By News Staff | March 19th 2011 04:00 AM
Science 2.0
Infants and toddlers can suffer serious mental health disorders, yet are unlikely to receive treatment that could prevent lasting developmental problems, according to an analysis in American Psychologist.
Contrary to traditional beliefs that infants cannot have mental health problems "because they lack mental life," even young infants can react to the meaning of others' intentions and emotions because they have their own rudimentary intentions and motivating emotions, according to an article by Ed Tronick, Ph.D., of the University of Massachusetts and Marjorie Beeghly, Ph.D., from Wayne State University. The authors encourage more study of the impact of everyday life and continual interactions between infants and parents or other caregivers.
One barrier to mental health care for young children is "the pervasive, but mistaken, impression that young children do not develop mental health problems and are immune to the effects of early adversity and trauma because they are inherently resilient and 'grow out of' behavioral problems and emotional difficulties," according to Joy D. Osofsky, PhD, of Louisiana State University, and Alicia F. Lieberman, PhD, of the University of California, San Francisco.
"Infants make meaning about themselves and their relation to the world of people and things," Tronick and Beeghly stated, and when that "meaning-making" goes wrong, it can lead to development of mental health problems. "Some infants may come to make meaning of themselves as helpless and hopeless, and they may become apathetic, depressed and withdrawn. Others seem to feel threatened by the world and may become hyper-vigilant and anxious." Apparent sadness, anger, withdrawal and disengagement can occur "when infants have difficulty gaining meaning in the context of relationships," they write. FULL STORY
My first impression is "What a pile of horse hockey". But since I am just common folk, it doesn't matter what I think. Does it? As near as I can tell, THIS is the article in American Psychologist
Well,these are the common issues will cause stress for the person and can lead to other behaviors that induce stress. They may find it hard to stay focused or feel that their personality is disintegrating or get anxiety attacks.
ReplyDeletePsychological Assessment