Diseño de la tarea profesional 1

Maternal mind-mindedness has been put forward as appearing to be a cognitive- behavioural trait, a relational construct and indeed as one influenced by the other. In establishing the importance of maternal mind-mindedness as instrumental in

children’s positive developmental outcomes, it is necessary to determine whether mind-mindedness should be viewed as a stable trait or whether it should be viewed as a relational construct. If viewed as a trait, one could predict that mind-

mindedness is likely to remain relatively consistent across time, but if viewed as a relational construct, one could predict that mind-mindedness is less likely to remain consistent as the relationship between mother and child changes over time.

The necessity to investigate the nature of the construct becomes clearer when we consider the area of applied psychology. Maternal mind-mindedness could be viewed as a promising focus for future interventions due to the positive associations found between high levels of maternal mind-mindedness and favourable child development. If findings about the positive outcomes of maternal mind-mindedness are to be of greater benefit to mother-child relationships, it is essential to find out more about its characteristics as this might have implications for the focus of

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interventions. Disentangling findings in psychological research is difficult with the concomitant risk that poorly understood causal influences may hamper our ability to use research findings appropriately. The more that is understood about the

correlates and limits of maternal mind-mindedness, the more likely it is that our knowledge of mind-mindedness can be put to use to ameliorate mother-child relationships and possibly improve child outcomes.

Research with community samples has suggested that a focus on mind-mindedness in child and family social services might have a beneficial effect for families in

promoting secure child attachment relationships (Arnott & Meins, 2007; Bernier & Dozier, 2003). Adults’ attachment state of mind, an antecedent of infant attachment security, has been found to be resistant to interventions (Korfmacher, Adam, Ogawa, & Egeland, 1997). Bernier and Dozier (2003) suggested that focusing on a more malleable construct than attachment representations might be another way to promote secure attachment relationships. They proposed that an educational approach targeted at improving parents’ understanding of their child as an autonomous person could prove favourable.

In a preliminary study, Arnott and Meins (2007) found that if a parent was rated as nonautonomous (dismissing, preoccupied, unresolved) using the AAI, the chance of the child forming a secure attachment relationship was increased if the parent was rated as high in interactional mind-mindedness rather than low in mind-mindedness. Following on from this finding, it could be argued that if Arnott and Meins’ findings are replicated in a larger sample, an intervention might do well to concentrate on increasing nonautonomous parents’ levels of mind-mindedness to improve the likelihood of their infants developing a secure attachment relationship.

Whilst the majority of research into mind-mindedness has focused on community samples, it has begun to include at risk groups such as mothers with severe mental illness (Pawlby, Fernyhough, Meins, Pariante, Seneviratne, & Bentall, 2010), borderline personality disorder (BPD) (Schacht, Hammond, Marks, Wood, & Conroy, 2013), and with children referred to clinical services (Walker et al., 2011). Schact and colleagues (2013) investigated relations between mind-mindedness in mothers with and without BPD and their children’s mental state understanding. Maternal BPD was found to be associated with fewer maternal references to their children’s mental states, assessed using the representational mind-mindedness

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measure, and to lower levels of mental state understanding in their 3- to 5-year-old children. A positive relationship was found between the proportion of mental attributes used in mothers’ descriptions and children’s performance on theory of mind tasks (U = .27). These findings lend support to the proposal that BPD is linked to a reduced mentalising capacity, or in other words an ability to make sense of yourself and others in terms of mental states and processes (Fonagy & Bateman, 2008). The concurrent nature of the study is a limitation because it is only possible to speculate about the causal role of mind-mindedness in children’s mental state understanding. However, the associations found do point towards mind-mindedness being a promising area for future investigation in mothers with BPD.

There is also the possibility of pre-birth preventive work, stemming from the positive relationship found by Arnott and Meins (2008) between antenatal mind-mindedness, assessed by a modified representational measure, and postpartum mind-

mindedness, assessed by the interactional measure. Mothers’ representations of their unborn child in a community sample were found to be related to their levels of mind-mindedness in interactions with their 6-month-old children. This study and its measures will be discussed in greater detail later in this chapter but the authors suggested that mind-mindedness may originate in parents’ antenatal

representations of their infants as distinct beings and that this ability might continue in the parents’ tendency to think about their child’s internal states after birth.

Consequently, this raises the potential of antenatal interventions with at risk mothers. An intervention aimed at increasing the mother’s ability to think about her future child as a separate entity might be beneficial in future mother-child

interactions.

The nature of mind-mindedness – specifically whether it is a cognitive-behavioural trait or a relational construct – has consequences for potential interventions. Difficult mother-child relationships could be targeted by interventions aimed at increasing the mother’s tendency to think of her child’s internal states and to make appropriate responses in her interactions with that child. If maternal mind-mindedness is a cognitive-behavioural trait, this implies that an intervention would do well to focus on the mother alone (possibly a simpler intervention). This is because mind-

mindedness as a trait would be something which exists within the mother herself rather than being a product of the relationship. Not only that but if showing the stability inherent in the trait concept, the mother’s mind-mindedness would be likely to remain at relatively the same level and hence without an intervention difficulties

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might well remain in the future. The very concept of a trait implies that mother’s mind-mindedness would be relatively consistent, therefore it could well generalise across relationships with problematic relationships occurring with more than one child. On the other hand, if maternal mind-mindedness is a relational construct, then it could be argued that an intervention should focus on the relationship with that particular child rather than predominantly concentrating on the mother herself. The uncertainty surrounding maternal mind-mindedness, with the attendant

consequences for focused interventions, highlights a vital question regarding the nature of the construct which is yet to be conclusively answered.