Recognition and Disturbances of Recognition in Infant Research and Adult Treatment: Contributions of Video Microanalysis
About this Event

Recognition and Disturbances of Recognition in Infant Research and Adult Treatment:

Contributions of Video Microanalysis

Nonverbal modes of entering distress moments provide an organizing principle both of optimal infant development and of therapeutic action in adult treatment. This video lecture will illustrate maternal patterns of responding to infant distress moments in infants classified as secure and disorganized attachment at one year. It will also illustrate nonverbal processes of the therapist entering distress moments in an adult treatment.

Disturbance in Maternal Recognition of Infant Distress in the 4-Month Origins of Disorganized Attachment

The nature of maternal responsiveness is essential to the organization of the infant’s experience. Using film microanalysis, our research on the four-month origins of disorganized, as compared to secure, infant attachment at one year has revealed profound maternal difficulties in “entering” and empathizing with infant distress, forms of “denial” of infant distress. These infants cannot develop an expectation of feeling “sensed,” recognized or “known,” by their mothers, particularly when distressed. Mothers of future disorganized infants often have unresolved loss or abuse, fears about intimate relating, and fears of being retraumatized by infant distress, most likely out of awareness. Infant disorganized attachment at one year predicts young adult psychopathology, most notably dissociation. In contrast, modes of “entering” infant distress moments, such as brief facial or vocal expressions of sadness, joining the cry rhythm or joining the dampened state, or participating in subtle finger “dialogues,” are salient in the origins of secure attachment. These modes of entering infant distress make it more possible for the infant to sense that someone is on her wave-length, that her distressed state is recognized.

Learning Objectives

I. To describe an example of maternal recognition at moments of infant distress, and to describe an example of disturbance of maternal recognition at moments of infant distress, in the 4-month origins of secure and disorganized 12-month attachment.

II. To describe an example of the nonverbal aspect of the recognition process in adult treatment.

Beatrice Beebe is Clinical Professor of Psychology (in Psychiatry), College of Physicians & Surgeons, Columbia University, and New York State Psychiatric Institute. She is an infant researcher and a psychoanalyst, known for video microanalysis of mother-infant interaction and its implications for infant and adult treatment. Her frame-by-frame video microanalyses provide a “social microscope” that reveals subtle details of interactions too rapid to grasp in real time with the naked eye. Her research investigates early mother-infant face-to-face communication: the effects of maternal distress (depression, anxiety, trauma of being pregnant and widowed on 9/11), the prediction of infant attachment patterns, and the long-term continuity of communication from infancy to adulthood. More than 100 students have been trained in her research laboratory over the last three decades. Her most recent book is: The mother-infant interaction picture book: Origins of attachment (Beebe, Cohen & Lachman, Norton, 2016). She has a YouTube account: http://youtube.com/@dr.beatricebeebe8658. She is Multi-PI, with Julie Herbstman, R01ES027424-01A1, of Prenatal endocrine-disrupting chemicals and social/cognitive risk in mothers and infants: Potential biologic pathways.

Continuing Education

This class is approved for 3.0 CE contact hours for psychologists, social workers, and psychoanalysts:

The National Institute for the Psychotherapies is approved by the American Psychological Association to offer continuing education credits for psychologists. The National Institute for the Psychotherapies maintains responsibility for this program and its content.

The National Institute for the Psychotherapies is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed social workers #SW-0018.

The National Institute for the Psychotherapies is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychoanalysts #Psyan-0004.

Personalized CE certificates can be downloaded at the end of this event after completing an evaluation form. Attendance for the full duration of the lecture is mandatory for CE credits.

Refunds, & Cancellation Policy

Cancellation requests made more than a week prior to the event will be given a full refund of registration fees. Refunds will not be granted for cancellation requests made within a week of the first day of the event or for no-shows on any of the days event take place.