Sylvain Missonnier

Why Synchrony Matters during Mother- Child Interactions: A Systematic Review

Background Assessment of mother-child interactions is a core issue of early child development and psychopathology. This paper focuses on the concept of “synchrony” and examines (1) how synchrony in mother-child interaction is defined and operationalized; (2) the contribution that the concept of synchrony has brought to understanding the nature of mother-child interactions. Method Between 1977 and 2013, we searched several databases using the following key-words: « synchrony » « interaction » and « mother-child ». We focused on studies examining parent-child interactions among children aged 2 months to 5 years. From the 63 relevant studies, we extracted study description variables (authors, year, design, number of subjects, age); assessment conditions and modalities; and main findings. Results The most common terms referring to synchrony were mutuality, reciprocity, rhythmicity, harmonious interaction, turn-taking and shared affect; all terms were used to characterize the mother-child dyad. As a consequence, we propose defining synchrony as a dynamic and reciprocal adaptation of the temporal structure of behaviors and shared affect between interactive partners. Three main types of assessment methods for studying synchrony emerged: (1) global interaction scales with dyadic items; (2) specific synchrony scales; and (3) micro-coded time-series analyses. It appears that synchrony should be regarded as a social signal per se as it has been shown to be valid in both normal and pathological populations. Better mother-child synchrony is associated with familiarity (vs. unknown partner), a healthy mother (vs. pathological mother), typical development (vs. psychopathological development), and a more positive child outcomes. Discussion Synchrony is a key feature of mother-infant interactions. Adopting an objective approach in studying synchrony is not a simple task given available assessment tools and due to its temporality and multimodal expression. We propose an integrative approach combining clinical observation and engineering techniques to improve the quality of synchrony analysis.

Interaction and behaviour imaging: a novel method to measure mother–infant interaction using video 3D reconstruction

Studying early interaction is essential for understanding development and psychopathology. Automatic computational methods offer the possibility to analyse social signals and behaviours of several partners simultaneously and dynamically. Here, 20 dyads of mothers and their 13–36-month-old infants were videotaped during mother–infant interaction including 10 extremely high-risk and 10 low-risk dyads using two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) sensors. From 2D+3D data and 3D space reconstruction, we extracted individual parameters (quantity of movement and motion activity ratio for each partner) and dyadic parameters related to the dynamics of partners heads distance (contribution to heads distance), to the focus of mutual engagement (percentage of time spent face to face or oriented to the task) and to the dynamics of motion activity (synchrony ratio, overlap ratio, pause ratio). Features are compared with blind global rating of the interaction using the coding interactive behavior (CIB). We found that individual and dyadic parameters of 2D+3D motion features perfectly correlates with rated CIB maternal and dyadic composite scores. Support Vector Machine classification using all 2D–3D motion features classified 100% of the dyads in their group meaning that motion behaviours are sufficient to distinguish high-risk from low-risk dyads. The proposed method may present a promising, low-cost methodology that can uniquely use artificial technology to detect meaningful features of human interactions and may have several implications for studying dyadic behaviours in psychiatry. Combining both global rating scales and computerized methods may enable a continuum of time scale from a summary of entire interactions to second-by-second dynamics.

Social signal processing for studying parent-infant interaction

Studying early interactions is a core issue of infant development and psychopathology. Automatic social signal processing theoretically offers the possibility to extract and analyze communication by taking an integrative perspective, considering the multimodal nature and dynamics of behaviors (including synchrony). This paper proposes an explorative method to acquire and extract relevant social signals from a naturalistic early parent–infant interaction. An experimental setup is proposed based on both clinical and technical requirements. We extracted various cues from body postures and speech productions of partners using the IMI2S (Interaction, Multimodal Integration, and Social Signal) Framework. Preliminary clinical and computational results are reported for two dyads (one pathological in a situation of severe emotional neglect and one normal control) as an illustration of our cross-disciplinary protocol. The results from both clinical and computational analyzes highlight similar differences: the pathological dyad shows dyssynchronic interaction led by the infant whereas the control dyad shows synchronic interaction and a smooth interactive dialog. The results suggest that the current method might be promising for future studies.

Incertitude, anticipation et résilience à l’aube de la vie : point de vue du psychologue

The author argues for a clinic of second generation resilience based on the critic of initial fantasy of radical invulnerability. Exceeding this naive position allows to laying the foundations for a psychology and psychopathology of resilience. Clinical case attempts to demonstrate the potential strength of the subject are in the perinatal nest group. In this spiral of parenthood, becoming a human being and being a caregiver, the defence mechanism of anticipation (E. Vaillant) plays an essential role. Finally, the author speaks of life and death resilience to better understand not resilience but the resiliencies.

Gravidanza, stress e psicoanalisi

Oggi l’interesse interdisciplinare per la prevenzione e la cura nel periodo perinatale e in aumento e cio ha consentito di approfondire la relazione tra gravidanza e stress. Si e anche notato che, mentre la teoria dello stress progredisce, al contrario, la psicopatologia dinamica dell’angoscia spesso retrocede. Cio non puo non costituire un problema per uno psicoanalista. Lontano da posizioni bellicose e polemiche, tanto numerose quanto epistemologicamente inutili, l’Autore cerca qui di tracciare le linee per un dibattito tra la psicoanalisi e le attuali sfide teorico-cliniche nel campo della perinatalita. Ripercorrendo criticamente la storia delle teorie soma/psiche, l’articolo propone la riflessione su alcuni concetti, derivati in particolare dall’indirizzo psicosomatico francese contemporaneo, quali quelli di stress, angoscia, funzionamento operatorio, trasparenza psichica in gravidanza, per arrivare a fondare una nuova etica epistemologica e quindi una presa in carico piu complessiva ed interdisciplinare del perinatale

L'enfant virtuel et l'échographie obstétricale

L’environnement non humain est trop souvent tenu a l’ecart de la clinique et des theories psychanalytiques. Mais la scotomisation des elements psycho(patho)logiques du virtuel quotidien est desormais incompatible avec notre pratique.Dans cet esprit, la rencontre perinatale du « devenir parent » et du « naitre humain » devient indissociable de l’usage de hautes technologies, notamment diagnostiques.Dans le cas particulier de l’echographie prenatale, comment s’influencent mutuellement processus de parentalite et imagerie medicale du corps de l’enfant virtuel ?Le recit d’une intervention psychotherapique a la maternite avec une adolescente enceinte donne ici l’occasion d’etudier le pouvoir d’influence du cadre echographique.