Ghosts in the Nursery

It’s day 2 of Celebrate Babies week!  Today we invite you to celebrate babies, young children, and their families by engaging in thoughtful conversation with your coworkers, association members, and/or colleagues about ghosts and angels in the nursery.  We welcome you to read, “Ghosts in the Nursery: A Psychoanalytic Approach to the Problems of Impaired Infant- Mother Relationships” (Fraiberg, Adelson & Shapiro, 1975) and consider the following questions:

• How can unresolved losses, traumas, relationships and experiences from the past haunt the present?
• How can unresolved losses, trauma, relationships and experiences play out in parent-child relationships?  Give examples of times you have seen this occur.

Finally, we invite you to read, discuss, and reflect on the article, “Angels in the Nursery: The Intergenerational Transmission of Benevolent Parental Influences” (Lieberman, Padron, Van Horn & Harris, 2005) in the context of the following prompts:

• Think about one of your most important attachment relationships
• Think about a time when you felt especially loved or cared for
• What qualities does this person possess that helps/helped you feel safe?