The child's active role in mother–child, father–child psychotherapy: A psychodynamic approach to the treatment of relational disturbances

Abstract

The short-term mother-child and father-child psychoanalytic psychotherapy assumes that children develop specific types of relationships with each parent, as well as with the parenting couple. The model integrates an intra-psychic, object-relational view with an interpersonal perspective to the treatment of relational disturbances in childhood. The same therapist meets with the mother-child, father-child dyads on a weekly basis, along with regular meetings with the parental dyad. The model focuses on the developmentally prelatency child's need for the active participation of both parents in the here-and-now shared experiences of the therapeutic process. The participants express, in interactions and in enactments, various contents and meanings of their specific patterns of relations. The therapist addresses the behaviours as well as the meanings of relations, thus promoting reflective understanding and experiential changes in self, other, and self-other relations. The child's active and different participation with each parent is the main change-promoting factor. The child uses mainly the medium of play to express his/her needs and to mobilize the therapist's help. The therapist's access to the different dyads is utilized to better understand the explicit and implicit relational themes. The therapist supports the co-construction of new and different behaviour patterns and the co-creation of additional meanings to representations. The setup fosters the child's active participation in each dyad's growth-promoting changes.

Psychodynamic Parenthood Therapy: A model for therapeutic work with parents and parenthood

“…The emphasis in therapy is on the dyadic relationships within the family. It focuses on the problematic dyad or relationship (Chethik, 2000), while the treatment structure moves between father-child, mother-child and father-mother meetings, one after the other (Ben-Aaron et al, 2001), or through specific meetings with members of the dyad in which the relationship is problematic (Harel, Kaplan, Avimeir-Patt & Ben-Aaron, 2006). In therapies derived from this approach, emphasis is placed on child-parent relationships.…”

Examining the dyadic music therapy treatment (DUET): the case of a CP child and his mother

“…In the past few decades there has been an increase in the implementations of dyadic therapy (e.g., Beebe, Jaffe, & Lachmann, 1992;Ben-Aaron, Harel, Kaplan, & Patt, 2000;Fraiberg, Adelson, & Shapiro, 1975;Harel, Kaplan, Avimeir-Patt, & Ben-Aaron, 2006;Hopkins, 1992;Meersand, 2001;Rignell, 2002;Stern, 1998). Several theoreticians have laid the basis for this type of treatment, including Margaret Mahler, Melanie Klein, Ana Freud, and Donald Winnicott (Frank-Schwebel, 1996) …”

“…He or she also helps the parent to process situations that come up during the session and guides him or her to deal with it in the future. In some of these models (e.g., Harel et al, 2006), following the dyadic sessions there is a feedback session with the parent in which issues that came up in the dyadic session can be processed.…”

Tripartite therapy with older children: mutuality in the relationship of a parent–child attachment

“…This model has begun to be integrated into child psychotherapy work in isolated ways, and to include school-age children as well as very young ones (Berlin, 2005;Harel et al, 2006;Humber and Moss, 2005) and adults (George et al, 1985;Hazan and Zeifman, 1999;Hesse, 1999).…”