Skip to main content

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
Cancel
×
×
Home
  • Home
Article
  • Access

Does the evidence support parent-infant psychotherapy?: Commentary on… Cochrane Corner

  • Virginia Lumsden
Summary

Parent–infant psychotherapy (PIP) is a psychoanalytic intervention that aims to improve parental and infant mental health. There is uncertainty about the clinical effectiveness of this intervention, particularly in comparison with other interventions. Based on a limited number of trials, this month's Cochrane Corner review aimed to summarise the best evidence available. Although the review found some tentative support for PIP in relation to attachment outcomes, overall the evidence was of low quality and PIP was not found to be more effective than treatment as usual or other interventions. This commentary contextualises and summarises the findings, and considers their implications for researchers and clinicians.

    •
      • Send article to Kindle

      To send this article to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Find out more about sending to your Kindle.

      Note you can select to send to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be sent to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

      Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

      Does the evidence support parent-infant psychotherapy?
      Available formats
      ×
      Send article to Dropbox

      To send this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your <service> account. Find out more about sending content to Dropbox.

      Does the evidence support parent-infant psychotherapy?
      Available formats
      ×
      Send article to Google Drive

      To send this article to your Google Drive account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your <service> account. Find out more about sending content to Google Drive.

      Does the evidence support parent-infant psychotherapy?
      Available formats
      ×
Copyright
COPYRIGHT: © The Royal College of Psychiatrists 2017 
Corresponding author
Correspondence Dr Virginia Lumsden, Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, George Turle House, 54 London Road, Canterbury CT2 8JY, UK. Email: vl@virginialumsden.co.uk
Footnotes
Hide All

See p. 216, this issue.

Declaration of Interest

None

Footnotes
References
Hide All
Bakermans-Kranenburg, MJ, Juffer, F, van Ijzendoorn, MH (1998) Interventions with video feedback and attachment discussions: does type of maternal insecurity make a difference? Infant Mental Health Journal, 19: 202–19.
Barlow, J, Bennett, C, Midgley, N, et al (2015) Parent–infant psychotherapy for improving parental and infant mental health. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 1: CD010534 (doi: 10.1002/14651858.CD010534.pub2).
Bauer, A, Parsonage, M, Knapp, M, et al (2014) Costs of Perinatal Mental Health Problems. London School of Economics and Political Science and Centre for Mental Health.
Cicchetti, D, Rogosch, FA, Toth, SL (1999) The efficacy of toddler–parent psychotherapy to increase attachment security in offspring of depressed mothers. Attachment and Human Development, 28: 135–48.
Cicchetti, D, Rogosch, FA, Toth, SL (2006) Fostering secure attachment in infants in maltreating families through preventative interventions. Development and Psychopathology, 18: 623–49.
Cohen, NJ, Muir, E, Lojkasek, M, et al (1999) Watch, Wait, and Wonder: testing the effectiveness of a new approach to mother–infant psychotherapy. Infant Mental Health Journal, 20: 429–51.
Cooper, PJ, Murray, L, Wilson, A, et al (2003) Controlled trial of the short- and long-term effect of psychological treatment of post-partum depression. I. Impact on maternal mood. British Journal of Psychiatry, 182: 412–9.
Fearon, RP, Bakermans-Kranenburg, MJ, van Ijzendoorn, MH, et al (2010) The significance of insecure attachment and disorganization in the development of children's externalizing behavior: a meta-analytic study. Child Development, 81: 435–56.
Fonagy, P, Sleed, M, Baradon, T (2016) Randomized controlled trial of parent–infant psychotherapy for parents with mental health problems and young infants. Infant Mental Health Journal, 37: 97–114.
Fraiberg, S (1959) The Magic Years. Charles Scribner's Sons.
Fraiberg, S, Adelson, E, Shapiro, V (1975) Ghosts in the nursery: a psychoanalytic approach to impaired infant–mother relationships. Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry, 14: 387–421.
Goodman, JH, Prager, J, Goldstein, R, et al (2015) Perinatal dyadic psychotherapy for postpartum depression: a randomized controlled pilot trial. Archives of Women's Mental Health, 18: 493–506.
Herrera, E, Reissland, N, Shepherd, J (2004) Maternal touch and maternal child-directed speech: effects of depressed mood in the postnatal period. Journal of Affective Disorders, 81: 29–39.
Higgins, JPT, Green, S (eds) (2011) Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions. Version 5.1.0 [updated March 2011]. Cochrane Collaboration.
Leadsom, A, Field, F, Burstow, P, et al (2013) The 1001 Critical Days: The Importance of the Conception to Age Two Periods – A Cross-Party Manifesto. Parent Infant Partnership.
Lieberman, AF, Weston, DR, Pawl, JH (1991) Preventive intervention and outcome with anxiously attached dyads. Child Development, 62: 199–209.
Manian, N, Bornstein, MH (2009) Dynamics of emotion regulation in infants of clinically depressed and nondepressed mothers. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 50: 1410–8.
Pratt, M, Goldstein, A, Levy, J, et al (2017) Maternal depression across the first years of life impacts the neural basis of empathy in preadolescence. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 56: 20–9.
Ramchandani, P (2015) Parent Infant Psychotherapy: A Gap in the Evidence. The National Elf Service – The Mental Elf (http://www.nationalelfservice.net/mental-health/depression/parent-infant-psychotherapy-a-gap-in-the-evidence). Accessed 19 April 2017.
Robert-Tissot, C, Cramer, B, Stern, DN et al (1996) Outcome evaluation in brief mother–infant psychotherapies: report on 75 cases. Infant Mental Health Journal, 17: 97–114.
Salomonsson, B, Sandell, R (2011) A randomized controlled trial of mother–infant psychoanalytic treatment: I. Outcomes on self-report questionnaires and external ratings. Infant Mental Health Journal, 32: 207–31.
Sleed, M, Baradon, T, Fonagy, P (2013) New beginnings for mothers and babies in prison: a cluster randomized controlled trial. Attachment and Human Development, 15: 349–67.
Smith, T, Domenech Rodriguez, MM, Bernal, G (2011) Culture. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 67: 166–75.
Tronick, E, Reck, C (2009) Infants of depressed mothers. Harvard Review of Psychiatry, 17: 147–56.
Recommend this journal

Email your librarian or administrator to recommend adding this journal to your organisation's collection.

BJPsych Advances
  • ISSN: 2056-4678
  • EISSN: 2056-4686
  • URL: /core/journals/bjpsych-advances
Please enter your name
Please enter a valid email address
Who would you like to send this to? *

CAPTCHA *

Skip to the audio challenge
×

Metrics

Altmetric attention score

Full text views

Total number of HTML views: 0
Total number of PDF views: 23 *
Loading metrics...

Abstract views

Total abstract views: 50 *
Loading metrics...

* Views captured on Cambridge Core between 2nd January 2018 - 27th April 2018. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

  • Access

Does the evidence support parent-infant psychotherapy?: Commentary on… Cochrane Corner

  • Virginia Lumsden
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.

×

Reply to: Submit a response

Your details

Conflicting interests

Do you have any conflicting interests? *

Cancel
Confirm
×