developing, implementing, and disseminating treatments that promote parental insightfulness and child well-being.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.