Department of Psychology, University of Massachusetts, Boston, 02125, USA.
Am Psychol. 2011 Feb-Mar;66(2):107-19. doi: 10.1037/a0021631.
We argue that infant meaning-making processes are a central mechanism governing both typical and pathological outcomes. Infants, as open dynamic systems, must constantly garner information to increase their complexity and coherence. They fulfill this demand by making nonverbal "meaning"-affects, movements, representations-about themselves in relation to the world and themselves into a "biopsychosocial state of consciousness," which shapes their ongoing engagement with the world. We focus on the operation of the infant-adult communication system, a dyadic, mutually regulated system that scaffolds infants' engagement with the world of people, things, and themselves, and consequently their meaning-making. We argue that infant mental health problems emerge when the meanings infants make in the moment, which increase their complexity and coherence and may be adaptive in the short run, selectively limit their subsequent engagement with the world and, in turn, the growth of their state of consciousness in the long run. When chronic and iterative, these altered meanings can interfere with infants' successful development and heighten their vulnerability to pathological outcomes. Cultural variations in meaning-making and implications for clinical practice are discussed.
我们认为，婴儿的意义建构过程是控制典型和病态结果的核心机制。婴儿作为开放的动态系统，必须不断获取信息以增加其复杂性和连贯性。他们通过对自己与世界和自己的关系进行非言语的“意义”影响、运动和表现，形成一种“身心社会意识状态”，从而满足这一需求，这种状态塑造了他们与世界持续互动的方式。我们关注婴儿-成人交流系统的运作，这是一个二元、相互调节的系统，为婴儿与人和物以及自身的世界的互动提供支撑，从而促进他们的意义建构。我们认为，当婴儿在当下建构的意义选择性地限制了他们随后与世界的互动，并反过来限制了他们的意识状态在长期内的发展时，婴儿的精神健康问题就会出现。我们讨论了意义建构的文化差异及其对临床实践的影响。
