Watch, wait, and wonder: Testing the effectiveness of a new approach to mother-infant psychotherapy

This research compared two forms of psychodynamic psychotherapeutic interve ntions for 67 clinically referred infants and their mothers. One was an inf ant-led psychotherapy delivered through a program called Watch, Wait, and W onder (WWW). The other was a mother-infant psychotherapy (PPT). Infants ran ged in age from 10 to 30 months at the outset of treatment, which took plac e in weekly sessions over approximately 5 months. A broad range of measures of attachment, qualities of the mother-infant relationship, maternal perce ption of parenting stress, parenting competence and satisfaction, depressio n, and infant cognition and emotion regulation were used. The WWW group sho wed a greater shift toward a more organized or secure attachment relationsh ip and a greater improvement in cognitive development and emotion regulatio n than infants in the PPT group. Moreover, mothers in the WWW group reporte d a larger increase in parenting satisfaction and competence and decrease i n depression compared to mothers receiving PPT. Both WWW and PPT were succe ssful in reducing infant -presenting problems, decreasing parenting stress, and reducing maternal intrusiveness and mother-infant conflict. Some poten tial reasons for the differential treatment effects and the theoretical, cl inical, and methodological implications from the findings are discussed.