Interpersonal World of the Infant

Interpersonal World of the Infant (1,2,9,10,11)

Exploring the Infant's Subjective Experience: A Central Role for the Sense of Self

This chapter introduces the whole book as a hypothesis about infants' inner social experience. The author says he will be drawing conclusions and making informed guesses about infants' inner subjective experience based on psychoanalytical theory and the most current research data.

Stern also says he will assume that infants do have some form of sense of self before they learn language. His main focus will be on the infant's sense of self, because most psychological problems stem from problems with the formation of the self. Infants grow in leaps and bounds, and this is obvious from observing their social interaction at different developmental stages.

During the first stage, from 0 to 2 months, the infant has a less developed sense of self and still feels partly "at one" with its mother. From 2 to 6 months, the infant's sense of self has to do with external activities and boundaries. Then from approximately 9 to 18 months, the child begins to experience more of an emotional inner self, and can share this experience with others. Stern summarizes the four different senses of self that lie at the heart of an infant's social development as the emergent self, core self, subjective self, and verbal self. These four senses of self are present from birth to death.

Finally, Stern argues that the previous view of pathology developing out of age-specific issues like orality is wrong, and better insight will be gained from examining the development of clinical problems from his "four senses of self" perspective.

Chapter 2

Perspectives and Approaches to Infancy

Developmental psychologists learn about infants from observing them and making inferences. This is called the "observed infant." On the other hand, psychoanalysts take an adult's memories and combine them with psychoanalytical theories about infancy to form the "clinical infant." Stern will use both ideas to draw his conclusions about infants and their senses of self, because understanding the clinical infant can make you a better observer, and being a better observer can help you draw better inferences about the clinical infant. He also warns against relating clinical-developmental issues to time-sensitive phases of the infant's life -- there is no evidence for the validity of these time-dependent stages. He believes that all issues are present at all times.

However, there are developmental stages or phases that arise when an infant reaches different levels of physical and mental maturity, but these don't necessarily shed light on the development of the senses of self. The first sense of self to develop is the physical sense of self, or the "core" sense of self. Next, an infant develops a sense of a "subjective" self when he or she realizes that everyone has their own state of mind. Then, at around fifteen to eighteen months, the child begins to see the world in terms of knowledge and symbols, leading to development of a "verbal" sense of self. The fourth and final sense of self to develop is the "emergent" sense of self, more like an adult sense of self, yet still very unorganized. Once one of these types of senses develops, it continues to coexist simultaneously with the others.

Chapter 9

The "Observed" Infant as Seen With a Clinical Eye

The four senses of self that Stern views as the hallmarks of an infants' complete development of self may coexist, but they are also time-sensitive in terms of when they should develop. He believes that the way each sense first develops has an impact on the future mental health of the child. For instance, an infant that first develops a strong, secure attachment to mother will continue to have a strong, secure sense of attachment to mother throughout the next several years.

Stern then talks about the development of different "capacities" in infants, and the clinical consequences when one of these capacities doesn't function properly. For example, if the capacity to transfer information from eyes to ears is impaired, the child may have learning disabilities. Also, a poor capacity for tolerance of excitement may lead to anxiety disorders later in life, and maybe autism results from a lack of capacity for dealing with specifically human interactions or stimulation.

In terms of core-relatedness, infants need the right amount of stimulation. If they receive either too much or too little they may develop a problem with that core sense of self. At first, there won't be any mental disorder, just issues with behaviors such as eating and sleeping. Then during the phase of intersubjective relatedness, the focus switches to controlling, sharing, or influencing the subjective experience of self and others. At this stage, if caregivers are not emotionally attuned enough to the infant, problems may arise such as depression. If they are only attuned when the infant behaves a certain way, this may lead the child to start forming a false self in order to please others. There can also be misattunements between caretaker and child, in which one or the other misreads emotional cues and responds inappropriately. And it's very important for a caregiver's attunement to be authentic.

There are also four types of self-experience: social, private, disavowed, and "not me." Disavowed refers to the parts of self the child learns not to share, and the "not me" experience is the part of self that is repressed. If the child learns to repress a lot of their emotions, they might develop a related pathology.

Chapter 10

Some Implications for the Theories Behind Therapeutic Reconstructions

This chapter relates theories of development to the "observed" infant. Infants undergo a "stimulation barrier" period in which they can only tolerate certain levels of stimulation without becoming upset, and try to block out the excess. But across a person's life span, the basic quality of capacity for tolerating stimulation remains the same. Stern's main point about orality is that it's closely tied to the concepts of hunger and satiety, but is no more important at any stage than seeing or hearing. He also notes that many psychoanalytical theories about drive and ego don't fit very well with the observed infant. For example, they show signs of an active ego, as opposed to just an id, from very early on.

In addition, Stern agrees that infants experience a stage of connectedness with their mother that is very powerful, but he believes it is the result of actively constructing RIGs (representations of interactions with self-regulating others), as opposed to a passive developmental phase. Also, infants must be capable of holding onto memories of interactions with others long enough that they can both build relationships with others, and separate themselves from those relationships.

Other developmental issues that may lead to pathology include the "splitting" of good and bad experiences, and the awareness of fantasy vs. reality. Stern believes the infant lives in a state of reality from day one, especially because initially they don't have the mental capacities necessary to create fantasy.

Chapter 11

Implications for the Therapeutic Process of Reconstructing a Developmental Past