High Intensity Children: On the Physicality of Temperament and Its Implications for Child Psychoanalytic Treatment

ABSTRACT

In this paper, I am extending my exploration of “kinetic temperament” and its implications for psychoanalytic theory and practice in the context of current understanding of temperament in psychoanalytic theory. My focus here is on two high-intensity children and their mothers. I also draw on my experience of parents and children at the Pace University Parent-Infant-Toddler Research Nursery in order to consider educational as well as treatment questions that arise in treating children and their parents when clashing and matching kinetic temperaments are an issue.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The Kestenberg Movement Profile (Kestenberg & Sossin, 1979; Kestenberg-Amighi et al., 2018), clearly differentiates temperament and drive even while it offers a way to see classical drive elements in the actions of adults and children. Temperament refers not to drive itself, but rather to how constitutional manners of expression and stable modes of operating shape how any motivation is expressed (Kestenberg & Sossin, 1979).

2. Go to KestenbergMovementProfile.org/video.htm to see tension flow patterns in babies and young children, and note how emotional expression seems to be a part of the experience of tension changes in the body.

3. In these “case descriptions” I have drawn from a number of examples that brought similar issues to my practice and to Pace Nursery in order to frame these reflections on this interactive challenge and protect anonymity.

4. I worked with both father and mother, but Bette was the primary caretaker, and his father was extremely limited in availability until Stevie was 5 years old, so here I focus on the work with Bette.

5. Because Stevie was young, I began with home visits to make assessments of him and his relationship with his parents. I continued working at home with Bette and Stevie until he was 4 years old, when he began to come to my office.

6. I am immensely grateful to the parents who have been part of our research nursery for giving us permission to observe their interactions with their babies and young children, and to my collaborator at Pace, Dr. K. Mark Sossin.

7. The movement quality of high intensity ideally develops into vehemence and straining and then into strength. Bette and I worked on jumping that requires strength in lift off. She could just get off the ground, but not sustain that feeling of lift off beyond those few small bursts. Surging, pushing, and squeezing a tight fist can also require strength, but again, Bette could not sustain the push or increase of intensity needed.

8. When parents cannot meet their child’s temperamental range, other family members, nannies, or day care teachers may be invaluable. But this is difficult for a parent, feeling like a failure, to recognize.

9. I wondered if this singular dynamic was a result of the trauma of the failure of his mother’s efforts to connect and modulate his actions. Kestenberg suggests that a narrow range of movement features is suggestive of trauma – a fearful closing up (Kestenberg & Sossin, 1979).

10. Italicized words are stressed in high intensity. The importance of this emphasis has been noted in various ways, for instance, Gergely and Watson (1996), Greenspan (1992).

11. “Even” is a temperamental attribute of movement that, like “high intensity” is a “contending” element because it involves sustaining effort to hold intensity constant rather than allowing it to fluctuate (Amighi-Kestenberg et al., 2018).

12. Again, as with Bette and Stevie, I involved Wally’s father, but he was not as involved in the day to day interactions with his children, and so the focus was once again, on mother and child.

13. J. Mitchell’s, “Law of the Mother” occurs to me here, establishing with no ifs, ands, or buts, the rules of engagement between siblings (Mitchell, 2003).

14. Freud (1905a/1966, 1905b/1966).

15. Bowlby (1969, 1973, 1980); Mitchell (1993, 2000); Mitchell and Aron (1999); Mitchell and Black (1995); Sullivan (1953).