The Effects Of Psychotherapeutic On Infant Mental Health

As early years practitioners our resposnibility is to provide unconditional love and express love both physically and verbally by holding, rocking, and stroking and by using soothing words to calm, comfort, and encourage the child to calm himself or herself. We gently enforce rules for children, and use removal of privileges and other forms of discipline that do not belittle, harm, or reject the child. Wemodel behavior that communicates confidence, optimism, and good results for children two and three years old. We praise the childre for accomplishments such as toilet training, calming self, talking, or creating something. We encourage the children to try things and do things on his or her own with minimal adult help. When acknowledge and label the child's feelings and so encourage the child to recognize and express his or her own feelings and to recognize some feelings in others (for example: sad, sorry, happy,angry);this can be through activities and songs such mr happy, how do you feel today etc. We use also use language to reinforce aspects of resilience for example encouragment `I know you can

My experiences working with children aged birth to five has contributed to my interest in working in the field of infant mental health. I’ve co-facilitated a bereavement group working with children age three and a half to seven and I have also had the opportunity to volunteer in a children’s hospital setting. In addition to these experiences working with young children, I have taken a course on play therapy.

Fontana, V.J. (2004). Our most important task the well-being and protection of children. Journal of Infant, Child, and Adolescent Psychotherapy, 3, 300.

It is very important to recognise that parents and practitioners have different kinds of relationships with the children in their care. Practitioners need to develop consistent, warm and affectionate relationships with children especially babies but they should not seek to replace the parents. Babies need to be with the same people each and every day to develop social relationships. This is why the EYFS requires all early years settings and schools to implement a key person system. Parents and practitioners have one thing in common that is very important: they all want the best for the child. The roles involved are not the same yet they are complementary. Parents know their own child best. Practitioners have knowledge of general child development.

The Strange Situation is meant to be a snapshot of the relationship between infant and caregiver, and provide insight into the dyadic patterns that define this bond. Securely attached children are thought to have a primary caregiver who is sensitive, available and receptive to their infants needs. Insecure-avoidant children have primary caregivers who are intrusive, controlling and hurtful. These caregivers may be present in the infant’s life but unable to understand their infants needs, and provide the correct response. Caregivers of insecure-ambivalent infants have been found to be unresponsive to the needs of the infant, and very often unavailable. The effect of this treatment is that the infant is starved for affection and attention. The infant also feels the need to amplify their needs in an effort to reach their caregiver (Barnett & Vondra, 1999).

Infant attachment is the first relationship a child experiences and is crucial to the child’s survival (BOOK). A mother’s response to her child will yield either a secure bond or insecurity with the infant. Parents who respond “more sensitively and responsively to the child’s distress” establish a secure bond faster than “parents of insecure children”. (Attachment and Emotion, page 475) The quality of the attachment has “profound implications for the child’s feelings of security and capacity to form trusting relationships” (Book). Simply stated, a positive early attachment will likely yield positive physical, socio-emotional, and cognitive development for the child. (BOOK)

There may also be a lack of support and concern by the parental support system because of cultural stigma’s or lack of mental health education. This aligns with the pre-cursor to the attachment phase, synchrony. When a parent is experiencing even one of these factors, an infant’s ability to properly form a secure attachment is reduced because of negative synchrony. “Other evidence suggests that a defining characteristic of personality disorder is in an inconsistent and unstable sense of self that is reflected in difficulties maintaining functional and socially appropriate interpersonal relationships” (Hardy, 2007, p.

Although secure attachment during infancy is the foundation for continued healthy positive development during the lifespan, it is important to understand that other factors can have a significant effect on development later in life (i.e. illness, loss, and trauma). However, research has shown the importance of consistent care giving that is responsive and nurturing and the caregivers’ ability to effectively accommodate more difficult temperament characteristics ,as well as other factors, influence the development of healthy attachment{{64 Bakermans-Kranenburg, Marian 2003}}. Research has also shown that infancy and early childhood is the period of development where scaffolding begins and continues (Vygotsky, 1978; Zhao & Orey,1999).

Moreover, infants are preverbal, which makes assessment and intervention especially challenging. Nonetheless, healthcare professionals must look out for warning signs. Some red flags may be raised as early as the baby’s birth. For example, poor mother-infant bonding from birth has been identified as a high risk for possible abuse later on and “may be caused by the delivery of a preterm infant, multiple infants, or one with a disability who has a prolonged stay in the hospital” (Lyden, 2011, p. 2).

The parents reported that their child’s pre and post natal development was normal without illness or injury. However, as an infant/toddler, he had been difficult to soothe when upset and demanded constant attention which his parents found difficult to manage.

It has been shown that the relationships infants develop early on in life have lasting effects on their identity and behavior. Extensive research has indicated that the relationship between an infant and its caregivers is particularly important.

The concept of infant-mother attachment is as important to the child as the birth itself. The effect this relationship has on a child shall affect that child for its entire life. A secure attachment to the mother or a primary caregiver is imperative for a child’s development. Ainsworth’s study shows that a mother is responsive to her infant’s behavioral cues which will develop into a strong infant-mother attachment. This will result in a child who can easily, without stress, be separated from his mother and without any anxiety. Of course the study shows a child with a weak infant-mother relationship will lead to mistrust, anxiety, and will never really be that close with the mother. Without the

Attachments are not an automatic response but there must be a give-and-take communication between the parent and the child. In regards to maternal depression, if the mother is unresponsive to the child's attempt to get her attention, the child becomes unresponsive in the presence of their mother. During the oral stage according to Erickson (1950), infants are depended upon their parents to feed them; this is where they gain a sense of trust and ease. During the psychosocial stage development, the infant is depended upon the caregiver to build up trust based on reliability. When being unable to trust their parents, infants develop a fear that the world is contradictory and impulsive causing the child to be exposed to a world that they cannot trust.

If the individual’s needs are not met in this stage the individual will most likely develop a mistrust that will hamper relationship in the future. The relationship between parent and caregiver is vital. “It is during the first months of life that the baby comes to trust or not, to have faith or not. Whether trust and faith are developed has direct implications for identity formation” (Goodwin, 1998) The goal of this stage is to gain ‘Hope’.

“As infants grows older, they form close and enduring emotional attachments with the important people in their lives”. Reference 1. This essay will discuss the developmental period of infancy. Infancy is categorised as the development stage of a human from birth to 2 years of age. Infancy is a time in the human life that involves rapid growth and extraordinary changes in the first two years of life. Infants not only grow dramatically physically, their brains develop, and there is the start of locomotor skill development as well as the start of reflexes and sensory growth. The essay will also discuss anxiety and the role it plays with infants in regards to physical, cognitive and psychosocial stages an infant experiences. This essay will argue that the attachment of an infant to its mother is highly important. It will discuss the different way in which attachment affects an infant. This essay will discuss typical development milsetones in the first year years of human life. It will then go to analysis the relationship between infants being in day care or at home with their mother. T The typical physical development of a babys starts at borth. When a Baby is born on average it will weigh 3.4 kilograms and measure to be around 51 centimeters. A baby is typically 25 percent of its final adult weight when it is born but by its