Use of videofeedback in parent-infant counselling and parent-infant psychotherapy

Video-based observation and behavioral microanalyses have critically contributed to the international boom of infancy research in the early seventies. Video techniques have opened up a direct scientific access to the broad domains of intuitive behavior acid thus to early integrative processes, self regulation, parenting, and preverbal communication. The exploratory potential of video based microanalyses may similarly promote innovative clinical approaches to preverbal processes and mechanisms of developmental psychopathology and disordered parent-infant relationships. The article reviews currently available video-based methods that are used in clinical diagnostics and parent-infant consultation and psychotherapy. The article is based on relevant international publications as well as on the Papouseks' use of behavioral microanalyses during three decades of joint basic research and almost ten years clinical experience from the Munich Interdisciplinary Research and intervention Program for Fussy Babys.