Parental Representations Changes in Brief Psychotherapy to Promote Sensitivity: A Case Study of Siblings’ Adoption

ABSTRACT Some brief psychotherapies aim to increase parental sensitivity in the post-adoption period. However, there is a lack of systemic approaches to evaluate the psychotherapeutic process. The current study aimed to understand how parental representations changed during ten psychotherapy sessions of a brief intervention to promote parental sensitivity during the post-adoption period. A couple (35-year-old mother and 39-year-old father) who were having severe difficulties bonding with their recently adopted children (three, five, and eight years old boys) participated in the study. The construct ‘sensitivity’ was used to analyze the psychotherapy process using a theme analysis applied to the psychotherapy transcriptions. The frequency of the deductive themes and the construction of new ones (inductive) through sessions guided the analyses. Initially, parents interpreted their children’s intentions negatively, which caused a chain of hostilities in the relationship. Throughout the intervention, parents gradually became better able to represent their children in a more complex way and understand how their children communicate their needs. Along with the sensitivity improvements noted, the couple reported an improvement in the parent-child bond, and adoption breakdown was no longer a topic of the sessions as it was in the beginning.