Video microanalysis in the therapy of the mother-child couple

On the occasion of a "meeting/confrontation" organised by SIPRe in Milan on 21 February 2009, George Downing illustrated the treatment by video microanalysis of a mother-child couple admitted to the university clinic in Heidelberg. The mother, an abused and severely traumatized woman during her childhood, reveals to the AAI that she has not elaborated on the traumatic loss of some important reference figures and that she encounters phenomena of micro dissociation when they are evoked in the speech. In the video of the mother-daughter interaction, the dysfunctionality of the mother's behaviour and the daughter's adaptation strategies are noted with particular emphasis. Faced with this evidence, the mother understands better the reasons for the difficult understanding between them and has the feeling of "opening a kind of door".