EMBODIED ATTACHMENT

"Behavioural and physiological markers of Parental Embodied Mentalising: Cultural, gender, and attachment factors"

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'parental mentalising, the parent’s capacity to regard the child as a psychological agent (Sharp & Fonagy, 2008), is an important factor predicting attachment security (e.g., Slade et al., 2004).Thus far, all formulations of parental mentalising conceptualise and measure it as verbal, explicit, and reflective capacity (e.g. Meins, 1999; Slade, 2002).Despite their empirical contribution, these approaches are limited in their ability to illuminate the process through which parental mental capacities actually shape the child’s representation of their relationship in terms of attachment security. Shai and Belsky (2011a, b) recently introduced the construct and measure of parental embodied mentalising (PEM), an implicit, body-based, and interactive approach to parental mentalising. A study of 150 mothers interacting with their 6-months-old infants found that the parent’s PEM profile not only predicted the child’s attachment at 15 months over and above established maternal sensitivity measures, but that once PEM variables were accounted for maternal sensitivity was no longer predicted attachment (Shai & Belsky, submitted). However exciting and promising these findings are, they are preliminary and call for further investigation. Using multiple cutting-edge methods, including psychophysiological, behavioural, and self-reports this research scrutinizes four questions: 1) Can PEM be cross-culturally validated such that maternal PEM in an Israeli sample will predict attachment security as in the American sample? 2) What are the behavioural similarities and differences between paternal and maternal PEM? 3) What are the links between behavioural and psychophysiological measures of PEM? 4) How does adult attachment associate with PEM and with child attachment security? This research makes a new contribution to the study of embodiment from an interdisciplinary whole-body movement perspective and will lead to the development of novel therapeutic interventions for parents and infant'

Introduzione (Teaser)

Researchers have led the way to understanding important steps in predicting attachment security in children.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

Parental mentalising is a parent's capacity to regard the child as a psychological agent. It is known as an important factor in predicting attachment security. To date, all constructs of parental mentalising are done through a verbal and reflective manner. This has been deemed limiting in terms of understanding how attachment security is shaped in children.

EMBODIED ATTACHMENT was an EU-funded project focused on parental embodied mentalising (PEM). More specifically, it looked into behavioural and psychological markers such as culture, gender and attachment.

During the first phase, which involved recruitment and administration of experiments, 100 families of 6-month-old infants took part in the study. Parents completed questionnaires and the physiological activity of the infants was measured. No incidents of distress were reported.

This was followed by PEM training and coding, which involved a team of four research assistants. It lasted for three months and all the videotaped interactions were coded. The fellows were also trained on psycho-physiological measurement and analysis and on the measurement of adult attachment.

A number of PhD candidates from universities in Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Spain and the United Kingdom attended the trainings, as did practitioners from Australia, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

The work will make a positive contribution to European excellence and competitiveness.