The Early Natural History of Childhood Psychosis: Ten Cases Studied by Analysis of Family Home Movies of the Infancies of the Children

Abstract

Family-made home movies of the infamies of 10 children suffering from an early childhood psychosis were studied as a kind of prospective documentation of their earliest months of life. Brief case histories are given along with the findings from the detailed analysis of the infancy movies. The movies provide data about the constitutional qualities of the children, neuromuscular pathology, initial signs of psychosis, and maternal-infant interaction. The focus is on the patterns and presence or absence of the infant's attachment to the mother and the mother's to the infant via eye gaze, holding, touching, feeding, and smiling from the first weeks of life. The finding of disturbances in attachment—sometimes on the infant's part and sometimes on the parent's part—suggests a connection with subsequent psychopathology.