Description

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An internationally known researcher presents a comprehensive, illustrated analysis of mother-infant interactions.

Using video microanalysis—which captures moment-to-moment sequences of interactions—Beatrice Beebe and her colleagues have turned their lens on the most primary of relationships, mother and infant. This process becomes a “social microscope,” enabling readers to see subtle details of interactions which are too rapid and complex to grasp in real time with the naked eye. These moment-to-moment sequences teach us to see how both infant and mother affect each other. We see that infants at four months are already extraordinarily communicative and responsive to the movements and emotions of the partner. These interactions can be used to predict a range of future attachment styles. They enable researchers to translate infants’ nonverbal language and provide a unique and rare window into child development. Lushly illustrated by Dillon Yothers, these drawings reveal the emotions, but conceal the identities, of the mothers and infants.

About the Author

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Beatrice Beebe, PhD, is clinical professor of psychology, Columbia University Medical Center. She lives and maintains a private practice in New York City.

Phyllis Cohen, PhD, is the director of the New York Institute for Psychotherapy Training in Infancy, Childhood, and Adolescence. She lives and maintains a private practice in New York City.

Frank Lachmann, PhD, is a member of the founding faculty of the Institute for the Psychoanalytic Study of Subjectivity. He lives and maintains a private practice in New York City.

Praise For…

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[E]ngagingly crafted by well-known infant researchers . . . . [Q]uite reasonably priced for all it includes: Thirteen interesting chapters with over 200 detailed drawings, an “Illustrated Glossary of Terms,” and a beautifully narrated DVD. . . . The research detailed and pictured in this volume is so incredibly important . . . The illustrative DVD is also quite marvelous. Dr. Beebe is a relaxed and engaging narrator whose pleasure in her work is apparent and whose observational skills are impressive. . . . I highly recommend [it] for parents, pediatricians, mental health professionals, students, and anyone interested in positive child development. It would be wonderful if parenting education could be modeled on aspects of this outstanding picture book for grownups!
— PsycCRITIQUES

The origins of secure attachment are easier to watch and read about than the origins of insecure (avoidant, resistant and disorganized), emotionally speaking that is… And, by reading this book, truly learning how to see what’s happening, we can help our clients understand just how critical small movements can impact infants’ lives.
— Somatic Psychotherapy Today

This work by Beebe should be heartily endorsed by any healthcare provider involved in early childhood care. It offers concise direction on recognizing the importance of early parent infant communication and attachment. . . . [C]an also be a good tool used by young parents as they not only deal with physical development but also emotional.
— International Journal of Childbirth Education

Describing, measuring and charting the wonders of the cocreated mother-infant relationship, have long been the legendary micro-analytic domain of baby-whisperer and psychoanalyst Beatrice Beebe. Together with her colleagues Phyllis Cohen and Frank Lachmann they have translated decades worth of their sophisticated approach to studying the different patterns in this core human relationship. A highlight of the book is the careful descriptions of what can be observed during the four-month interactions of mothers and babies that predict the child’s attachment at 12 months. This unique book and accompanying video will be an invaluable training tool for those working in a range of mental health professions from adult psychotherapy to early childhood practitioners. Extensively cited and hugely influential in psychoanalytic and developmental psychology research circles, core elements of this vital work are now being made available to the world. What a gift!
— Miriam Steele, Professor and Director of Clinical Training at the New School for Social Research, NY

This book by Beebe, Cohen, and Lachmann is the equivalent of finding a map that illustrates the actual routes—the moment-by-moment forms of action—that lead not only to the complex land of attachment, but to the richer and more complex world of relationships and how they are organized. Using sequences of illustrations of stunning clarity they train your eye to see relational effects of infant looking away, maternal emotional disconnection, the difficulty mothers have in tolerating infant distress, the all-powerful canonical chase and dodge sequence, and an elaboration and extension of my match, mismatch and repair model—from its origins in normal development to their key formulation about how reparation failure distorts relationships. This book is for the researcher studying infants and children and their relationships. It is for the clinician who works with children and parents, couples and adults, and every clinician who wants to see the therapeutic relationship more clearly. To engage with this book is to come to see people and relationships in new and revealing ways.
— Ed Tronick, University Distinguished Professor, University of Massachusetts Boston

A lucid, captivating immersion into the split-second world of infant-parent interaction and the unfolding of infant attachment. Combining scholarship, state-of-the-art research, and clinical insight, this multimedia integration of compelling text, drawings, and video provides an innovative perspective on social and personality development for both parents and researchers.
— Dr. Jeffrey Cohn, Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh

As impressively informed and informative as it is thoughtful and thought-provoking, The Mother-Infant Interaction Picture Book is a seminal work of simply outstanding scholarship.

— Midwest Book Review

The Mother-Infant Picture Book by Beebe, Cohen, and Lachman is an example of scholarly and creative story-telling at its best, a tale of coconstruction, imagination, and curiosity. This book is an exercise in attunement and paying close attention. The authors offer the reader a clear explanation of the valuable applications of attachment research to the understanding of the emerging world of the infant in the context of the primary caregiving relationship. Furthermore, they invite the reader to join them in imaging, feeling, and listening while observing in a different way, away from our usual implicit and procedural modes. The result is an invaluable addition to the world of infant research, developmental psychoanalysis, and psychoanalytic practice in general. 

— American Psychological Association