MOMENTS OF MEETING: THE RELEVANCE OF LOU SANDER'S AND DAN STERN'S CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING THE DEVELOPMENT OF PATHOLOGICAL SOCIAL RELATEDNESS.

Abstract

Lou Sander and Dan Stern made seminal contributions to our understanding of early child development, particularly in regard to the moment-to-moment intersubjective exchanges and mutual sensitivity that are at the core of the caregiver-infant relationship. Although their own studies focused primarily on the ways in which children's intersubjective experiences of mutual attunement lead to adaptive social relatedness and validate a healthy sense of self, this article focuses on the applicability of their theoretical conceptions to the development of pathological social relations. It explores the premise that the emotional validation derived from recurrent intersubjective experiences of mutual attunement involving negative affects can be as emotionally compelling from the child's standpoint as that derived from positive exchanges. Children's needs to recreate unhealthy, but affectively meaningful, moments with their caregivers can lead to ingrained, automatically operating pathological patterns of social behavior and affective expression that can take on a life of their own and strongly shape the child's subsequent socioemotional functioning. Following an overview of Sander's and Stern's conceptual thinking, developmental research and clinical case material will be utilized to illustrate how their work can enrich our understanding of developmental processes that can contribute to a number of emotion-specific, early relational disturbances.