Introduction: Reflections on mothering and on reexperiencing the early relationship experience

Abstract

As President of the World Association for Infant Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines the Editor has invited me to introduce this issue, which continues with papers from the Stockholm Congress. Advances in developmental biology and medical genetics make it clear that the future of psychiatric and mental health research will be centered in preventive intervention. This prospect highlights the need for more knowledge about environmental/individual interactions. The caregiving relationship experience is a crucial aspect of these interactions and frames the later development of strength or disorder. Several papers in this issue focus on the caregiving experience and provide me an opportunity to offer some reflections on the nature of experiencing and reexperiencing. Propositions that seem important include the following: The experience of caregiving involves a reexperiencing of earlier represented relationships; reexperiencing in this sense involves other past relationships that had a similar role relationship context; reexperiencing involves a dynamic interplay on both sides of a represented role relationship (that is, self and other interacting); early formative relationships are apt to be represented as affective prototypes such that reexperiencing occurs mainly without conscious awareness. Understanding such affective representations can guide infant psychiatry as it opens new opportunities for brief interventions. These can benefit infants and caregivers through the medium of the infant-caregiver relationship experience. Activating formative aspects of that experience can promote health and the strengths of individuality and provide a buffer against illness and self-defeating attitudes.