Journal
PSYCHOTHERAPY RESEARCH
Volume 19, Issue 6, Pages 619-632Publisher
ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD
DOI: 10.1080/10503300802609672
Keywords
philosophical/theoretical issues in therapy research; technology in psychotherapy research and training
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The authors illustrate how their work on mother-infant relational psychophysiology might inform psychotherapy research. They examined psychophysiology in 18 mother-infant dyads (infants' age: 5 months) during normal interaction and a still-face perturbation. They measured respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) as an index of emotion regulation and explored whether skin conductance (SC) concordance, previously linked to therapist empathy, occurs in mothers and infants. During the still-face episode, SC concordance correlated to infant negative engagement. Upon reengagement, when mothers often soothe their infants, concordance instead correlated to behavioral synchrony, an index of maternal sensitivity. Furthermore, maternal RSA became correlated to infant negative engagement. These findings suggest that a mother trying to calm her infant calms herself physiologically and her sensitivity on a behavioral level becomes coherent physiologically. Implications for psychotherapy research are discussed.
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