La Cualidad del apego infantil y sensibilidad materna desde la perspectiva microsofial [The quality of attachment in childhood and maternal sensivity: from observation of behaviours to exploration of mental representations]

Research in the area of early mother-child interaction and the development of attachment, points to the importance of advancing the study of the maternal sensitivity construct. In this pa per we describe the process followed to opera cionalise and analyze “maternal sensitivity” us ing microsocial approach. This approach can reveal empirical sequential patterns in the in teractional dyadic context that cannot be cap tured with rating scales. To describe the re search process used, this paper presents: the CITMI-R ( Codigos de Interaccion Temprana Materno-Infantil , Early Mother ‐Child Interac tion Codes) coding system and its developments, some relevant findings using sequential analyses in real time and, finally, an exercise of generat ing hypothesis using the interactional informa tion sequentially coded. Finally, we point out that the field is moving into a new era in terms of analyses of the ma ternal sensitivity construct. This will bring im portant advances with theoretical and practical implications.