The Meaning of the Child Interview
A structured method for making sense of the meaning a child holds for their parent, and a pathway for applying attachment theory and research in clinical and child-welfare practice.
The Meaning of the Child Interview is the most important development in the field of attachment and caregiving since the Adult Attachment Interview.Dr Steve Farnfield, co-editor, The Routledge Handbook of Attachment
The MotC sees parenting as a relational dance between parent and child, managed through how the parent regulates the child's signals of alarm and danger present in the environment. Underlying this is the meaning parents give to their experiences of the child and parenting: stories that serve to create distance, or strive to pull the child closer.
The children became actors in someone else's play.
The concept was developed by applying attachment theory and research on adult discourse to the insights of Reder and Duncan (1995, 1999), whose studies of fatal child abuse highlighted the particular psychological meaning a child holds for his or her parent. This is fundamental to all parent-child relationships, not only those in difficulty, reflecting the insight that human development is shaped by how we are seen by those close to us (Fonagy et al. 2004).
The MotC differs from similar procedures by its focus on the parent-child relationship rather than on an attribute of the parent. For this reason it is suited to understanding what is happening in a specific relationship, the potential impact on the child's development, and the kind of supportive intervention, if any, that might be needed.
The MotC aims to get to the heart of what is going on in the parent-child relationship. It explores what might be challenging for a parent, how they are trying to handle it, and what this means for the relationship. The MotC brings to light the defences that all parents need to manage adversity in looking after their child, seeing these as compromises that parents make to navigate for themselves and their child(ren) the particular hurdles and dangers they have been exposed to. Drawing on Bowlby's articulation of the inter-related attachment and caregiving systems - the interplay between the child's help-seeking instinct and the parent's instinct to offer protection and nurture, the MotC explores how caregiving may be exaggerated to 'make sure' the child is safe in a dangerous world, or de-activated to enable the parent to manage the outside world or prevent themselves being overwhelmed:
Making sure the child stays closely aligned with the parent, who can then protect them. The child may experience this as controlling.
Danger and adversity are managed with the child. Maintaining the relationship and repairing ruptures is key to handling threat.
Implicitly recognising that parents cannot always be around, so children take some responsibility for their own nurture and protection.
These patterns are not just behavioural, they operate both as embodied learning as well as patterns of attention - we learn what to attend to and what to avoid looking or feeling in order to keep both ourselves and our child(ren) safe. Put another way, our experiences of safety and threat shape the way we experience the world and make sense of it; and so the stories we tell about our child and parenting frame the relationship. This can make change, and adapting to new context, difficult, as parents may defensively exclude the very information they need to see an alternative. The aim of the process therefore, is not to make all parents conform to an expert blueprint but to facilitate adaptation (Crittenden et al. 2021).
Recent UK guidance for those involved in child welfare decision making, including NICE guideline NG26 on children's attachment, and a consensus of attachment researchers (Forslund et al. 2022), recommend that welfare professionals attend to the conditions that facilitate supportive attachment relationships.
We should first and foremost assess the parent's ability to understand and respond effectively to the child's needs, to know and value the child, and to be consistently in charge in the relationship.
Those authors rightly advise caution about using procedures validated at the group level to make predictions about individuals. The MotC is designed to contribute to a wider assessment of the needs of children and their families, and should never be used in isolation to make life-changing decisions about a child. Neither should its categories be treated as a standalone risk assessment without regard to context.
Used well, it brings to light the positive intentions of parents, gives insight into the obstacles a relationship faces, in particular the impact of traumatic experiences, and guides work with parents rather than blaming them for complex difficulties (White et al. 2019).
If printing double-sided, use the "flip short side" option.
The Meaning of the Child Interview: Making Sense of Parent-Child Relationships, edited by Ben Grey, is published by Palgrave Macmillan in the Palgrave Texts in Counselling and Psychotherapy series. It sets out the process of analysis, including using the method to plan intervention, guide practice and conduct research, with contributions from researchers and practitioners using the MotC in a range of settings.
If there is one book on attachment theory you purchase this year, make it this one.
The MotC does not require a specific academic or professional background to learn or use. It has been taught internationally to social workers, family centre workers, therapists, psychologists, occupational therapists and psychiatrists, with training given to local authorities, CAMHS services, voluntary organisations and independent agencies.
The MotC was developed by Dr Ben Grey in conjunction with the University of Roehampton and Family Care, a former voluntary organisation based in Peterborough, where Dr Grey and Ms Kesteven led a team carrying out assessment and therapeutic intervention for local authorities and the family courts. The aim was to use attachment theory and research to develop a tool for understanding parent-child relationships geared to the needs of assessment, intervention and decision-making. It has been taught and used since 2011.
Dr Grey is now a principal lecturer on the University of Hertfordshire Doctorate in Clinical Psychology, and continues to teach the MotC in the UK and abroad through Cambridge Centre for Attachment.
