Shai Dana, Dollberg Daphna, Szepsenwol Ohad
Baruch Ivcher School of Psychology, Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya, P.O. Box 167, Herzliya, 4610101, Israel.
School of Behavioral Sciences, Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yaffo, Yaffo, 61083, Israel.
Infant Behav Dev. 2017 Nov;49:87-96. doi: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2017.08.003. Epub 2017 Aug 15.
Parental mentalizing-recognizing that children are separate psychological entities, who have their own thoughts, wishes, and intentions that motivate their behaviors-is traditionally considered a verbal, linguistic capacity. This paper aimed to examine the relation between parental verbal mentalizing (parental reflective function; PRF) and its nonverbal form-parental embodied mentalizing (PEM)-and how both constructs contribute to parents' subjective experience of parenting, namely parental stress and coparental alliance. 68 mothers and their three-months-old babies were observed to assess PEM, interviewed to code PRF, and completed self-reports of coparental alliance and parental stress. PEM was found to be positively correlated with PRF. Mediation analyses revealed that higher PEM, but not PRF, was associated with lower parental stress, mediated by positive reports of coparental alliance. The findings support adopting a multifaceted approach when studying parental mentalizing, both in terms of assessing parental mentalizing beyond its verbal expressions to include also embodied aspects, as well as investigating its impact beyond infant development to include the familial context within it operates. Conceptual, empirical and clinical implications are discussed.
父母心智化——认识到孩子是独立的心理个体，他们有自己的思想、愿望和意图来驱动其行为——传统上被认为是一种言语、语言能力。本文旨在研究父母言语心智化（父母反思功能；PRF）与其非言语形式——父母具身心智化（PEM）之间的关系，以及这两种结构如何影响父母的养育主观体验，即父母压力和共同养育联盟。研究观察了68位母亲及其三个月大的婴儿以评估PEM，通过访谈对PRF进行编码，并让她们完成关于共同养育联盟和父母压力的自我报告。研究发现PEM与PRF呈正相关。中介分析表明，较高的PEM而非PRF与较低的父母压力相关，共同养育联盟的积极报告在其中起中介作用。这些发现支持在研究父母心智化时采用多方面的方法，这包括评估父母心智化时不仅关注其言语表达，还要纳入具身方面，以及研究其影响时不仅关注婴儿发展，还要涵盖其运作的家庭环境。本文讨论了相关的概念、实证和临床意义。
