The music of containment: Addressing the participants in mother–infant psychoanalytic treatment

Abstract

The author discusses the psychoanalyst's approach in mother-infant treatments. Emphasis is given to the infant as an important, though often neglected, addressee. A clinical example is used in which a telephone call during a prior session triggered fretting in a 3-month-old girl and distress in her mother. It is suggested that in the session, nonverbal levels of the interventions reached the girl and contained her, and that this containment worked along similar lines as the communicative musicality between mother and baby. In the discussion, the psychoanalytic concept of containment (Bion, 1962) is linked with the concept of communicative musicality (Trevarthen & Aitken, 2001). The mother's need for containment also is emphasized, and the therapist must be on alert when it is essential to focus on either participant in the therapy room. This choice is guided both by explicit deliberations and by the unconscious countertransference. However, the therapist's wish to grasp the countertransference is countered by his or her unwillingness of being reminded of feelings of infantile helplessness. Similarly, when the mother's conscious and unconscious messages diverge, the baby's ability to receive her caretaking is compromised. In the article's clinical case, this happened when the mother tried to soothe her daughter while being preoccupied with anger at the therapist to an extent to which she was not fully aware.

A Long-Term Follow-Up Study of a Randomized Controlled Trial of Mother-Infant Psychoanalytic Treatment: Outcomes on Mothers and Interactions

“…All MIP cases were treated by psychoanalysts of the Mother‐Infant Psychoanalysis Project in Stockholm. The method has been described elsewhere (Norman, , ; B. Salomonsson, , , ). In brief, sessions take place with infant and mother together.…”

Transferences in parent–infant psychoanalytic treatments

“…In the cases to be submitted, I used a method, mother-infant psychoanalytic treatment [MIP] (Norman, 2001(Norman, , 2004Salomonsson, 2007bSalomonsson, , 2011, in which I sought to build up a relationship with parent and baby. I also sought to pay equal attention to the communications from both of them.…”

Postpartum depression Part 2. Biological treatment: practical aspects & safety issues. Review of the literature

“…The activating effect of music on the limbic structures (amygdala, hippocampus, nucleus accumbens) and improvement in the neuroplasticity of the human brain under the influence of acoustic parameters of the music have been demonstrated lately (86)(87). Music was postulated to affect memories and transference processes (88). Music therapy is supporting method in the treatment of patients with dementia (89), obsessive compulsive (90) and autistic disorders (91) and has analgesic effect during surgery, palliative care and even delivery (92)(93).…”