From Hold Me Tight, an interview by CBC Ideas with Sue Johnson, I understand that people must have strong or near unconditional support of someone in there life to be able to develop. That it is hard wired for our social nature that we must have someone we can trust in to be there for us. Without it we can’t thrive. As an example, Sue states that a crying child must be shown that it is loved and supported for it to feel secure enough that it doesn’t need to cry at trivial things.
This contradicts the Pavlovian view that if a child is rewarded with attention for crying (at a trivial cause) then it will just cry more, and that the appropriate thing to due is ignore the child until they are done crying.
Her talk explore well past infants and into adult relationship and long lasting relationships.
Both techniques for dealing with a crying infant make sense to me and yet they prescribe very different outcomes and development strategies for a infant. When the time comes, being a parent wont be easy. That is certain.
