Implementation of a brief early intervention in times of socio-economic crisis: effects on parental stress

ABSTRACT

The paper investigates the effect of brief early intervention on parental stress in the midst of a socio-economic crisis, such as the one that struck Greece in the past decade. During this period, a psychoanalytically oriented prevention programme with parents and their infants/young children, named ‘Early Intervention Programme’, was designed and implemented in the Department of Child Psychiatry at ‘Aghia Sophia’ Children’s Hospital in Athens, Greece. The families that attended the programme were asked to participate in a research study regarding its effectiveness; data were collected from 102 mothers and 73 fathers. This paper presents the statistical findings regarding parental stress, mainly because it is a factor that has systematically been shown to negatively influence several aspects of a child’s development, but also because our hypothesis was that parental stress would be influenced by the negative external conditions. The results showed that both mothers’ and fathers’ stress levels were high before their participation to the programme (with fathers’ Total Stress scores falling within the clinical range), while they decreased to a statistically significant level after the completion of the programme. These findings are discussed in conjunction with some illustrative clinical material. Based on these, it is argued that the implementation of a psychoanalytically oriented brief early intervention programme with parents and infants/young children can alleviate parental stress, and thus support the parental capacity to efficiently deal with the high demands of early development, even in periods of economic crisis where the tensions for young parents are significant and the available mental health resources are scarce.

KEYWORDS:

• Brief intervention
• early intervention
• parent-infant psychotherapy
• parental stress
• economic crisis

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Dr. Gerasimos Kolaitis, Professor of Child Psychiatry, Director of the Department of Child Psychiatry, Athens University Medical School, ‘Aghia Sophia’ Children’s Hospital at the time when the current research was undertaken, Dr. Kalliopi Triantafyllou for her role in the collection and statistical analysis of the data, and Sofia Hassilidi for the use of clinical material.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation.

Notes on contributors

Lida Anagnostaki

Lida Anagnostaki, PhD, is a psychologist and child and adolescent psychoanalytic psychotherapist, member of the Hellenic Association on Child and Adolescent Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, and Associate Professor of Psychoanalytic Developmental Psychology in the Department of Early Childhood Education at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens.

Ira Kollia

Ira Kollia, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and senior trainee of the Hellenic Association on Child and Adolescent Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy. She works as a scientific associate at the ‘Unit for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy’ at the Department of Child Psychiatry of the Child Psychiatric Clinic, Medical School University of Athens, Children’s Hospital ‘Aghia Sofia’ and in private practice.

Effie Layiou-Lignos

Effie Layiou-Lignos, BSc, ACSW, MPsychPsych., is a child and adolescent psychotherapist, president of the Hellenic Association of Child and Adolescent Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, and clinical supervisor at the Department of Child Psychiatry of the Child Psychiatric Clinic, Medical School University of Athens, Children’s Hospital ‘Aghia Sofia’. She is a member of the ACP (UK), the Tavistock Society of Psychotherapists, has served as Greek delegate of the EFPP founding societies (1991), and is a member of the organizing committee of the EFPP Infant Observation Workshop (2005-today) and the Syros Summer Workshop (1998-today). She teaches and supervises in Greece, Cyprus, Turkey and Poland, mostly on Infant Observation and Early Therapeutic Intervention, with relevant publications and film production.