The Earliest Relationship: Parents, Infants, and the Drama of Early Attachment

by T. Berry Brazelton

Overview

T. Berry Brazelton, world renowned pediatrician and expert on infant development, and Bertrand Cramer, pioneer in mother-infant psychotherapy, have combined their lifetimes of research and practice in this unique and important book. Never before has research on newborn behavior and parent-infant interaction been fully integrated with psychoanalytic insight into parents' emotions and fantasies.Brazelton and Cramer provide a vivid glimpse of the parents' daydreams and narcissistic wishes which grow into a desire for a child, and they show how these feelings develop into important attachments to the unborn infant during pregnancy. The "power and competence" of the newborn born then challenges parental fantasies, desires, wishes and expectations, creating the beginnings of the bond between parent and child. Using the latest research, the authors clarify all the ways the infant participates in the dawning relationship and the ingredients of very early communication and interaction. They then unveil the "imaginary interactions" which lend meaning and drama to each gesture and expression. We see the baby as Tyrant, as Savior, or as the reincarnation of lost relationships.In the final and most important part of the book, the authors put their unique combined perspective to work in nine striking case narratives drawn from their own practices. Everyone who cares for mothers and babies-pediatricians, developmental and clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, early childhood specialists, nurses and social workers-as well as interested parents, will find this book of immediate value.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781855750050
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	12/31/1991
Pages:	270
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)
Lexile:	1360L (what's this?)

About the Author

T. Berry Brazelton, M.D., founder of the Child Development Unit at Children's Hospital Boston, was Clinical Professor of Pediatrics Emeritus at Harvard Medical School and Professor of Pediatrics and Human Development at Brown University. He was a famed advocate for children, and his many other internationally acclaimed books for parents include To Listen to a Child, Infants and Mothers, and, with Stanley I. Greenspan, M.D., The Irreducible Needs of Children. Bertrand G. Cramer, M.D., is professor of psychiatry at the University of Geneva, Switzerland.

Table of Contents

Preface — Pregnancy: The Birth of Attachment — Introduction — The Prehistory of Attachment — The Dawn of Attachment — Attachment in Fathers-to-Be — The Newborn as Participant — Introduction — The Appearance of the Newborn and Its Impact — Reflexes in the Newborn — The Five Senses in the Newborn — States of Consciousness — Assessment of the Newborn — Individual Differences — Observing Early Interaction — Introduction — Interaction Studies: An Overview — Interaction in Context — Still-Face Studies — Four Stages in Early Interaction — Essentials of Early Interaction — Imaginary Interactions — Introduction — Giving Meaning to Infant Behavior — The Infant As Ghost — Reenacting Past Modes of Relationship — The Child As One Part of the Parent — Assessing Imaginary Interactions — Understanding the Earliest Relationship: A Complementary Approach to Infant Assessment — Introduction — Combining Developmental Observations and Analytic Insight — Assessing Interaction — Lisa: "Angry Already" — Sebastian: "Reproachful Eyes" — Peter: "Wild Man" — Clarissa: "No Matter What" — Bob: "They Took Him Away" — Antonio: "A Bad Eye" — Sarah: "Malina" — Mary: "Time Out" — Julian: "The Tyrant" — Assessment As Intervention