Full Description
This book is a collection of papers by clinicians united in their conviction about the importance of directly engaging and interacting with the baby in the presence of the parents whenever possible. This approach, which draws on the work of Winnicott, Trevarthen and Stern, honours the baby as subject. It re-presents the baby to the parents who may in that way see a new child, in turn shaping the infant's implicit memories and reflective thinking. Recent neurobiological, attachment and developmental psychology models inform the work. The book describes the underpinning theoretical principles and the settings and forms of direct clinical practice, ranging from work with acutely ill babies, to more everyday interventions in crying, feeding and sleeping difficulties, as well as infant-parent psychotherapy. Clinicians at The Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne from the disciplines of psychiatry, psychoanalysis, psychology, nursing, speech pathology, child psychotherapy, paediatrics, and music therapy describe their work with ill and suffering babies and their families.
Contents
Introduction , What I am trying to do when I see an infant with his or her parents , Engaging with the baby as a person: early intervention with parents and infants , Interventions in Acute Health Settings , The sick baby in hospital , Perceptions of parents of tube fed babies: a preliminary analysis , Contingent singing as a therapeutic intervention for the hospitalised full-term neonate , Two children in acute wards , Working in twilight: infant mental health interventions with babies who may die , Infants dependent on technology at home: enabling the staff , Interventions in Crying, Feeding, and Settling Difficulties , Reflux and irritability , Ooey gooey group: a behavioural interactive group for parents and young children with feeding problems , In the nurse's consulting room , Infant-Parent Therapy , Talking with infants , When twins present: creating space to be seen , Play dough, pooh, and general practice: communications of a two-year-old child , Tom's perfect world , Babies in groups: the creative roles of the babies, the mothers, and the therapists , Interventions with Infants with Problems of Relating , Infant-parent psychotherapy in a community paediatric setting , The gift of connection: intervention with a two-year-old boy , Attachment to one, two, or to group: an infant mental health intervention with an Indian family in transition , Feeding, the self, and working through the infant's pathological defences: the seriousness of playfulness , Interventions with Infants Exposed to Family Violence , Infancy and domestic violence: an annotation , Working with a sick baby born of a rape , Sara: psychotherapy with a mother-infant dyad with a background of violence , Reference Papers , Some principles of infant-parent psychotherapy , The infant who looks but does not see , Epilogue: The spare room: a father confronts his fatherhood
