MASTER CLASS 7 – Monday 28th 08:00-08:55
Triangles and Infant Mental Health: Using a Coparenting Framework in Approaching DC 0-5 Axis II Evaluations
James McHale (United States)
In December 2016, ZERO TO THREE released the DC: 0–5™ (Diagnostic Classification of Mental Health and Developmental Disorders of Infancy and Early Childhood), which for the first time directs clinicians to assess the network of family relationships in which the child develops. A long time coming, this new DC: 0–5™ system designation includes characterizations of coparenting relationships and portrayals of the network of close relationships that impinge on the infant or young child’s mental health and adaptation. This Master Class draws together 25 years of observational research on coparenting and triangular relationships to illustrate and provide guidelines for apt, utilitarian Axis II assessments and case formulations.
MASTER CLASS 8 – cancelled
MASTER CLASS 9 – Tuesday 29th 08:00 -08:55
How to engage Parents in the Treatment of Young Children with Special Needs: Enhancing the Therapist-Parent Partnership on behalf of the Child
Anat Oppenheim (Israel)
There is consensus in the field of infant mental health that supporting and strengthening the parent-child relationship is of utmost importance for the development of children in general and those with special needs in particular. However, by the time parents reach us for treatment many experience insecurity in their capacity to parent the child and foster the child’s growth. An important goal for the therapist is to strengthen the parent’s confidence and ability and to foster a partnership with the parent on behalf of the child. Using video examples I will present case material that will demonstrate ways and methods to build and strengthen the therapist-parent relationship, to follow the parent like we want the parent to follow the child, and to shift the balance between the therapist and the parent so the parent takes an increasingly central role in the interaction with the child.
MASTER CLASS 10 – Monday 28th 08:00-08:55
Digital Media and early Childhood: Implementing the AAP guidelines with Families
Jenny Radesky (United States)
This class cover some of the same theoretical concepts as the plenary lecture, but will review in more depth my research on the influence of psychosocial context on family media use; how parents conceptualize the rapidly evolving technologies in their households; and the rationale for the American Academy of Pediatrics 2016 guidelines for early childhood media use. We will discuss implementation ideas through case examples such as fussy infants and parent coping; dysregulated toddlers and use of mobile devices for calming; and parent technology use during clinical encounters.
MASTER CLASS 11 – Tuesday 29th 08:00-08:55
Working with parents to interrupt intergenerational transmission of violent trauma: the CAVEAT-model
Sandra Serpa Rusconi (Switzerland)
The Clinician Assisted Videofeedback Exposure-Approach Therapy (CAVEAT) is a brief manualized psychotherapy designated for the parent who suffers from interpersonal violence-related posttraumatic stress disorder (IPV-PTSD). CAVEAT targets parental IPV-PTSD emotion dysregulation that, in turn, interferes with parents’ reading and interpreting their infants’ emotional communication of helplessness and other negative affects—parental behavior that is necessary for mother-child mutual regulation. Based on empirical data from the Geneva Early Childhood Stress Project, CAVEAT, through clinician-assisted videofeedback, exposes parents to otherwise-avoided interactions that evoke traumatic memory traces and works towards a less dysregulating reconsolidation of those memory traces and a discrimination between traumatic relationships in the past and the present parent-infant relationship. Building upon integration of several evidence-based parent-infant psychotherapy paradigms, CAVEAT additionally models and supports the use of parental mentalization in order to positively impact parent-child mutual emotion regulation during early sensitive periods of development.
MASTER CLASS 12 – Tuesday 29th 08:00-08:55
Perspectives on Supervision: Reflective and Relational
Julie Ribaudo (United States)
If we return to core principles and practices of infant mental health, which is a reflective and relational, we find guidance and support for supervision that is both reflective and relational. In this hour, we will explore ways that supervision mirrors the work of infant mental health, focusing especially on the invitation to reflect within a context that is safe, stable and secure. What does this approach to supervision look like? What are some central elements to consider? Why is it important for our own growth and development, as well as to our service provision to infants, very young children and families? “We have been dragged to the realization that it is the relationship that does the work…” D. Stern
MASTER CLASS 13 – Sunday 27th 08:00-08:55
Resource Depletion Factors and the Buffer-Transduction Model of Mother-Infant Interaction
Ed Tronick (United States)
The master class will focus on an elaboration of the Mutual Regulation Model and the Mismatch-Reparation-Match process of infant-caretaker interaction. Named the Buffer-Transduction Model it conceptualizes typical high risk factors as depleting and diverting infant resources from growth and development. The effect of the depletion is to compromise development in the present and wasting of resources is the process that compromises development into the future. In the model the infant-caretaker dyad in particular, as well as the larger social ecology, serves as a final common pathway which may buffer or transduce the compromising effects of resource depletion factors in a manner that enhances or degrades the functioning of the infant’s neurosomatic psychobiological systems.