Verified Document

Interpersonal World Of The Infant Book Report

Then during the phase of intersubjective relatedness, the focus switches to controlling, sharing, or influencing the subjective experience of self and others. At this stage, if caregivers are not emotionally attuned enough to the infant, problems may arise such as depression. If they are only attuned when the infant behaves a certain way, this may lead the child to start forming a false self in order to please others. There can also be misattunements between caretaker and child, in which one or the other misreads emotional cues and responds inappropriately. And it's very important for a caregiver's attunement to be authentic. There are also four types of self-experience: social, private, disavowed, and "not me." Disavowed refers to the parts of self the child learns not to share, and the "not me" experience is the part of self that is repressed. If the child learns to repress a lot of their emotions, they might develop a related pathology.

Chapter 10

Some Implications for the Theories Behind Therapeutic Reconstructions

This chapter relates theories of development to the "observed" infant. Infants undergo a "stimulation barrier" period in which they can only tolerate certain levels of stimulation without becoming upset, and try to block out the excess. But across a person's life span, the basic quality of capacity for tolerating stimulation remains the same. Stern's main point about orality is that it's closely tied to the concepts of hunger and satiety, but is no more important at any stage than seeing or hearing. He also notes that many psychoanalytical theories about drive and ego don't fit very well with the observed infant. For example, they show signs of an active ego, as opposed to just an id, from very early on.

In addition, Stern agrees that infants experience a stage of connectedness with their mother that is very powerful, but he believes it is the result of actively constructing RIGs (representations of interactions with self-regulating others), as opposed to a passive developmental phase. Also, infants must be capable of holding onto memories of interactions with others long enough that they can both build relationships with others, and separate themselves from those relationships.

Other...

Parts of this document are hidden

View Full Document
svg-one

reality. Stern believes the infant lives in a state of reality from day one, especially because initially they don't have the mental capacities necessary to create fantasy.
Chapter 11

Implications for the Therapeutic Process of Reconstructing a Developmental Past

In this chapter, Stern begins by stressing the importance of putting developmental stages behind what therapist and patient actually encounter when trying to construct a narrative about the patient's past.

He then gives examples of clinical cases in which viewing the pathology in terms of development of the different senses of self is helpful. For example, a woman who is passive and insecure, yet is always focused on controlling her physical environment, may have a problem related to the sense of agency. He also talks about the importance of identifying a "key metaphor" or theme to describe the person's pathology. This metaphor is also easily adapted to his theories about different senses of self.

In cases where a diagnosis is already known, such as borderline personality disorder, therapists need to isolate the primary underlying cause in terms of the broader scope of senses of self. In addition, when the age of a traumatic experience is already known, such as the death of a parent, Stern's theory of the senses of self can help determine what went wrong with what sense of self during that time. Then treatment can be based on focusing on that impaired sense of self. Or there may be more than one involved, such as the core self, the intersubjective self, and the verbal self.

Finally, the book ends with a discussion of what happens when a therapist views the different senses of self as "age-specific" sensitive time periods. The earlier a pathology begins to develop during one of these critical periods, the more serious it will likely become later in life. He questions what features of self-experience are being molded during the different time periods, and how these features would affect later pathology.

References

Stern, Daniel. The Interpersonal World of the Infant. Basic Books, 1985.

Sources used in this document:
References

Stern, Daniel. The Interpersonal World of the Infant. Basic Books, 1985.
Cite this Document:
Copy Bibliography Citation

Related Documents

Interpersonal Relationships
Words: 1727 Length: 5 Document Type: Essay

Interpersonal REL In the preface to Reflect and Relate, McCornack (2010) claims to offer a "fresh perspective on interpersonal communication," (viii). Admittedly when I read this, I balked. Certainly every textbook claims to be "fresh," and besides, people have been communicating with each other since the time of Neanderthal grunting. What could I possibly learn about communication from a textbook? After keeping an open mind and giving the book a chance,

Interpersonal Relationships
Words: 559 Length: 2 Document Type: Term Paper

Interpersonal and 'Gendered' Communication in the Workplace Setting The movie, "Adam's Rib," effectively illustrates differences in interaction and communication between males and females. The conflict in the movie, which stems from the seemingly biased and sexist view of the society against Amanda Bonner's client illustrates how females are generally viewed more complex and difficult to interact with than males. Moreover, the film illustrates audio-visually the dynamics of communication among males and

Interpersonal Relationship Theory
Words: 1436 Length: 5 Document Type: Research Paper

Grand Theory in Nursing Nursing theory Classification of nursing theories Nursing theories are classified into there broad categories. These theories are grand theories, middle-range theories and situation specific theories. Grand nursing theories are very broad in scope and present general propositions and concepts in the nursing discipline. The theories at this level give both a reflection and provide insights that are useful in the nursing practice but they are not designed to be

Instant Messaging and Interpersonal Relationships
Words: 3226 Length: 10 Document Type: Term Paper

An extremely important aspect to take into account in terms of the impact of IM on interpersonal relationships is the age-group of the user. As mentioned briefly above, the younger generation is more at home with this technology and therefore their interpersonal relationships are less adversely affected than older users, who have become used to a more offline mode of communication. In other words, the younger users will tend to

Interpersonal Communication Is a Form of Communication
Words: 1585 Length: 4 Document Type: Thesis

Interpersonal communication is a form of communication that takes place between two or more people who are close to one another unlike other forms of communication it does not involve a lot of people. There are various aspects of interpersonal communication that can be discussed but for purposes of this paper it has been narrowed to look at the principles and misconceptions in effective interpersonal communications, the barriers to effective

Interpersonal Communication Dear John and Marry I
Words: 2466 Length: 8 Document Type: Essay

Interpersonal Communication Dear John and Marry I want to congratulate you on your wedding. I hope that both of you will have a happy life and you can understand each other well. In this letter, I want to give you some guidelines regarding the basic principles of interpersonal communication. Some of the principles and misconceptions in interpersonal communication The sharing of thoughts, feelings and ideas with the other person is referred as interpersonal communication.

Sign Up for Unlimited Study Help

Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.

Get Started Now