The Motherhood Constellation

Stern presents a major synthesis of the newly exploding field of infant mental health and creates a new model of treatment. He shows the critical elements of any parent-infant clinical system: the parents' representations of the relationship with the baby, their overt interactions, the infant's representations of these interactions, and the role of the therapist.

Daniel N. Stern, M.D., is a professor of psychology at the University of Geneva and adjunct professor of psychiatry at Cornell University Medical Center–New York Hospital. An expert in the mother-infant relationship, he is the author of The Interpersonal World of the Infant and The Diary of a Baby.Nadia Bruschweiler-Stern, M.D., is a pediatrician and child psychiatrist in Geneva, Switzerland. Alison Freeland, a freelance writer and the author of The Journey to Motherhood, currently works as a reporter for Vermont Public Radio.

The Clinical System In Parent-Infant Psychotherapy * An Overview of the Clinical Situation * The Parents Representational World * The Parents Representations Enacted * The Parent-Infant Interaction * The Nature and Formation of the Infants Representations * The Infants Representations Viewed Clinically * The Therapist Therapeutic Approaches In Parent-Infant Psychotherapy And Their Common * Approaches That Aim to Change the Parents Representation * Approaches That Aim to Change the Interactive Behaviors * Commonalities Among the Different Approaches Synthesis * The Motherhood Constellation * Some Wider Implications for Other Clinical Situations