Ways of Seeing: An Early Childhood Integrated Therapeutic Approach for Parents and Babies

This paper describes the use of a multisensory psychotherapeutic treatment approach that supports the primary attachment relationship. This program, called Ways of Seeing, is based on dance/movement therapy principles that incorporate dance, movement, music, creative expression, and Laban nonverbal movement analysis to facilitate healing and change. This method is discussed within the context of attachment system theory and research, trauma, and painful early childhood experiences. Implicit knowledge, intersubjective motivations, early infancy memory, embodied attunement, and dyadic nonverbal therapeutic video-analysis support the psychotherapeutic approach. The Ways of Seeing method is exemplified through the presentation of a videotaped mother–infant dyad involving a preverbal and newly verbal child who has experienced a series of innate environmental stressors. These stressors include medical intervention in the NICU at birth, a mother who suffered from post partum depression, and complex extended family dynamics.