Elisabeth Fivaz-Depeursinge

Understanding triadic and family group interactions during infancy and toddlerhood.

This paper outlines recent conceptual and methodological developments in the assessment of triadic and family group process during infancy and toddlerhood. Foundations of the emerging family group process are identified, and conditions specific to the assessment of the family during the early phases of family formation are summarized. Both microanalytic and global approaches to evaluating mother–father–child interactions are discussed. We highlight both similarities and differences in the strategies and methods employed by several different investigators who have been studying the group dynamics of families with infant and toddler children, and underscore several important family patterns and emerging themes that appear to be cutting across these different methods and measurement strategies. Preliminary evidence for the validity and clinical significance of family-level assessments is summarized, and directions currently being pursued by researchers engaged in studies of the family triad are outlined. We close by identifying several conceptual and clinical issues that remain to be addressed by subsequent work.

Family Alliance Stability and Change From Pregnancy to Toddlerhood and Marital Correlates

This paper presents a longitudinal study of the development of family interactions from pregnancy to toddlerhood, and their link to parents’ marital satisfaction. The participants consisted of 38 non referred primiparous families. We used an observational setting, the Lausanne Trilogue Play (LTP), to evaluate the family alliance, namely the interactive coordination between family members. Families played a virtual interaction with a doll at the 5th month of pregnancy, and then played with the child at 3, 9 and 18 months. Results show that for 30 families, the quality of family interactions is the same at every point of measurement whereas for 8 families, there is a significant decrease of quality of interactions from pregnancy to 18 months. Those families are paradoxically the ones with the highest self-reported marital satisfaction. Implications of the results are discussed.

Parents-child role reversal in trilogue play: case studies of trajectories from pregnancy to toddlerhood.

Abstract Role reversal, whereby a child attempts to meet her parents adult needs for parenting, intimacy, or companionship, has been identified as a risk factor for developmental disturbances. It has been defined from diverse perspectives as a child attachment strategy, a parent – toddler relational disturbance, and a boundary disturbance between parents and child. The recently discovered infants triangular capacity, namely the sharing of her attention and affects with both parents, allows one to analyse the infants contribution to early family dynamics. Role reversal was detected in 4 out of 45 father – mother – infant interactions observed in trilogue play from pregnancy to toddlerhood. The developmental trajectories towards role reversal are explored by means of case analyses. Results are compared with cases of problematic triangulation encountered in the same sample. In role reversal, family interactions are rigidly organized around a “two against one” coalition, whereby the normative hierarchy between parents and child is reversed. The childs triangular capacity is overactivated, controlling the tension between her parents by provocation – animation strategies.

The Young Infant's Triangular Communication in the Family: Access to Threesome Intersubjectivity? Conceptual Considerations and Case Illustrations

During these last decades, the notion of primary intersubjectivity has gained acceptance among developmentalists and clinicians. But a new challenge is put out to our models by recent findings on the triangular competence of the very young infant, or her capacity to simultaneously communicate with two partners at a time. This discovery raises the question of a collective form of intersubjectivity. Findings on the triangular competence of the 3- to 4-month-old interactions with father and mother in different contexts of the Lausanne trilogue play situation are reviewed and illustrated, with a view to examine whether it is based on a dyadic or triangular program and whether conditions for a threesome form of primary intersubjectivity are fulfilled. The discussion focuses on the revisions of the theory of intersubjectivity, of developmental theory, and of clinical practice these findings call for, pointing toward a three -person psychology too.

Nonverbal communication and alliance in therapy: The body formation coding system

Body formations of therapist and couple during therapy sessions mainly function to signal their degree of readiness to interact or their degree of engagement in the therapeutic process, which is one contextual display of their affective communication. For this study, we developed the Body Formation Coding System (BFCS), a 4-category instrument to assess engagement at the triadic level. This article presents the BFSC method as well as a first validation on a sample of 14 triads. The results show that (a) triads vary according to their degree of triadic engagement; (b) engagement is related to the degree of therapeutic alliance; and (c) when the alliance is sufficient, a triadic invariant of engagement emerges. This means that partners regulate and coordinate their behaviors to maintain a stable level of engagement, whatever changes in their conversational organization. Finally, it discusses the potential of this method for describing the interactive aspects of the therapeutic alliance.

Young infants' triangular communication with their parents in the context of maternal postpartum psychosis: Four case studies

With increasing data on the dynamics of normative couples as they transition to parenthood and become a triad, the need for greater understanding of the impact of parental psychopathology on this transition has become clear. The goal of the current article is to begin exploring this area that has received little attention to date, by describing case examples from a study of clinical families as they transitioned to parenthood. Four representative cases were selected from a pool of 13 mother-father-baby triads, for whom the mother had been hospitalized conjointly with her infant due to a psychotic episode during the postpartum period. The families were observed as part of a clinical consultation that included a semistructured play paradigm known as the Lausanne Trilogue Play (LTP; E. Fivaz-Depeursinge, & A. Corboz-Warnery, 1999). Interactions were scored using standardized measures as well as clinical impressions. All families from the clinical sample were noted to struggle and frequently failed to achieve the goals of play. The impact on the infants in terms of their developing sense of self as well as their defensive strategies in this context are discussed, with clinical implications explored.

Mutual Smiling Episodes and Therapeutic Alliance in a Therapist-Couple Discussion Task

We observed mutual smiling episodes (MSEs) during therapist-couple triadic interaction as a key element of affective exchanges that serve to regulate the therapeutic relationship. Based on a functional perspective, we developed a new rating scale, the MSE Coding System (MSE-CS) that allows us to distinguish between four different MSEs, which correspond to four social functions: supporting mutual binding, sharing miseries, repairing, and confronting. MSEs were analyzed in a sample of eight therapist-couple triads. Therapeutic alliance and marital adjustment were also measured. The instrument (MSE-CS) demonstrated satisfactory inter-rater reliability, and initial indications of validity are promising. Results showed that number of MSEs was positively correlated with triadic therapeutic alliance. Types of MSEs were also distributed differently depending on the level of triadic therapeutic alliance.

Fathers’ and mothers’ performances in father-mother-baby games

Until now studies comparing fathers and mothers have mostly been realized in dyadic situations, father-infant versus mother-infant. The aim of the present paper was to bring to the core similarities and differences, between fathers and mothers, in terms of performance (N=42 families) in a triadic context. Father, mother and baby, seated in a triangular formation were invited to play as usual: first, one parent played with the infant and the other was participant-observer, and then they reversed their roles.Globally, no differences were observed between fathers and mothers in terms of being available, keeping their assigned roles, sharing a common focus of interest and co-creating games with their three month old infant. However a difference emerged when the order in which parents began as active parent versus third party parent was taken into account. Mothers who played first were better active partners than fathers, for keeping roles, sharing focus and co-creating games; and fathers who were first third party parent were better than third party mothers for sharing a common focus.RésuméLes études comparatives entre les pères et les mères ont, jusqu’à présent, été conduites dans des situations dyadiques (parent-enfant) et visaient généralement à établir les spécificités des uns et des autres. L’objectif de ce travail, sur 42 couples et leur premier-né âgé de 3 mois, est de mettre en évidence les similitudes et spécificités en termes de performance dans les interactions des pères et des mères dans la situation triadique du Lausanne Trilogue Play. Dans cette situation, chaque parent à tour de rôle interagit avec le bébé en présence de l’autre parent, qui est en position de participant-observateur; les trois partenaires étant installés en triangle.

La comunicazione triangolare del bambino piccolo in famiglia: un accesso all’intersoggettività triadica? Considerazioni teoriche e casi clinici

Nel corso di questi ultimi decenni, il concetto d’intersoggettivita primaria ha raccolto consensi tra gli studiosi dello sviluppo e i clinici. Ma una nuova sfida viene lanciata ai nostri modelli dalle recenti scoperte sulle competenze triangolari del bambino molto piccolo e sulla sua capacita di comunicare simultaneamente con i due genitori. Queste scoperte fanno emergere la questione di una forma collettiva d’intersoggettivita. Le scoperte sulla competenza triangolare di bambini di 3-4 mesi in interazione con padre e madre in differenti contesti della Lausanne trilogue play situation sono passate in rassegna e illustrate con uno sguardo che esamina se essa sia basata su un programma diadico o triangolare e se le condizioni per una forma gruppale di intersoggettivita primaria siano soddisfatte. La discussione si focalizza sulle revisioni che tali scoperte richiedono alla teoria dell’intersoggettivita, alla teoria dello sviluppo e alla pratica clinica, portandoci verso una psicologia tri-personale.

Prenatal Intuitive Coparenting Behaviors

Micro-analytic research on intuitive parenting behaviors has shed light on the temporal dynamics of parent and child interactions. Observations have shown that parents possess remarkable implicit communicative abilities allowing them to adapt to the clues infants give and therefore stimulate the development of many of the infants’ abilities, such as communication skills. This work focused on observing intuitive parenting behaviors that were synchronized and coordinated between the parents. We call them “prenatal intuitive coparenting behaviors” and used an observation task – the Prenatal Lausanne Trilogue Play procedure – to observe them. For this task, the parents role-play their first encounter with their future baby, represented by a doll. Two cases from a study on pregnancy after assisted reproductive technology are provided to illustrate how these behaviors manifest themselves. The observations from the first case suggest that expectant parents can offer the baby a coparental framework, whereas the observations from the second case show that opportunities for episodes of prenatal intuitive coparenting can be missed due to certain relationship dynamics. These kinds of observations deepen our knowledge of the prenatal emergence of the coparenting relationship and allow us to hone our strategies for intervening during pregnancy with couples who experience coparenting difficulties. Furthermore, these observations provide a novel and complementary perspective on prenatal intuitive parenting and coparenting behaviors.