Browsing by Author "Hukkanen, Henna-Maaret"

Objective: Parent–infant therapeutic work is an intensive intervention, individually tailored for families with an infant to support the parent–infant relationship. It is offered when support provided by maternity and child health clinics and other basic services is not enough. Maternal mentalization and emotion regulation are thought to be the underlying mechanisms of the intervention’s potential effectiveness. There are many similarities in the development of mentalization and emotion regulation as well as in their importance to parenting. Theoretically it has been thought that the association between them is bidirectional and mutually reinforcing. This study investigates whether maternal mentalization and emotion regulation change during parent–infant therapeutic work. In addition, the association between mentalization and emotion regulation is investigated with both cross-sectional and longitudinal research designs. Methods: The study sample was part of a larger effectiveness study of services offered to families with infants in finnish family centers. The sample consisted of 90 mothers receiving parent–infant therapeutic work. Emotion regulation was assessed using the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale Short Form (DERS-SF) questionnaire. Maternal mentalizing was assessed in a subsample of 31 mothers, using either the Pregnancy Interview (PI) or the Parent Development Interview Revised (PDI-R), depending on whether the measurement was made during pregnancy or after childbirth. Changes in emotion regulation and mentalization during the intervention as well as the relationship between the changes were evaluated using linear mixed models. The association between mentalization and emotion regulation at baseline was evaluated using linear regression analysis. Results and conclusions: One of the DERS-SF subscales, access to emotion regulation strategies, improved during treatment. In addition, maternal mentalizing improved in mothers with low baseline mentalizing capacity. This result supports the previously observed phenomenon that it may be easier to increase low mentalization ability than high mentalization ability. It is possible that in order to improve emotion regulation and mentalizing more broadly, the intervention should include more systematic support of emotion regulation and mentalization. This study also confirmed previous, albeit conflicting evidence that maternal mentalizing and emotion regulation are not unequivocally associated. More research is needed on the effectiveness of parent–infant therapeutic work and the association between parental mentalizing and emotional regulation using different research methods and designs.