Using psychoanalytic concepts to inform interpretations and direct interventions with a baby in working with infants and parents

Abstract

How can some classical Freudian concepts such as defense, transference, infantile sexuality, and the role of the body ego and superego in the first year of life be applied to help the analyst working with parent–infant dyads? The case of a newborn that could not look at her mother, who did not feel empathy towards this child conceived as a result of an egg donation, was understood using Winnicott’s notion of early superego and the lack of libidinal pleasure. The notion of defenses towards primitive anxiety and the role of unconscious maternal functioning were helpful in helping the child as well as the parents to regulate their interactions.

Key words:

• Parent–infant therapy
• early superego
• libidinal pleasure
• destructiveness
• maternal function

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Christine Anzieu-Premmereur

Author

Christine Anzieu-Premmereur, MD, PhD, is director of the parent–infant training program at Columbia University Psychoanalytic Center and assistant clinical professor in psychiatry at Columbia University, New York. She is a member of the Société Psychoanalytic de Paris and the New York Psychoanalytic Institute.