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Dyadic intervention during pregnancy? Treating pregnant women and possibly reaching the future baby
Author(s) -
Bergner Sharone,
Monk Catherine,
Werner Elizabeth A.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
infant mental health journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.693
H-Index - 75
eISSN - 1097-0355
pISSN - 0163-9641
DOI - 10.1002/imhj.20190
Subject(s) - pregnancy , anxiety , dyad , psychology , intervention (counseling) , mood , psychopathology , affect (linguistics) , psychodynamics , formative assessment , developmental psychology , psychotherapist , depression (economics) , clinical psychology , psychiatry , pedagogy , genetics , macroeconomics , communication , economics , biology
It is well established that postnatally, maternal psychopathology greatly increases a child's risk for emotional disorders. This article addresses the formative phase that precedes the mother–infant mutually regulating dyad. Biopsychological data presented here suggest that women's affective states during pregnancy—specifically depression, anxiety, and elevated life‐stress—are associated with subtle alterations in the neurobiological substrate of the fetus' emerging affect regulation system. The article moves to a general discussion of the emotional experience of pregnancy, and to the use of psychodynamic psychotherapy when problematic aspects of women's representational world lead to negative or dysregulated affect. Two case vignettes are presented: one described in brief and the other in greater detail. This kind of therapeutic intervention aims to achieve mood improvement, address women's emerging relationship with her baby, and potentially, influence the course of fetal development. Winnicott (1960) said there is no such thing as a baby alone; all the more so during pregnancy.