Model for the development
of a child from 0 to 36 months
based on contributions from the "Cycle of the development of contact"
in Gestalt Psychotherapy and from the development of the self of Daniel Stern
| Phases of the development of contact | Confluence: O/E 0/6 months |
Introjection: O/E 7/10 months |
Projection: O/E 11/18 months |
Retroflection: O/E 18/24 months |
Full Contact: O/E 24/36 months |
| Background | Empathetic listening: observation of the children,awareness of the children's emotions and of the emotions the children arise in the adults,understanding and answering the message about relationships that the children send.Being willing to change and to be changed by the children. | Empathetic listening: observation of the children,awareness of the children's emotions and of the emotions the children arise in the adults,understanding and answering the message about relationships that the children send.Being willing to change and to be changed by the children. | Empathetic listening: observation of the children,awareness of the children's emotions and of the emotions the children arise in the adults,understanding and answering the message about relationships that the children send.Being willing to change and to be changed by the children. | Empathetic listening: observation of the children,awareness of the children's emotions and of the emotions the children arise in the adults,understanding and answering the message about relationships that the children send.Being willing to change and to be changed by the children. | Empathetic listening: observation of the children,awareness of the children's emotions and of the emotions the children arise in the adults,understanding and answering the message about relationships that the children send.Being willing to change and to be changed by the children. |
| Relationships between adults and children | Allowing the child to flow towards the adult, in other words, making him feel sure about the healthy and useful presence of the adult and subseqently establishing a healthy differentiation between the child and the environment. | Giving healthy food to the child; giving him points of reference, indications, explanations, a useful guidance; understanding,stimulating,and pointing the child's intentions in the right direction. In second place letting the child become excited regarding his needs; helping him to express his aggressiveness in a healthy way and helping him to manipulate the environment. | Helping the child to be aggressive in a healthy way and giving him space to express his "no", his opposite wishes, his anger. Allowing him to explore and to manipulate the environment.Helping him to extend his boundaries so he can control his increasing energy; letting the child feel his strength is good and that he can manage. | Helping the child to develop his sense of independence,of being able to manage by himself,allowing the child to have experiences by himself respecting his spaces and his timing, giving him the opportunity to trust adults and to let himself go with adults,making him ask for things;giving him the feeling that the adult is ever present. | Helping the child to be spontaneous, to let himself go,stimulating an encounter on equal terms, giving the child a sense of responsability and the feeling that adults trust him, that what he says they take into consideration,that they treat him equally. |
| Child | The emerging self,the nuclear and physical self;mother and child are different. | The subjective self, the child's intentions.The child is capable of recognizing his own emotions and those of adults', differences between mother and child's emotional states, teething,crawling and evocative memory. | Walking, speaking, starting point and development of saying "no". | Language development.The verbal self,control of his digestive system. | Acquisition of the awareness of contact.The telling story self, consolidation of the functions which have been acquired, sense of time, sense of story telling, sense of one own's life story. |
| Basic Experiences of the self | Being able to control oneself, letting go, entrusting oneself, receiving warmth, perception of one's self, being picked up, being held, feeling accepted, being seen, being touched, sense of being light or heavy. | Nourishment,, perception of one's self, receiving warmth, the calm force, being seen, being naked, being sick, biting. | Leave/get,exploration, curiousity/knowledge, manipulation, orientation, planning, expressing oneself, expansion, sexuality,sense of being light or heavy, changing the other person, being seen, being naked, being able to go and get and give | Controlling, leaving, getting back, being left, being found, being looked for, looking for, finding, being able to hold, keeping/letting go, being able to stay, being chosen, the calm force. | Being looked for, being wanted, feeling taken into consideration, feeling respected, feeling loved for what one is, being able to influence and change an adult's feelings, being able to change another person, feeling part of another person's life. |
*O/E = Organism / Environment