Colwyn Trevarthen | T Berry Brazelton | Bertrand Cramer | Joan Raphael - Leff |
We "early interventionists" cannot simply ask babies "What hurts?" or "What seems to be the problem?" Instead we must find out the answers ourselves. We do this by first acknowledging the concerns and worries of parents and then exploring the distress, difficulties and communications of their babies.
Early interventionists act as detectives, following the child's lead to identify the specific roots of their distress, or derailment. From there, together we forge new paths of emotional attunement and understanding to facilitate healthier development.
While early intervention is a straightforward concept, it is not altogether easy, for the simple reason that our development process is so complex and normal development can be easily derailed. As every parent knows, babies cry for many reasons.
Dr Stella Acquarone (see Founder page)
PhD, MBPS, MACP, MLCP, Clinical Psychologist, Adult and Child Psychotherapist and Director of the Parent Infant Clinic and School of Infant Mental Health...See also: Founder, Books Written
International Advisory Board
Infant parent psychotherapy, the early intervention and the intensive intervention for pre-autism are emerging practices, specialties and disciplines at the crossroads of the latest research, training and clinical practice. It started in the early 1980s with psychoanalytic interventions for mothers and babies and the unfolding understanding of the inner world of pregnancy and motherhood. For over thirty years, I have been holding lectures, seminars, workdays, forums and conferences, utilizing the latest research in infancy and catalyzing enlightening discussions over the years about communication and development from birth. Many shape the work we do and have given their unconditional support to the Parent Infant Clinic, the School of Infant Mental Health and the work with pre-autism, among them:
Prof Colwyn Trevarthen is Professor Emeritus of Child Psychology and Psychobiology at the University of Edinburgh. A New Zealander, Professor (Emeritus) of Child Psychology and Psychobiology in the Department of Psychology of The University of Edinburgh, where he has taught since 1971. Trained as a biologist and psychologist, he has published on brain functions of vision and movement, brain development and, in the last 30 years, on communication with infants and toddlers. He has studied the rhythms and expressions of childrens play and fantasy, and how musical games and songs, stories and acts of discovery, with real or imaginary companions, support development of skills in infancy and preschool years. This led to work on the interpersonal foundations of language and meaning, and on developmental problems such as autism that affect communication and thinking. A theory of˜communicative musicality has been developed with musician and acoustic expert Stephen Malloch and others. An observation on infants expressive skills has led to research on nonverbal therapies, especially music therapy. Analysis of adults speech to young children reveals the importance of the rhythms and tone of a teacher's expression, or ˜teacherese, to "collaborative learning, and to children confidence in expressing their understanding. Professor Trevarthen has an Honorary Doctorate in Psychology from the University of Crete, and he has been elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and Member of the Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters.
Bertrand Cramer MD is professor of psychiatry at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, a psychoanalyst and pioneer in infant psychiatry with a lifetime of research and practice in early parent/child relationships. His work has long been a valuable resource for pediatricians, nurses, psychologists, psychiatrists, and social workers as well as concerned and curious parents. He developed an approach focusing on the dynamics between the intrapsychic and the interrelational domains, outlining the role mothers play in their babies development. He was one of the first to realise the power of the early intervention, that when the mother-infant system is disturbed, the unstable condition is responsive to short therapeutic interventions. He noticied instances of interaction failure due to the emergence of a maternal unresolved conflict shared with the baby. And he laid much of the groundwork for infant parent psychotherapy: the crucial bifocal view, the re-introjection of parental projections, change of parental interactions and representations, and transformation of the mother's investments on to the baby.
T. Berry Brazelton MD is founder of the Child Development Unit at Children's Hospital Boston, is Clinical Professor of Paediatrics Emeritus at Harvard Medical School and Professor of Paediatrics and Human Development at Brown University. He is a famed advocate for children, and his many internationally acclaimed books for parents include: Infants and Mothers: Individual Differences, Toddlers and Parents, Doctor and Child, On Becoming a Family, Working and Caring, What Every Baby Knows, The Earliest Relationship: Parents, Infants and the Dream of Early Attachment, and Touchpoints: Your Child's Emotional and Behavioral Development. Having trained as a paediatrican, began doing research with parents and babies, publishing a variety of findings, all of which spoke to babies being much more involved with and discerning of their environment than had usually been believed. Brazelton established that, as early as four months into development -- a fetus's nervous system was sophisticated enough that a loud noise would evoke a startle response. Other studies revealed that a newborn, only days old, can distinguish between a blank oval and a drawing of a human face. A baby only three weeks of age can distinguish between the voices of its mother and its father. Brazelton honed his powers of observation such that he could observe the behaviors of premature babies and use them to predict recovery time from various illnesses of prematurity. One of his foremost achievements in pediatrics and child development is the development of the Brazelton Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (NBAS). This evaluation tool assesses not only the physical and neurological responses of newborns, but also their emotional well being and individual differences. He describes his main goals as being to strengthen the parent-child bond by helping parents understand their children as individuals, and by providing reassurance as to the vast range of baby's personalities and responses. Dr. Brazelton was president of the Society for Research in Child Development (1987-1989), and of the National Center for Clinical Infant Programs (1988-1991). He is a co-founder of Parent Action and serves on the National Commission on Children.
Joan Raphael-Leff is head of the University College London (UCL) MSc in Psychoanalytic Developmental Psychology based at the Anna Freud Centre. Previously, she was Professor of Psychoanalysis at the Centre for Psychoanalytic Studies at the University of Essex. She started her career as a psychologist researching autism with Dr. Lorna Wing. Since qualification as a Psychoanalyst in 1976, in addition to empirical research she has specialised in treating individuals and couples with reproductive and parenting problems, and has over 80 single-author publications in this field.