Enhancing Attachment and Reflective Parenting in Clinical Practice A Minding the Baby Approach

How can clinicians help vulnerable young families overcome barriers to secure, reciprocal, and joyful parent–infant relationships? This book provides a flexible framework for promoting reflective parenting "from the ground up." Described are effective ways to support safety and self-regulation in parents with histories of trauma and adversity, giving them a stronger foundation for seeing, hearing, and connecting to their children. The book distills principles of the influential Minding the Baby (MTB) home visiting program, as well as contemporary attachment and mentalization research. Vivid case material illustrates therapeutic strategies that can be used with parents and children in any clinical context. End-of-chapter "Questions for Clinicians" help readers apply the concepts discussed, with special attention to developing their own reflective capacities.

Arietta Slade, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and Professor of Clinical Child Psychology at the Yale Child Study Center. She is Co-Founder and Co-Director of Minding the Baby (MTB), an evidence-based interdisciplinary reflective home visiting program for high-risk mothers, infants, and their families, at the Yale Child Study Center and Yale School of Nursing. She came to MTB with a background as a theoretician, clinician, teacher, and researcher, and has published widely on reflective parenting, the development of parental reflective functioning, and the implications of attachment and mentalization theory for child and parent psychotherapy. Dr. Slade is a recipient of the Bowlby–Ainsworth Award from the New York Attachment Consortium.
 
Lois Sadler, PhD, RN, FAAN, is a pediatric nurse practitioner and Professor at the Yale School of Nursing and Yale Child Study Center. She is Co-Founder and Co-Director of Minding the Baby (MTB), and has led clinical trials and implementation nationally and internationally. Dr. Sadler came to MTB with extensive clinical and research experience, and has published extensively in such areas as the transition to parenthood among adolescent parents and their families, adolescent pregnancy prevention, and evaluation of specialized support programs for young parents and their children. She has won numerous awards for her teaching and research and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing.
 
Tanika Eaves, PhD, LCSW, is a clinical social worker and Assistant Professor of Social Work at The Marion Peckham Egan School of Nursing and Health Studies at Fairfield University. She has extensive experience in early intervention and is an endorsed Infant Mental Health Specialist. Dr. Eaves joined the Minding the Baby (MTB) team in 2009, where she worked as both a clinician and training specialist. She has published in the areas of reflective supervision and workforce well-being, culturally responsive parent–infant psychotherapeutic interventions, and equity in maternal–infant health and mental health outcomes.
 
Denise Webb, MSN, APRN, is a board-certified pediatric nurse practitioner and endorsed Infant Mental Health Mentor. Ms. Webb joined the Minding the Baby (MTB) team at its inception, first as a clinician and later as a training specialist. She coined the term "Reflective Nursing" to describe the application of mentalization theory to nursing practice, and played a pivotal role in developing an introductory training course on clinical approaches to enhancing reflective parenting that was attended by practitioners around the world. Before completing her training as a nurse practitioner, Ms. Webb worked as an early childhood educator for many years.
 

Preface
Glossary of Acronyms and Abbreviations
1. Minding the Baby™ and Reflective Parenting: An Introduction
I. Theoretical and Scientific Bases for Minding the Baby Parenting
2. The Foundations of Attachment Theory and Research
3. Pathways to Secure Attachment: Caregiver Sensitivity
4. Pathways to Secure Attachment: Parental Mentalizing
5. Impaired Mentalizing and Trauma
6. Adversity, Toxic Stress, and Resilience
II. Establishing the Relational Foundations of Reflection
7. The Relational Foundations of Reflection
8. The Relational Foundations of Reflection in the Clinician
9. The Relational Foundations of Reflection in Parents and Children
III. Building Reflective Capacities
10. Enhancing Parental Reflective Functioning: General Considerations
11. Reflective Nursing
12. Parental Mental Health
13. Clinical Applications of the Pregnancy and Parent Development Interviews
IV. Clinical Applications of Minding the Baby Parenting
14. Brenda, Aidan, and Allie
15. Yolanda, Manny, and Mildred
16. Genevieve, Jared, and Jimmy
17. Embracing Complexity
Appendix I. The Pregnancy Interview, Arietta Slade
Appendix II. The Parent Development Interview--Short Version (2004), Arietta Slade, J. Lawrence Aber, Brenda Berger, Ivan Bresgi, and Merryle Kaplan
References
Index