Commentary on a triadic developmental system: Implications of infant research for couples treatment by David Shaddock PhD

Abstract

The microanalysis of mother-infant face-to-face communication has important implications for nonverbal communication in adult romantic partners and couples therapy. I am delighted that David Shaddock has taken up the challenge of relating these 2 fields. David emphasizes the dyadic co-creation of patterns of relating. Each person is con-tributing to the emerging interactive process. This is one of the most important insights from infant research. For example, in the mother-infant “chase and dodge” pattern (Beebe & Lachmann, 2002; Beebe & Stern, 1977), we identified a bi-directional interactive process. As the mother loomed into the infant’s face, the infant turned his head away. This was a quasi-simultaneous process, in which the mother’s loom started just a small fraction of a second before the infant’s head turn. But then, as the infant was turning away, the mother began to “chase,” that is, to move in the direction in which the infant was turning away. This was also a quasi-simultaneous process. This pattern might repeat until the infant tucked his head down, and moved his head to the other side, without looking at his mother. Then the whole process might repeat on the other side. And so on. As a couples therapist, I might see something similar as I watch a couple sitting in front of me. As one individual in the couple turns her head toward her partner, the partner just slightly turns his head away; but as he turns slightly away, she moves her head a tiny bit further toward her partner. This example illustrates a chase and dodge pattern in the couple in which the female partner is “chasing” and the male partner is “dodging.” Together they co-create this pattern. David also emphasizes the dyadic systems view in which self-regulation and interactive regulation are co-constituted (Beebe et al., 2016). How each individual regulates her own attention, orientation, affect, touch and physiological arousal—affects how she responds to her partner and how her partner responds to her. And vice versa, the nature of the interactive regulation affects each partner’s pattern of self-regulation.