Dyadic intervention during pregnancy? treating pregnant women and possibly reaching the future baby

摘要

It is well established that postnatally, maternal psychopathology greatly increases a child's risk for emotional disorders. This article addresses the formative phase that precedes the mother-infant mutually regulating dyad. Bisopsychological data presented here suggest that women's affective states during pregnancy-specifically depression, anxiety, and elevated life-stress-are associated with subtle alterations in the neurobiological substrate of the fetus' emerging affect regulation system. The article moves to a general discussion of the emotional experience of pregnancy, and to the use of psychodynamic psychotherapy when problematic aspects of women's representational world lead to negative or dysregulated affect. Two case vignettes are presented: one described in brief and the other in greater detail. This kind of therapeutic intervention aims to achieve mood improvement, address women's emerging relatioship with her baby, and potentially, influence the course of fetal development. Winnicott (1960) said there is no such thing as a baby alone: all the more so during pregnancy.