Narrative Therapy & Social –Emotional Development of Young Children

1. Narrative Therapy & Social –Emotional Development of Young Children Dr P.N.Reebye Clinical Professor University of British Columbia Ms.A.Wolverton,Infant Development consultant

2. Discuss two random Responses. Preworkhop Questionnaire

3. Learning Objectives • Learners will be able to appreciate the importance of narratives in therapy • Analyze template narratives • Use narratives as a source of evaluation • Understand the effectiveness of use of narratives in special populations

4. Key Words • Narratives • Interactions • Social emotional development • Dyadic and Family contexts • Co-Construction tasks

5. Narratives • Definitions • Socio-emotional Development • Connecting early narratives with emotional experiences • Multiple perspectives on narratives

6. Narratives: 2 premises (Emde) • Shared forms of understanding experiences • Essential for affective well-being and personal growth • Therapeutic tool that uses humane approach that is not restrictive( My addition)

7. Developmental Impact on narratives :Infancy • Can grasp order of events • Can manage turn taking with caregiver • Use intersubjectivity to establish narrative attunement • Implicit joint reference with one word sentences

8. 2nd year: • Increased symbolic activity • Knows how reference works • Multiword sentences to convey meaning • Can organize experience into fundamental categories: agent( Johnny),action ( play),instrument (ball) • Understands small units combined produce larger meaning • Understands distinctive narrative voices

9. 3-5 Years: • Development of semantic ( mad, happy, tired)and syntactic(tenses,temporal markers , link events as “ because”, “so”) systems • Sophisticate affective narrative frames

10. Preschooler’s narratives : 3 levels Discourse 3levels Plot Representations

11. Looking for emotional content in narratives • Narrative style • Emotional regulation • Emotional themes • View of self and other • Emotional Resolution

12. Affective narrative frames • Situation narratives • Personal experience • Feasible human narratives • Dramatic narratives • Emotion state narratives • Idealized narratives • Metaphoric narratives

13. Attachment perspective • Parental attachment and narratives • Parental authority and narratives • Learning from parents::Parent as a Mentor: Child as an apprentice • Gender differences in narrative themes • Attachment themes in children

14. Special Populations • Maltreated children • Mood disorders • Separation anxiety • Social anxiety

15. Mother Child co-construction tasks • Maternal influence on child’s narratives • First scaffolding then a “narrative frame”. • High elaborative and Low information mothers

16. Story Stems • Lost Keys • Separation • Reunion • Story Time with mom

17. Discussion on video clips • Video Clip 1 ,2,3, • Comment on Co-Construction tasks • Video Clip 4: comment on emotional content of the narrative. • Video Clip 5: Family narrative

18. Clinical Importance of Narratives • Exploring of child’s psychodynamic processes • Can uncover information such as abuse, family chaos and confirm diagnosis • Helping mother-child dyads to co-regulate affect • Recognize limitations of the approach

19. References : • Favez ,N.(2006) From Family Play to Family Narratives The Signal Newsletter of the World Association for Infant Mental Health July –December 2005 • Oppenheim ,D (1997).The attachment doll play interview for preschoolers .International journal of Behavioural Development,20,681-697 • Warren,S.L., Emde,R.N.,& Sroufe,L.A.(2000).Internal Representations: Predicting anxiety from children's play narratives.Journal of the American academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry,39(1),100-107 • Warren,S.L.,Oppenheim,D., & Emde ,R.N.(1996).Can Emotions and themes in children’s play predict behavior problems? American academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry,34(10),1331-1337. • Emde RN., Wolf D P., Oppenheim D (2003) Revealing the Inner worlds of Young Children.Oxford University Press