PROMOTING MOTHER-INFANT RELATIONSHIPS: THE ENCOUNTER BETWEEN INTRAPSYCHIC AND INTERSUBJECTIVE BIOPSYCHOSOCIAL PERSPECTIVES

Intersubjectivity is a motivational system characterized by dynamic, mutual implicit and verbal transactional communication that create the fundamental models of social experience. Indeed, individuals have an inborn and biologically predisposed ability to internalize, incorporate, assimilate, imitate the state of another person. In this perspective, the core purpose of intersubjectivity is affect sharing and validation that foster the sense of personality in terms of “self-with other”. Thus, intersubjectivity may be conceived as the basis for collaboration and equality attitude. Many early intervention models are aimed at ameliorating the infant and her caregiver’s milieu through multisensory stimulation referring to their relational exchanges. Thus, intersubjective interactions can be regarded as the context in which early intervention should unfold. This symposium will focus on the neurobiological, relational, and psychodynamic dimensions that characterize the first years of the child’s life and their effects on parenting, the mother-child relationship and child’s emotional, cognitive and behavioral functioning.