In Mahler, Pine, and Bergman's (1975) concept of "emotional refueling," an evocative metaphor is used to depict an exchange of energy between mother and infant. This study of videotaped interactive data reexamines the impact of these reunion episodes on the 10-to 12-month-old infant's expression of emotion and attention. Through intentional pursuit of the mother, the baby effectively regulates high and low levels of arousal before reunion to a more organized attentional and affective state after reunion. The four patterns of "intentional reciprocity" are vitalizing reciprocity, soothing reciprocity, mutual attunement, and protective reciprocity. That an infant can use newly emerging cognitive awareness and locomotor capacities to cope with the difficulties of its experience reflects a new level of ego organization with profound implications for the development of internalization, defense, and psychological adaptation.Psychic differentiation is given new dimension by the infant's emerging locomotor capacities to move across space. The ability to crawl and to toddle back to mother integrates a major cognitive-affective milestone in the separation-individuation process.
This article describes the deliberate therapeutic construction of a transitional object for a 10-year-old autistic girl in an integrated psychoanalytic and neuropsychological^ oriented play therapy. Treatment was initially directed to the regulation of excitement levels, the focusing of attention, and the recognition of orderly sequencing of events. Significant development in symbolic functioning led to a marked interest in sign language instruction in school.Two major events, the coming birth of a sibling and the long summer separation, led the therapy team to present her with a teddy bear in such a way that it became internalized as a transitional object. The article provides a brief case history of this child, describes the treatment context, and traces the process of constructing the transitional object and its outcome. This process
Three-year-old children who had been in an infant day care treatment program were compared with matched normal children who were entering regular day care for the first time at age 3, to evaluate the effects of early day care intervention. All children were assessed on general pathology, play, socialization, and separation variables in arrival, play, and mealtime situations and were naturalistically observed in the day centers. No significant differences between groups were found on any of the variables within situations or across situations, supporting the hypothesis that the treatment intervention supported major positive emotional developments and that the early separations were not detrimental in effect. Significant differences between the two groups on clusters of variables suggest patterns in coping and disturbance style specific to the control group and significantly different from the day care group.
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