Quote:
Originally Posted by stopdog
I was reading on a different thread about the idea of being such a terrible infant that the parent rejects or abuses the child. I assume that the therapist then goes on to describe how adequate parents respond to their children.
In my situation, it was always put that I rejected my mother as an infant. I was not (shocking I know) all cuddly and complacent. The therapists have said infants do not usually reject their parents so it was a misreading on my own parent's part. I don't completely agree. There are unpleasant infants I have met who do not want others near them - not even their own parents.
Do others talk to the therapists about this difference?
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Stopdog, an infant simply cannot reject. They are literally wired to connect as they have no way of surviving alone. There is certainly inborn personality, but how that personality is expressed is entirely dependent on the caregivers.
The infant mirrors back what they see and then relate the expression to their experience. They learn to identify happy/sad loving/rejecting from what they see in the parent's face - focusing on faces and expression is innate, but we have to learn what those expressions mean.
An 'unpleasant' infant who doesn't want anybody near, can either be somewhere on the autism spectrum - having disfunction of the limbic brain, making attachment difficult, or they have had the kind of care that leads to an avoidant attachment pattern.