GHOSTS IN THE NURSERY - AN EMPIRICAL-STUD Y OF THE REPERCUSSIONS OF PARENTS MENTAL REPRESENTATIONS ON THE SECURITY OF ATTACHMENT

The paper summaries the Anna Freud Centre-University College London, P arent-Child Project, which found that the security of the infant's rel ationship with both parents at 12 and 18 months could be predicted on the basis of qualitative aspects of the parents' accounts of their own childhoods collected before the birth of the child. This confirmed Se lma Fraiberg's observations concerning the reemergence of childhood co nflicts at early stages of pregnancy. Possible mechanisms mediating th is link are explored with particular reference to the role of the pare nts' accurate mental representations of the infant's mental world.