Unintegration, disintegration and deintegration

Abstract

This paper is a response to a review of the conference titled, ‘Unintegration, Disintegration and Integration’, written by Cathy Urwin and Maria Rhode in the ACP Bulletin. The review mentioned Michael Fordham, noting that he referred to a ‘good’ kind of unintegration. In this paper, I point out that this is a somewhat misleading reference to what he termed ‘deintegration’. I describe Fordham's model and draw upon observational material and developmental studies in order to illustrate his model. I try to demonstrate that his model is useful and relevant in two particular areas; firstly, it is a psychodynamic model that encompasses the functional unity of the infant and, secondly, the model has adapted readily to the wealth of developmental research that arose at the end of the last century.

Résumé

Cet article se veut un commentaire sur le compte-rendu du colloque «Intégration, non-intégration, désintégration» qui, rédigé par Cathy Urwin et Maria Rhode, est paru dans le Bulletin de l'A.C.P. [Association des Psychothérapeutes d'Enfant]. Ce compte-rendu cite Michael Fordham et relève le fait que celui-ci se réfère à un certain type de non-intégration qu'il qualifie de «bonne». Dans cet article, je voudrais préciser qu'il s'agit là d'une référence quelque peu erronée à ce que M. Fordham a appelé «dé-intégration». Je décris le modèle proposé par M. Fordham et, à l'aide d'un matériel d'observation et d'études développementales, je tente d'en donner une illustration. J'essaie de montrer que, dans deux domaines en particulier, son modèle est utile et fort pertinent: premièrement, il s'agit d'un modèle psychodynamique qui englobe l'unité fonctionnelle du nourrisson et, deuxièmement, le modèle a su s'adapter sans difficulté à toute la richesse que nous ont offerte les recherches développementales de la fin du siècle dernier.

Dieser Artikel ist eine Antwort auf eine Besprechung der Konferenz ‘Unintegrierung, Disintegrierung und Integrierung’, von Cathy Urwin und Maria Rhode geschrieben. Die Besprechung erwähnte Michael Fordham und stellte heraus, dass er auf eine ‘gute’ Art der Unintegrierung verwies. In diesem Artikel stelle ich heraus, dass dies eine etwas irreführende Referenz zu dem ist, was er ‘Deintegrierung’ nannte. Ich beschreibe Fordhams Modell und berufe mich dabei auf Beobachtungsmaterial und Entwicklungsstudien, um sein Modell zu illustrieren. Ich versuche aufzuzeigen, dass sein Modell in zwei besonderen Bereichen nützlich und relevant ist: erstens ist es ein psychodynamisches Modell, das die funktionelle Einheit des Babies einschliesst und zweitens hat sich das Modell leicht der Fülle von Entwicklungsforschung angepasst, die am Ende des letzten Jahrhunderts entstand.

Riassunto

Questo articolo è una risposta alla rassegna della conferenza dal titolo ‘Non-integrazione, Disintegrazione e Integrazione’, scritta da Cathy Urwin e Maria Rhode nel Bollettino dell'ACP. La rassegna menzionava Michael Fordham, facendo notare come egli si riferisse ad un tipo di non-integrazione ‘buona’. Nell'articolo si fa notare come questo sia un riferimento in qualche modo fuorviante rispetto a ciò che egli denominava ‘de-integrazione’. L'autore descrive il modello di Fordham e lo illustra portando del materiale tratto dall'osservazione e da studi evolutivi. L'autore cerca di dimostrare che il modello è utile e rilevante in due aree in particolare. Primo, è un modello psicoanalitico che racchiude l'unità funzionale del neonato e, secondo, il modello si è adattato velocemente alle molte ricerche evolutive sorte alla fine del secolo scorso.

Keywords:

• Infant development
• deintegration
• reintegration
• primary self
• sense of self
• disintegration

Mots-clefs:

• Développement du jeune enfant
• dé-intégration
• ré-intégration
• soi primaire
• sentiment de soi-même
• désintégration

Keywords:

• Kleinkindentwicklung
• Deintegrierung
• Reintegrierung
• primäres Selbst
• Selbstgefühl
• Disintegrierung

Parole chiave:

• sviluppo del neonato
• de-integrazione
• reintegrazione
• sé primario
• senso del sé
• disintegrazione

Notes

1 In my 2000 paper I used the term ‘matching’, while Trevarthen prefers ‘imitation’ to describe what each of us means as an interplay of adjustments that bring like together with like, ‘rather than a slavish or self-stimulating copying’ (Trevarthen, 2005: 91). I preferred ‘matching’ because it seemed to me more appropriate for describing the bringing together of internal states, rather than external behaviour. Since writing the 2000 paper, I have come to appreciate that it is external behaviours that produce the resonance. Schore writes about ‘the biological synchronicity between organisms’ (Schore, 2001b: 310). I commented on this in a review, noting how the synchronicity involves the split second timing of recognition and perception:

• It takes 30 milliseconds to appraise facially expressed emotional cues, 100 milliseconds to detect and carry out complex processing of change within a human face, and 300–400 milliseconds to mirror and synchronously match an emotionally expressive face. Similar capacities exist for recognising and matching the emotional qualities of voices (termed ‘prosody’) that occur through rhythm, tonality and intensity.

  Early recognition, processing and matching occur via sensori-motor manifestations. What is perceived triggers affect and concomitant bodily responses that are innately connected to expression. The neurologist Antonio Damasio describes how the complex registering of an emotional perception entails its processing in the limbic system, where neuron nuclei possess firing patterns that trigger ‘the enactment of a body state characteristic of the emotion’ (Damasio, 1994: 131). He thinks of it as ‘e-motion’, the essence of which is a collection of changes in state (‘motions’) ‘that are induced in myriad organs by nerve cell terminals, under the control of a dedicated brain system’ which is responding to a particular ‘entity or event’ (Damasio, 1994: 139). Put in marginally more subjective terms, ‘“reading” another's emotional expression entails decoding by actual felt [somatic] emotional reactions to the stimuli, that is, by a form of empathic responding’ (Schore, 2002: 27, quoting from Day and Wong, 1996).

  Instantaneous perceiving and matching is occurring within both parties engaged together, which results in a mutual mapping process comprised of a ‘very rapid sequence of reciprocal affective transactions [co-constructed] within the intersubjective field’ (Schore, 2002: 19). In a clinical context, this is the process of projective identification. These mappings, whether of attunement or mis- or mal-attunement, automatically imprint themselves into implicit and autobiographical memory, becoming the stuff of object relations. (Urban, 2003: 120–121).