Parents' Quest for the Holy Grail: Creating Conditions for Secure Attachmen

This thesis integrates affective neuroscience and psychological attachment theory with day-to-day practice models for infant and toddler care and---using hermeneutic, alchemical hermeneutic, and auto-ethnographic methodologies---seeks to understand the relationship between current neuroscientific discoveries, communication patterns in infant-caregiver dyads, and adult relational skills. Parenting an infant or toddler is a process fraught with uncertainty. That early childhood experiences shape a person's future emotional development is regarded as settled science. But how parents can implement what science tells them while weeding out what seems "normal" based upon their own early childhoods remains far from clear. After examining a range of studies, theories, and approaches, this research focuses on select elements of the particular parenting style known as RIE Educaring to identify ways in which parents and caregivers may need psychotherapeutic support in healing their attachment wounds on the path to laying a solid foundation for their children.