Maternal Reflective Functioning and Attachment Security in Girls and Boys: A Closer Look into the Middle Childhood

Child attachment undergoes major changes during middle childhood. Maternal reflective functioning (RF) is hypothesized to be an important correlate of a child’s attachment security during this period; however, the child’s gender role in this association has not been examined yet. In the present study, we used 64 mother-child (6–11 years old) dyads from a community sample to analyze the association between maternal RF and child attachment security and whether this link is moderated by gender. Maternal RF was assessed on the Parent Development Interview Revised (PDI-R2) and child attachment classifications were examined by the Child Attachment Interview (CAI). Results revealed the positive and statistically significant association between maternal RF and child attachment security in the whole sample. Further evaluations of this link in the groups of girls and boys separately indicated its significance for girls only. Finally, moderation analysis demonstrated the relation between child attachment security and maternal RF to be moderated by gender. These findings provide a new knowledge on gender role in attachment security in relation to maternal RF as well as suggest possible differentiation in the correlates on the pathway of secure attachment between girls and boys during middle childhood.

Learning to mentalize: Exploring vulnerable parents’ experiences of change during video guidance in an infant mental health clinic

Background Interventions that promote infant mental health face challenges when applied for parents who struggle with psychosocial and psychological burdens. Video-based guidance using the Marte Meo method is used in specialized clinical settings with high-risk families to improve parent-child interaction, parental sensitivity and mentalizing. However, knowledge about the lifeworlds of these parents and their experiences of the therapeutic process during video guidance is limited. Aim This qualitative study explores how parents in an infant mental health outpatient clinic who had difficulties mentalizing and maintaining an emotional connection with their infants experienced the change process during Marte Meo video guidance. Methods We identified a strategic sample of parents with difficulties mentalizing and maintaining an emotional connection with their infants through the Parent Development Interview. Twelve parents received video guidance and were afterwards interviewed in-depth. The research interviews were qualitatively analysed via a team-based reflexive thematic analysis. Result We identified four themes: a) feeling inadequate or disconnected as a parent; b) discovering the infant as a relating and intentional person; c) becoming more agentic and interconnected; and d) still feeling challenged by personal mental health issues. Conclusion Parents described positive changes in their interactions, in mentalizing their infants, the relationship and themselves as parents, in their experiences of self-efficacy and on a representational level. They also described increased confidence and improved coping despite ongoing personal mental health challenges. The findings suggest that video guidance using the Marte Meo method can be a critical intervention for vulnerable parents but should be coordinated with parents’ primary treatments when complex parental mental health issues are involved.

Assessing reflective functioning in prospective adoptive parents

The capacity for reflective functioning (RF) or mentalizing of adoptive parents is hypothesized to play an important role in fostering socio-emotional development in adopted children. This paper reports on the development and preliminary validation of the Adoption Expectations Interview (AEI), a semi-structured interview to assess RF in prospective adoptive parents. The AEI was developed based on the Pregnancy Interview, Parent Development Interview, and Working Model of the Child Interview, three interviews that have been used to assess RF in biological parents, to capture RF before child arrival in prospective adoptive parents. In a sample of 96 prospective adoptive parents, the Reflective Functioning Scale, as applied to the AEI (AEI-RFS) showed good reliability, with strong correlations between the different demand items, high internal consistency, and good to excellent inter-rater reliability. A principal component analysis yielded one component, suggesting that the items measured a unidimensional factor. Preliminary evidence for the construct validity of the AEI-RFS was demonstrated by significant associations between the AEI-RFS and well-validated measures of mentalizing, attachment dimensions, and interpersonal functioning.

Convergent Validity of Three Measures of Reflective Function: Parent Development Interview, Parental Reflective Function Questionnaire, and Reflective Function Questionnaire

Reflective function (RF) is defined as an individual’s ability to understand human behavior in terms of underlying mental states including thoughts, feelings, desires, beliefs, and intentions. More specifically, the capacity of parents to keep their child’s mental states in mind is referred to as parental RF. RF has been linked to adult mental health and parental RF to children’s mental health and development. The gold standard measure of RF is the interview-based Reflective Functioning Scale (RFS) applied to the Parent Development Interview (PDI) or Adult Attachment Interview (AAI), which while well validated, is time-and labor-intensive to administer. Given the increasing need for reliable, valid, and rapid RF assessment in wide-ranging settings, two alternative measures were considered including the Reflective Function Questionnaire (RFQ) and Parental Reflective Function Questionnaire (PRFQ). We determined the convergent validity of these measures in comparison with the PDI-rated RFS. A sample of mothers and fathers (n = 150) was drawn from a sub-study of the ongoing Alberta Pregnancy Outcomes and Nutrition (APrON) longitudinal cohort when their children were 42–60 months of age. Pearson correlations and multiple linear regression was conducted, followed by splitting the sample to compute Cohen’s kappas measures of agreement. Two subscales of the PRFQ correlated significantly (p < 0.05) with the gold standard PDI-rated RFS, providing evidence for convergent validity. As a brief multidimensional measure of parental RF, the PRFQ offers an alternative for measurement of RF in large-scale studies of parental development and child health.

Mentalisieren als Voraussetzung für feinfühliges Verhalten von pädagogischen Fachkräften: Methodenentwicklung und Ergebnisse einer Pilotstudie

Ziel des vorliegenden Projektes ist es, ein Interview zu entwickeln, das die mentalisierenden Fähigkeiten von pädagogischen Fachkräften im Hinblick auf ihre Beziehung zum Kind erfasst. Der vorliegende Beitrag stellt die Instrumentenentwicklung und die Ergebnisse der Pilotstudie dar. Den inhaltlichen Schwerpunkt des Interviews bildet die Nähe-Distanz-Regulation in der Beziehung zum Kind (Bindungs- Explorations-Balance). Der auf Grundlage des Parent Development Interviews (PDI) entwickelte halbstrukturierte Interviewleitfaden des ErzieherIn-Entwicklungs-Interviews (EEI) sowie die für den Kontext der Kindertagesbetreuung adaptierten Auswertungsmanuale nach der Reflective Functioning Scale (RF) und des Assessments of Representational Risk (ARR; z.B. Feindseligkeit, Hilflosigkeit, unterstützende Präsenz) wurden anhand von N=12 pädagogischen Fachkräften pilotiert. Die Ergebnisse der Pilotierung deuten darauf hin, dass das entwickelte Interview dafür geeignet ist, eine breite Varianz an Fähigkeiten zum Mentalisieren (RF) und Beziehungsrepräsentationen (ARR) von pädagogischen Fachkräften erfassen zu können. Erste Ergebnisse zu Zusammenhängen zwischen den Fähigkeiten zum Mentalisieren von pädagogischen Fachkräften und verschiedenen Aspekten der Beziehungsrepräsentation geben Hinweise auf die Konstruktvalidität des Instrumentes. Abschließend wird der neue methodische Zugang auf der Ebene der Repräsentationen für den Bereich der Frühpädagogik diskutiert und ein Ausblick auf die weiteren Forschungsfragen des Projektes gegeben, die im Rahmen der Hauptstudie untersuchten werden.