Weathering the Storm: How Parent-infant Psychotherapy Can Facilitate Transformative Communications of Maternal Distress. A Hermeneutic Literature Review

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aut.embargoNoen_NZ
aut.thirdpc.containsNoen_NZ
dc.contributor.advisorThomas-Anttila, Kerry
dc.contributor.authorHiskens, Monique
dc.date.accessioned2021-04-27T23:52:46Z
dc.date.available2021-04-27T23:52:46Z
dc.date.copyright2021
dc.date.issued2021
dc.date.updated2021-04-27T22:05:35Z
dc.description.abstractThis study explores the way in which an infant may experience communications of maternal distress. Through work with parents and infants in a specialist psychiatric ward, I have become aware of the ways that the infant’s experience is difficult to consider alongside the mother’s unwellness. Within parent-infant psychotherapy, it is possible for mother’s sadness, guilt, and grief over their ruptured relationship to be communicated authentically to the baby. However, what is the infant’s experience of their mother’s difficult communications? Is it in the infant’s best interests to keep content ‘safe’, ‘appropriate’, and in some ways false, or is there a transformative element inherent in these contained, painful admissions? Utilising a hermeneutic literature review methodology, I hope to investigate more closely an aspect of the infant’s experience and participation in psychotherapy. By analysing the ways in which infants’ communicative apparatus appears to be finely tuned to perceive nuanced communications, further implications for infant psychotherapy can be elucidated. The relevance of authenticity and emotional congruence is also analysed in relation to infants and their communicative abilities. What emerges is a discussion about the interplay between infant, therapist, and parent and the unique landscape of relational intersubjectivity that is formed and altered over time. Moments of emotional authenticity, in which a thought is able to be communicated with an infant in a form that is experienced as congruent with its underlying affect, appear to contribute to therapeutic change. These moments appear to exist within a broader communicative framework consisting of implicit relational knowings formed over time. Novel, authentic moments appear to assist in the adjustment of stuck relational patterns when occurring in the context of an established therapeutic relationship. Further implications for study include more closely investigating triadic communications and the role of authenticity with infants.en_NZ
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10292/14143
dc.language.isoenen_NZ
dc.publisherAuckland University of Technology
dc.rights.accessrightsOpenAccess
dc.subjectMother-infanten_NZ
dc.subjectParent-infanten_NZ
dc.subjectChild psychotherapyen_NZ
dc.subjectPsychotherapyen_NZ
dc.subjectMaternal mental illnessen_NZ
dc.subjectDyadic psychotherapyen_NZ
dc.subjectCommunicationen_NZ
dc.subjectAuthenticityen_NZ
dc.subjectInfant languageen_NZ
dc.subjectAuthentic communicationen_NZ
dc.subjectEmotional congruenceen_NZ
dc.subjectImplicit relational knowingen_NZ
dc.subjectInfant psychotherapyen_NZ
dc.subjectHeightened affective momentsen_NZ
dc.subjectMaternal distressen_NZ
dc.subjectRelational intersubjectivityen_NZ
dc.titleWeathering the Storm: How Parent-infant Psychotherapy Can Facilitate Transformative Communications of Maternal Distress. A Hermeneutic Literature Reviewen_NZ
dc.typeDissertationen_NZ
thesis.degree.grantorAuckland University of Technology
thesis.degree.levelMasters Dissertations
thesis.degree.nameMaster of Psychotherapyen_NZ
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