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The Clinical Dimension of Baby Games
The Clinical Dimension of Baby Games Selma Fraiberg
Our longitudinal studies of infants blind from birth included interpersonal games as an area in which reciprocity between the baby and his partners could be examined in fine detail. Observations of games were recorded, along with all other data, in descriptive narratives by the observers in their twice-monthly home visits. Oncemonthly film documentation also included "games" sequences. The games included a large number of the traditional nursery games and a number of games which appeared to have no tradition and were inventions of the parents themselves. It was not until I completed the data sorting and constructed individual profiles for a study of human attachments that a "games story" emerged. I then saw that there was a remarkable correspondence between the characteristics of the invented games and the characteristics of parent-child interaction derived from all other observations in the area of human attachment. In many cases the conflictual elements in the parents' relationship to the blind infant, the defenses or the failure of defenses against negative and forbidden impulses, could be read as fairly through the games profile as through the human attachment profile derived from all other sources of study. This is not to say, of course, that the baby games provided as much information as the larger study, but rather that the baby games were equivalent, in some ways, to a projective test in revealing the main lines of harmony and conflict in parent-child relationships. The children are blind, but our findings should not be interpreted as "blind baby and parent games," rather as "baby games" in which parents at play reveal to the clinician some aspects of their conflicted parenthood. We can read the adaptive defenses Mrs. Fraiberg is Professor of Child Psychoanalysis and Director of the Child Development Project, University of Michigan. This rrsearcli has been supported since 1966 by Grant #HDOI-444 from the National Institutes of Health and Development and since 1969 by Grant #OEG-0-9-322108-246 (032) from the Office of Education and from the General Research Support Grant #NIH 5501RR05383-1I. Reprints may be requestedfrom the author, 201 E. Catherine Street, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48108.
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at work as well as the tendencies that are generating further conAict in the parent-child relationship. In this way, I am suggesting, the observations of baby games can serve as a valuable diagnostic tool to all clinicians who are engaged in the study of parent-child interaction. (We have already learned in the past year, through our guidance program for sighted infants with emotional and cognitive disturbances, that the study of "baby games" may illuminate many aspects of parent-child interaction which are normally closed during the earliest period of assessment and diagnosis.) In this paper, I have selected a group of case illustrations in which the "baby games" can be examined in relationship to conflicual elements in the parenting. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF SAMPLE: NOTES ON OBSERVATIONAL PROCEDURES
In introd ucing this material, we should first address ourselves to questions which arise from the nature of this sample and the observational methods. (I) What are the general characteristics of our sample? (2) Was there bias in our observational procedures which might distort the inferences from baby games? 1. Our observations are drawn from two groups of blind infants and young children known to our program between the years 1963 and 1973. Group I is the Restricted Research sample, the primary group in our longitudinal studies. N = 10. (Criteria: total blindness from birth or light perception only; no other handicaps; available for study within the first year of life.) Group II is the ConsultationGuidance sample. N = 71. (Criteria: blind infants and young children referred to us for developmental guidance; children who do not qualify for primary group; other handicaps accepted; all degrees of educational blindness; entrance into program at any point in the first three years.) It should be noted that our developmental guidance program was available to both Groups I and II (Fraiberg n al., 1969; Fraiberg, 1971b). The range of socioeconomic status fairly represented the general population. The geographic limits which we accepted included urban and rural populations within a radius of 50 miles of Ann Arbor, Michigan. The parents of our blind children had in common their grief, their anxieties for the child, their shattered daydreams, guilt and self-recriminations, and a helpless anger against a fate which had sent them a defective baby. With all this they were also faced with the extraordinary problems of raising a blind child whose adaptive
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incapacities require special forms of parenting, and whose develop. ment normally follows unfamiliar pathways. All of this adds up to a very large number of hazards and paten. tial hazards for the development of the blind infant and the forma. tion of stable human bonds between the baby and his partners. For the parents themselves, the conflicted emotions produced by the birth of the defective child might lead the clinician to predict a conflicted partnership with the baby in every case. Yet, in spite of the fact that we had a sample in which conflicted parenthood is the common condition, our experience shows that the majority of our parents did not inflict their pain upon the blind baby. Our study of the qualitative aspects of parent-child attachments gives eloquent testimony for the ascendency of protective love over anger and grief under circumstances which cruelly test that love. The children themselves provided their own testimony for the qualities of parental love and nurture. With few exceptions, these imperiled babies achieved stable love bonds and demonstrated preference, valuation, and love of their parents in ways that can be fairly compared to the characteristics of human attachments in sighted children (Fraiberg, 1968; 1971a).1 Similarly, where the developing ego of the young child provides its own tests of adequacy in love and nurture, the majority of our children in Group I demonstrated adaptive capacities and developmental achievements which placed them in the upper half of a blind child population on all measures. While we credit our guidance program for some of these achievements, we must fairly credit the parents who were able to use our guidance. 2. There was no bias in our observational procedures which would have favored "baby games" over any other aspect of parentchild interaction. In our study of human attachments in blind infants, we recorded in descriptive detail all aspects of parent-child interaction in feeding and care-giving circumstances, in the tactilevocal-auditory dialogue, in discrimination of parent and strangers, in separation and reunion behaviors. The game observations constituted one of 25 major categories in human attachments; we did not attribute special significance to games during our data-colleetion period. (My own bias was actually in favor of the significance of nurturing behavior, and in the games study I was really looking for something else. I had included games in order to examine the I A volume describing the course of human attachments in blind infants and young children is in preparation.
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purely social aspects of parent and blind infant reciprocity. I was looking for cooperation in games, the beginnings of baby initiative in games, etc.) WHAT CAN BABY GAMES TELL US?
We should not be surprised to see that adults "at play" with a baby may use the freedom and the privilege of play to express love in many dimensions and many styles, to express anxiety, hostility, and even sadism in "the harmless game" or the "nonsense" of baby talk. If we grant ambivalence to all parents, and concede a larger measure of conflict to parents of a blind baby, we might also expect that the invented games of our parents would reflect these conflicts, rendered "harmless" in play. This, in itself, adds little to our understanding of conflicted parenthood or the nature of play. But games and play have another function; they regulate, through ritual and through the conventional disguises of play, the discharge of forbidden impulses. In the case of parent and baby there is a biological contract, as old as the race, which normally guarantees that the love bonds will protect the baby against harmful or potentially harmful parental impulses, that aggressive impulses will not be discharged in physical acts against the body of the baby and must find pathways away from the body and the person of the baby. Normally, the game circumstance permits discharge in ways that are harmless to the baby, and I :the game conventions afford regulation and inhibition of hostile motives. If we are interested in the clinical significance of games, we will be as attentive to the defenses and regulation of discharge as to the conflictual material which is revealed in play. In the following sections I shall present selections from a group of baby games from our narrative records, films, and videotapes of blind infants and their parents at play. I have chosen games illustrations from seven cases. For examination of the diagnostic problem, I propose that we arrange them in a contrast series. Two cases (Carol and Jamie) provide good examples of invented parental games in a category which I will call "Parental Conflict and Defense." (The game is, indeed, a harmless expression of parental cmflicr and the unconscious hostile motive is maintained in represson.) Five cases (Robbie, Ronnie, Jackie, Timothy, and Ernest) provide illustrations of a second category which we may call 'Parental Conflict and Acting Out." (In these cases, hostile, sadistic, or erotic motives break through in the "harmless" game and the af-
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fective component emerges undisguised.) The five cases in the "Acting Out" group are exceptional ones. For illustration, then, two cases in the "Defense" group adequately describe the normal function of games and playas seen in the majority of our cases. Here the game follows a familiar and unremarkable course. It maintains the function of rendering harmless unconscious motives. The five cases in the "Acting Out" group are both atypical and of particular clinical interest. The games "rules" are broken by the parents in conflict, and harmful impulses break through the defense barriers. In retrospective analysis these "Acting Out" games informed us of "danger" in many cases before other information was available to us. As a measure of pathological conflict in parenthood, the "Acting Out" games both described and predicted present and future disturbances of parent-child relationships with a fidelity which invites extended inquiry with other populations of at-risk infants. It is important to note that the conditions of our intervention did not give us the privilege of the psychotherapist in making a clinical inquiry. While the observers and the guidance workers were trained clinicians, our parents had not come to us for psychotherapy, but for developmental guidance on behalf of their blind infant. Where pathological conflicts existed in the parents and when psychotherapy was indicated, or, sometimes, actively sought by one or both parents, we provided that help through mental health agencies in the family's own community. (In some cases it was needed, but not sought or not accepted.) PARENTAL CONFLICT AND DEFENSE
In the two cases of Carol and Jamie, a "favorite game" is described. In each case, a parental conflict is revealed in the game which is consonant with clinical observations derived from all other sources of data. The game reveals an unconscious motive, and the game renders these motives harmless. There are many other examples in our records. The examples chosen will strike the reader as unremarkable, which they are. They belong to a repertoire of games which emerge in one form or another among all normal families. They have no morbid significance. Carol
This game, a favorite between Carol and her mother, is a variant of a common nursery game. In citing it, we have no intention of read-
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ing "pathology" into this game between an adequate blind baby and a mother whose devotion is unquestioned. It is of interest because "the favorite game" has close correspondence with one area of the mother's greatest concern for her child: "She might fall.. . ." 0:9:5 (on videotape) Carol is bounced on mother's knee while mother chants the rhyme, "Ride little Horsie/ trot downtown/ watch out CaroV that you don't fall down." The last phrase of the rhyme is slowed down when spoken, and on the word "down," mother extends her legs so that Carol (who had been seated on her mother's knee) falls backward onto her mother's legs. After a few seconds mother pulls Carol back up. Carol's enjoyment of the game was evident, and she vocalized "dada" and squealed excitedly with each bounce. At the end of the sequence, mother kissed Carol on the cheek. Carol's mother is devoted to her blind baby and eager for all help that we can give her. But she is apprehensive when Carol pulls to stand, overprotective as Carol experiments in new postures. In spite of Carol's demonstrated readiness for advances in locomotion (creeping, and later, walking), the mother's anxieties sometimes impede Carol's experimentation. We understand that she has centered her unconscious anxieties about her blind baby in afear that the baby might fall. This, in fact, is the only area in which mother's anxiety is an impediment to Carol's development. In the "favorite game" mother's anxieties are given a voice and Carol becomes a game partner where falling down is safe, ritualized, rendered harmless in play. Is there an unconscious wish concealed in the fears that the baby will fall? This may be, yet the unconscious wish is maintained in repression and it is not directed against the child in the form of aggressive acts. The game is a paradigm here, for in no observations that we have in our records is a destructive wish openly expressed in words or acts. Mother's conflictual feelings about Carol may be responsible for a slight delay in taking first steps (this is achieved at 18 months, in the low range for Group I babies), but the unconscious hostile impulse is not directed against the baby, and, in analogy with mother's delense, the baby is protected by love against the unconscious mouves.
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I: 1:9 j amie's father has taught him a game. When father says, "Tarzan! Tarzan!" Jamie starts thumping his chest, imitating the Tarzan call. This is regularly greeted by laughter in the family, and Jamie joins in with his own laughter. jamie's father's grief at the birth of his blind baby was overwhelming. It was many months before he could accept the fact that his son was blind. The wound to his own masculinity was very large, but he bore it with courage. The Tarzan game is an eloquent and touching statement of the father's shattered daydreams of a strong and powerful manchild, but the game is a harmless playing out of the old dream and the child's play-acting makes him a partner in the impossible daydream. From all other observations of Jamie in his family, we know that the father has never inflicted his own pain on his child. He is a loving, tender man, adored by his blind child, and the love of his child has, to some measure, healed the wound. Assuming that all parents have ambivalent feelings at one time or another toward the infant or young child, and considering especially the conflicted feelings of parents toward a blind child, it is impressive to see in our records the range of behavior manifest in our parent-child observations. The majority of parents protected the child from the acting out of their own aggression. While many of the examples that I shall now cite show the breakthrough of conflictual feelings and even direct hostility toward a damaged child, the largest number of the parents known to us did not inflict their pain upon the child. PARENTAL CONFLICT AND ACTING OUT
In a continuum from "Defense" to "Acting Out," the five cases described in this section represent a contrast group. They represent a small segment of the grou p of 81 cases, but in every case parental conflict engaged the baby as a partner in acting out. The baby games both described and predicted conflict between parents and child. Again, as with the "Defense" games, the "Acting Out" games were consonant with all other data in parent-child interaction which were available to us. As an early indicator of pathology in the parents and in parent-child relationships, these games should be regarded as clinically significant and merit study.
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Robbie In a family in which domestic argument and aggression are commonplace, the invented games in Robbie's record become a paradigm for family relationships and show how the baby becomes a partner in conflict. 0:9:8 Mother has invented a "no" game with Robbie. Mother is very proud of Robbie's new achievements. He can pat-a-cake on request. He has also learned to shake his head "no" on request. "Say 'no,' Robbie," says mother. Robbie shakes his head in response to her words. Mother (proudly), "He's so cute when he says 'no.' " We may wonder why a mother would take pride in teaching her baby to say "no." In our records we can follow a curious correspondence between this game and characteristics in the mother's personality. "Negativism" is one of the distinguishing character~tics of her personality. In our work with Robbie's mother, she first negated nearly all the suggestions and help offered her by our staff. Our records tell a story of "first negating," "then affirming," in a pattern which we learned to use. Weeks after negating a suggestion, Robbie's mother would employ it, unselfconsciously, as an idea of her own. After making the suggestion her own (and lypically without any memory of its source), she could use it; it became her own invention. Her pride in Robbie's "no" tells us how this trait in herself is narcissistically cathected. It is of some interest lhat among all of our blind children in the second and third year of life, Robbie ranks high above his peers in the traits of negativism and obstinacy.
1:0: 19 Mother boasted about another "trick" which they have taught Robbie. She holds him close to her face and says, "Robbie, slap mommy." Robbie pats his mother's face. Mother claims that he "slaps" in anger, but we have no demonstration of this. How did the game get started? Father tells this story: Robbie was patting father's face in an affectionate manner when mother said, "Slap daddy, Robbie." Father then took Robbie's hand and slapped mommy's face, saying, "Slap mama, Robbie." Now Robbie can "slap" on request. . Here, the game speaks eloquently for another aspect of the famIly; the child becomes an instrument for parental acting out of aggression against each other (a recurrent theme in our record).
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Again, an irony that we see later in jackie's story: the aggression which is nurtured in infancy brings the 2-year-old into conflict with his parents. Complaints in the second and third year have to do with Robbie's impulsiveness, his "stubbornness," and his "mean. ness." The two games that I have cited, the only "invented games" that we have in our records of Robbie during this period, have perfect correspondence with a body of observations in parent-child rela tionships in Robbie's records during this period. The adversary relationship was well on its way. In feeding, in discipline, we sail' variations of the theme. The games can be regarded as revelations through play of a central tendency evolving in the relationship of parent and child. Yet, in order not to distort the picture, I should mention that Robbie demonstrated adequacy in other aspects of development. In language, concept development, and motor achievements, Robbie's development was not impaired as judged by our assessment at the 3-year termination date. Much help was given by us to the family during the first 3 years of Robbie's life, and the parents were able to use this help in many critical areas for promoting the child's development. We were, however, least effective in modifying the adversary relationship which existed in this family and which brought the baby into conflict with his parents. This must be regarded as a limitation of our guidance methods. Our guidance program was an educational program. Our parents did not come to us as patients. To modify the adversary relationships within this family we would have needed the permission and the privilege of psychotherapy to explore these relationships and bring about changes through insight. Ronnie
During the first year of Ronnie's life, the conflictual elements in his parents' feelings toward the blind baby were revealed in a sequence of games. In the early weeks we saw much tenderness on the part of both parents toward their baby. They could not fully share their grief with us, and since no parents in our program had come to us as psychiatric patients, we did not have the privilege that is given us in psychotherapy to explore the dimensions of their grief and conflicting emotions. Only when parents wished to share their feelings with us did we feel we were granted the privilege, and in the case of Ronnie's parents, we felt ourselves closed out. During the first 3 months of our observations (Ronnie was first
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seen by us soon after birth), we have numerous examples in our records of joyful exchanges with mother in games, in feeding, and in bath play. "Give mommy a kiss," "give mommy a hug," were favorite games. Then a puzzle appears. It is a game which is curiously out of context in the record of affectionate play between mother and child. The game is "hit mommy!" and a variation is "hit baby!" 0:3:9 Mother shows us a game that Ronnie "enjoys very much." With Ronnie lying on her lap, she holds his arms and brings his hands to her cheek in a striking motion and says, "Hit mama! Hit mama!" She repeats this chant for a minute or so with sustained movements. Ronnie smiles. Then mother takes Ronnie's hands and taps them lightly against his cheeks and says, "Hit baby! Hit baby!" Ronnie again laughs. During this same period the love games continue: "Give mommy a kiss!" "Give mommy a hug!" and Ronnie showed much enjoyment in these games. Between 3 months and 6 months the number of aggressive games begins to proliferate. At 5 months of age, we begin to see even more ominous signs. Ronnie is hitting himself in the mouth. It is the "hit baby" game now employed for self-stimulation. 0:5:3 He is very much absorbed in his private game and when mother attempts to join him in the game, he becomes fretful at the interference with his own activity. He immediately goes back to the game, striking himself repetitiously in the mouth with his fist. One month later we have more examples of aggressive games with father. 0:6:10 Ronnie is playing with father. Father says, "Hit daddy! Hit d~ddy!" and takes Ronnie's hand in his, striking his own face with the baby's hand. Ronnie smiles briefly and then comes closer to father's face. Father says, "Bite daddy's nose! Bite daddy's nose!" Ronnie leans over and bites father's nose. Between 6 months and 12 months we witness a gradual deterioratIon in the relationship between parents and baby. Offers of help from us are turned aside by the parents. We are permitted to visit re~ularly, to make observations, but the parents were seeking educatIOnal counseling elsewhere in the community. The advice they
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were receiving from another handicapped child program was very different from our own. Sternness, forcefulness, "early discipline" were now the principles which Ronnie's parents were following. (It was, we feared, a more congenial advice to Ronnie's parents.) We then became helpless witnesses to increasing conflict between Ronnie and his parents. We had the impression that a critical change was taking place in the relationship of parents and baby, yet much information was withheld from us by (he parents, who refused our guidance program. When the full year of records is reread, we see that the story could be read through the games. While the "Hit mama, hit daddy, bite daddy's nose" games proliferated in the record, we also saw something new in the love games between mother and child. Our staff reviewed a play sequence between Ronnie and mother on film and records. 0:11:20 We are struck by the sensuality of mother's kisses, an openmouthed, prolonged, lover's kiss, which the baby sustains with her. During the same period, 8 to 12 months, it is fair to mention that Ronnie's spontaneous gestures of affection, reaching up to kiss his mother, embracing his mother, extending his arms to mother to be picked up, would testify for libidinal investment of the mother. But we need the erotic kissing games to give us another dimension of the mother-child relationship. The story of the baby games throughout the first year of Ronnie's life were telling an eloquent story. The aggressive "hit mama, hit daddy" games, along with many examples of tender and affectionate games, were already a sign that hostile feelings on the part of the parents were breaking through the protective boundaries of love. And the mother's sensual kissing, the lover's kiss, which we saw in the last months of the first year, were signs that erotic feelings had broken through the boundaries that normally protect the maternity of a woman and the libidinal development of her child. It was very painful for our staff to review Ronnie's records. Since we had always placed clinical considerations above our research objectives, the parents' firm refusal of our guidance program placed us in the position of helpless witnesses to the unfolding of a tragedy. Ronnie, who was later seen at our hospital at the age of 6, some years after the family had terminated its relationship to us, was a severely disturbed child, impaired in all aspects of interpersonal relationships, in language, mobility, and impulse control.
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Jackie In Jackie's family, oral aggressIOn IS a dominant mode. The mother's periodic depressions (which antedated the birth of the blind baby) and her compulsive eating give their own testimony for oral-sadistic conflicts. "Love games" between mother and baby are playful biting games in which the baby at 7 months solemnly accepts the playful nips, and at 9 months responds with appreciative laughter. In our records there are no descriptions of tender kissing or embracing. 0:9:24 Mother says Jackie "loves" being bitten and "eaten" in his chest. She holds him against her and begins chewing his shoulder. Jackie responds with great smiles and laughter. 0:11:26 Jackie has a game with mother. Seated on her lap, back against her chest, he wiII lean forward, then backward, banging against her chest. Mother says he mainly plays this game with her. "He likes to beat me," she says fondly. At an age when blind as well as sighted children can respond to simple requests, "Where is your nose?" or "Let's play pat-a-cake," we have only one example in jackie's records.
0:9:8 When mama says, "Where is your tongue, Jackie?" he complies by sticking out his tongue. (Mother is vastly amused.) Throughout our records, biting games and other aggressive games proliferate in this family, and Jackie becomes an active partner in them. The encouragement, and indeed the education of aggressive acts against the body of a partner, can begin early in life. The mother's enjoyment of the body-banging game, "he likes to beat me," speaks for her aggressive-erotic characteristics (very largely documented in our records), and the games with the baby tell us how such characteristics can be transmitted to a very small child. Ironically, when Jackie is in the second and third years of life, the aggression which was nurtured in infancy brings him into serious conflict with his parents.
Timothy Timothy's mother is very tender and protective. His father is a man who values his own rough masculinity. The birth of a blind son has been a severe wound to his masculinity. He cannot confide
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his grief and pain to our educational consultant, who visits regu. larly. He plays rough games with his baby, which the baby endures helplessly. "Timmy likes to play rough," says his father. When our consultant points out Timmy's evident distress, the father brusquely disagrees. In this way, we become pained and helpless witnesses to a story of father-baby conflict which unfolds through "the harmless games." 0: 1:26 (on videotape) Father is playing with Timothy. At first impression, the game looks like an unextraordinary father-baby roughhousing. Then father's own actions begin to acquire an intensity, a physical energy that is more than playful aggression. What is the father saying? The sound track is poor; he seems to be uttering gibberish. When we turn up the volume, we hear the words distinctly. Father puts Timothy on his lap and begins to play with him. He taps Timothy's fisted hands, knocking them up and down. Father now plays with the baby's feet, something he calls "running" Timothy, holding him by the feet and moving his legs rapidly up and down. Father briskly pats Timothy's bottom as though spanking him and says, "You're bad . . . again." He then holds Timothy's arms and moves them in a mock boxing motion. He says, "Bet you like to be beat up, you like to fight. I could break you right in half. . . ." [Later:] Father holds Timothy supine and elevated in his arms. He throws Timothy up a foot in the air and catches him several times. The consultant indicates her worry about Timothy falling. Father says humorously, "No. He won't fall. If he falls, that'll be the last time." For Timothy's father (and his mother too), these are "harmless games" and "words in jest." To us, as clinical observers, these games were already revelations of conflict and danger. In reviewing this tape as a staff, we shared the alarm that our consultant had experienced as a witness in the home. It was the breakthrough of hostile affect that disturbed us. These father-baby games, with only slight variations, are witnessed frequently in the months that follow. Our consultant repeatedly expresses her concern and tries to reach the father's conflicted feelings in areas that are accessible in the home visits, but the father is defensive. It appears to us that he is not even aware of the strength of his ambivalent feelings. "I'm gonna beat ya," "I'm gonna break you in half" becomes a ritualized speech in these
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games for many months, and the father, borrowing the protection and disguise of the game, can see this only as play. Timothy's mother, who is always a witness, sometimes utters small protests when father's games become too rough, but more often she is the silent observer, Her own mothering capacities are very large. She is normally protective and tender. What prevents her from acting assertively to protect her baby in these rough games? She is, without any conscious intention, a co-conspirator, a silent partner. Yet, the good aspects of mothering serve Timothy well for many months. He is a very responsive baby, deeply attached to his mother, and is progressing well in language and social development. At 13 months of age, the games between father and baby disintegrate. The father's destructive rage, which had emerged in muted form in play, words, and a too real pantomime of physical fighting, now breaks through in an act of abuse. 1:1:3 Father picks up Timothy and swings him roughly to one side. Timothy is frightened and begins to cry . . . . Father places him on the floor supine. . . . He is playing with a bell. When the bell drops, father returns it. First he touches it gently to Timmy's stomach. Then, a sudden shift of mood and intention. Father picks up the bell and strikes Timothy in the genitals. Timmy screams. The father, strangely, is not contrite. The mother makes no attempt to rescue Timmy. At this point, our own alarm for Timmy and for his parents brings us to move directly into the parental conflicts which are endangering Timmy. In private sessions with the father, our consultant begins the work which centers around the father's own pain and uncontrolled anger which had emerged in the episode of abuse. There are no further episodes of abuse. The "rough games" are moderated. Timmy's father, at the time of this writing (Timmy's age: 20 months), has found new satisfactions through his baby. Now there are gentle and affectionate lap games in which Timmy and his father carryon "conversations." .In Timmy's case, the baby games told their own story of confilcted parenthood. The hostile and destructive wishes of the father \lere barely disguised; the breaking through of affect in the games \las ominous. When we witnessed the chilling episode in which the father struck his baby's genitals, the full meaning of the games was
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disclosed. The cruel unconscious statement was, "This is where you hurt me; this is where I will hurt you." Ernest
Ernest is first seen in our program at I :4: II. His mother is severely depressed: the baby is neglected, retarded in all aspects of develop'. ment. The baby is fearful-with cause-of the mother whose neglect provides more safety than her attentions. 1:11:21 When mother feeds Ernie his bottle, she intentionally teases him, stimulating his mouth with the nipple and withdrawing it. ... Mother describes (with joy) a game in which she likes to "sneak up on Ernie" because he can't see her. (Until the guidance worker discusses the implications of "sneaking up" on a blind child, mother seemed unaware of its meaning.) Mother shows the guidance worker how she persuades Ernie to creep. Ernie was in bridging position on the floor, rocking back and forth. Mother: "I'm gonna get you. You'd better crawl away." (The guidance worker notes to herself that Ernie's mother is the rare mother who teaches her child to creep by get· , ting him to move awa~'V from her.) There was no evidence of playful interaction between mother and her two boys (Ernie and his older brother) until the end of , the hour. I She played a favorite game with them. "I'm gonna get you!" In the game she walked her fingers up their legs. Then she would say, "I got you" and tickled them. The favorite game is "I'm gonna get you!" in many variations during this period. In itself, it is not yet ominous. There is even a kind of tradition in some families for such "scare-tease" games with babies. But we, in our guidance role, find it very disturbing to watch. The blind baby is frightened, and the mother not only does not see his anxiety, but appears to enjoy it. The guidance worker's tactfully expressed concern does not reach this mother. Then, in the months that follow, the games begin to take an orninous course. The games and utterances become explicitly hostile and destructive. They are consonant with a large number of observations in the mother-child relationship which create alarm and dread in us. 2: 1:2 (communication to guidance worker) Mother begins to confide her fears to the guidance worker. She
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is afraid of losing control. She speaks of a man who killed several members of his own family . . . . Tells of a friend's father who had killed his wife with a hunting knife. The other day, when Ernie was screaming, she had to drop him off at a friend's house. She was afraid she might hurt him. The guidance worker discusses psychiatric treatment with the mother. (The family lives 30 miles from Ann Arbor.) The mother is reluctant to seek help. People would think she was crazy. All attempts to bring the mother to seek and use help meet opposition from her and her husband. There is a tense period described in the record, while we attempt to bring help to the family from psychiatric and protective agencies in their community and make frequent visits to the home to give support to the mother. No agency in their community wishes to be involved. "There have been no overt acts of child abuse." During this period the baby games tell their own story, and our alarm grows with every visit.
2:3:26 At the end of the visit, mother picked up Ernie. She held him under his arms and bounced him in the air, saying, "You're too mean to be a baby," and, "1 could beat you up!" (The observer notes that there was a tenseness in mother's voice that made her feel these words were not in jest.) 2:4:22 Mother sat Ernie on her lap. She began to play her favorite game. "I'm gonna get you," she said. And this time she closed her hand around the baby's neck, briefly, and then removed it. The game, "I'm gonna get you," has become chillingly explicit. She tried to tickle Ernie to make him laugh, but Ernie did not laugh and pushed her hand away. Mother said, "I could break you in two," and jerked at Ernie's crossed hands. Throughout, Ernie looked very apprehensive. . . . The observer notes, 'Throughout this sequence mother's behavior was quite frightening to observe. Although she was saying things in a joking manner, there was something in her voice and her intense stare. . . ." .The mother initiates her own plans to place Ernie in an instituten. While plans are proceeding for placement of Ernie, the mother's own destructive wishes toward the baby emerge with a terrible explicitness.
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2:6:3 While dressing Ernie, mother handles him roughly. ''I'm going to throw you against the wall," she says. "I could throw you out the window." When Ernie is dressed, she carries him over to the guidance worker, drops him on the floor and says, "Go see her." "Throwing out" the baby, "giving him to someone else" is briefly acted out. This is no longer a game, and the utterance of destructive wishes which preceded this act during the dressing period tells us clearly that the placement represents protection of the babv against her own destructive wishes. ' When the guidance worker speaks of psychiatric treatment once again in this session, the mother says, "I really belong in a mental institution." 2:6:8 The guidance worker calls "to see how things are." (She is keeping in close touch with the family during this ominous period.) The mother is in despair. "I would like to shoot him," she says (meaning Ernie), "but I know I couldn't get away with it." As plans move ahead for placement of Ernie, the mother's explicit destructive wishes begin to diminish. Between the 2:6:8 communication and the time of Ernie's placement at 2: 10:23 the mother is more composed than at any other period in our records. There is some ambivalence about placing Ernie, but mother and father clearly have made their decision. The mother is relieved. "To send him away" is protection for the child whose mother is afraid she might kill him. In this sequence from Ernie's records, the games provide a chilling paradigm for the sadistic conflicts of the mother. Before we can know the depths of this mother's destructive wishes, "the favorite game" is ''I'm gonna get you." It is not the game alone that warns us, but the breakthrough of affect in a 3-month sequence. The game is no longer a game. As mother's destructive wishes become more and more explicit in her communications to the guidance worker, the games themselves disappear from our records, in analogy with a recurrent dream which dissolves when the hidden motive breaks through disguise. (It should be noted that in our educational program our guidance worker in no way encouraged these revelations of motive.) As we follow the sequence of baby games along with other observations in mother-infant interaction, we can see how the game at each stage of the record is consonant with other observed events
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and communications in the area of conflicted motherhood and mother-child interaction. CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS
The baby games in the examples chosen fairly describe conflictual elements in the parent-infant relationship which are supported in these cases through data derived from all other aspects of our study of the parent-child interaction. Our findings suggest that an extended study of "baby games" employing another sample may provide the clinician with a valuable diagnostic instrument for assessment of infant-parent relationships. Our data also provide caveats for clinical inference. In Carol's mother's game, "Watch out, Carol, that you don't fall down," the unconscious wish "may she fall" does not endanger the child; rnaternallove, which is also manifest in the game, protects the child, in analogy with the defense, "Don't fall down." The hostile motive is not directed toward the child's bod y or her person in acts or words. On the other hand, Timothy's father, in his game of rough tossing of the baby into the air, expresses his hostile wish in his carelessness and in words, "No, he won't fall. If he falls, that'll be the last time." It is the breakthrough of the wish that is ominous, and it is Timothy's father who later brings his rage into acts of abuse. In jamie's father's game, "Tarzan," father's wounded masculinity is given an eloquent voice, but the father's injury is not inflicted upon his baby; it is rendered harmless, as in the game. In contrast, we see Timothy's father, in rough and aggressive games in which the wish to hurt comes through in the too energetic play and the hostile words, "I'm gonna beat you. . . I'm gonna break rou iri half," and, finally, in the climactic striking of his baby's genitals. For Ernie's mother, it is not the tease game, "I'm gonna get rou" which has morbid significance, but the breakthrough of sadistic affect in the game, which culminates one day in the words, "I'm gonna get you" and the chilling pantomime in which her hands close around the baby's neck. She is finally afraid, explicitly, that she will kill her child and places him in an institution. This means, of course, that as we have become attentive to baby g,ames in our new program for a heterogeneous population of atfisk infants, we are interested not only in the content or the dialogue of the game, but in the affect and the defenses against unconscious motives which appear in the game. The game (in a~alogy with play and jokes) normally serves to keep the uncon\ClaUs motive and its original affective charge in a state of repres-
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sion, allowing small charges of affect to emerge in conventional disguise. The game, in this sense, keeps the biological contract in which parental love protects the child against aggression. The ago gressive and sadistic games which we have observed are ominous because they betray the wish, make it explicit, and give license for aggressive discharge. The ancient contract is broken; love does not protect against the aggressive wish; the child is in psycholog. ical and physical danger. In our new work we are continuing to examine the clinical dimension of baby games in a population that includes a wide range of infants with developmental disorders and disturbances in their human attachments. Both the "baby games" and "baby talk" (adult monologues with the baby) are enlarging our clinical assessment and providing vital diagnostic information and guidelines for treatment.
REFERENCES FRAIBERG, S. (1968), Parallel and divergent palterns in blind and sighted infants. The Ps; choanalytic Study oj the Child, 23:264-299. New York: International Universities Press. . - - (I97Ia), Intervention in infancy. This Journal, 10:381-405. - - (I97Ib), Smiling and stranger reaction in blind infants. In: The Exceptional Ill/alii, Vol. 2, ed.]. Hellmuth. New York: Brunner/Mazel, pp. 110-127. - - SMITH, M., & ADELSON, E. (1969), An educational program for blind infants.]. Spec. Educ., 3:121-139.
Our longitudinal studies of infants blind from birth included interpersonal games as an area in which reciprocity between the baby and his partners could be examined in fine detail. Observations of games were recorded, along with all other data, in descriptive narratives by the observers in their twice-monthly home visits. Oncemonthly film documentation also included "games" sequences. The games included a large number of the traditional nursery games and a number of games which appeared to have no tradition and were inventions of the parents themselves. It was not until I completed the data sorting and constructed individual profiles for a study of human attachments that a "games story" emerged. I then saw that there was a remarkable correspondence between the characteristics of the invented games and the characteristics of parent-child interaction derived from all other observations in the area of human attachment. In many cases the conflictual elements in the parents' relationship to the blind infant, the defenses or the failure of defenses against negative and forbidden impulses, could be read as fairly through the games profile as through the human attachment profile derived from all other sources of study. This is not to say, of course, that the baby games provided as much information as the larger study, but rather that the baby games were equivalent, in some ways, to a projective test in revealing the main lines of harmony and conflict in parent-child relationships. The children are blind, but our findings should not be interpreted as "blind baby and parent games," rather as "baby games" in which parents at play reveal to the clinician some aspects of their conflicted parenthood. We can read the adaptive defenses Mrs. Fraiberg is Professor of Child Psychoanalysis and Director of the Child Development Project, University of Michigan. This rrsearcli has been supported since 1966 by Grant #HDOI-444 from the National Institutes of Health and Development and since 1969 by Grant #OEG-0-9-322108-246 (032) from the Office of Education and from the General Research Support Grant #NIH 5501RR05383-1I. Reprints may be requestedfrom the author, 201 E. Catherine Street, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48108.
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at work as well as the tendencies that are generating further conAict in the parent-child relationship. In this way, I am suggesting, the observations of baby games can serve as a valuable diagnostic tool to all clinicians who are engaged in the study of parent-child interaction. (We have already learned in the past year, through our guidance program for sighted infants with emotional and cognitive disturbances, that the study of "baby games" may illuminate many aspects of parent-child interaction which are normally closed during the earliest period of assessment and diagnosis.) In this paper, I have selected a group of case illustrations in which the "baby games" can be examined in relationship to conflicual elements in the parenting. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF SAMPLE: NOTES ON OBSERVATIONAL PROCEDURES
In introd ucing this material, we should first address ourselves to questions which arise from the nature of this sample and the observational methods. (I) What are the general characteristics of our sample? (2) Was there bias in our observational procedures which might distort the inferences from baby games? 1. Our observations are drawn from two groups of blind infants and young children known to our program between the years 1963 and 1973. Group I is the Restricted Research sample, the primary group in our longitudinal studies. N = 10. (Criteria: total blindness from birth or light perception only; no other handicaps; available for study within the first year of life.) Group II is the ConsultationGuidance sample. N = 71. (Criteria: blind infants and young children referred to us for developmental guidance; children who do not qualify for primary group; other handicaps accepted; all degrees of educational blindness; entrance into program at any point in the first three years.) It should be noted that our developmental guidance program was available to both Groups I and II (Fraiberg n al., 1969; Fraiberg, 1971b). The range of socioeconomic status fairly represented the general population. The geographic limits which we accepted included urban and rural populations within a radius of 50 miles of Ann Arbor, Michigan. The parents of our blind children had in common their grief, their anxieties for the child, their shattered daydreams, guilt and self-recriminations, and a helpless anger against a fate which had sent them a defective baby. With all this they were also faced with the extraordinary problems of raising a blind child whose adaptive
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incapacities require special forms of parenting, and whose develop. ment normally follows unfamiliar pathways. All of this adds up to a very large number of hazards and paten. tial hazards for the development of the blind infant and the forma. tion of stable human bonds between the baby and his partners. For the parents themselves, the conflicted emotions produced by the birth of the defective child might lead the clinician to predict a conflicted partnership with the baby in every case. Yet, in spite of the fact that we had a sample in which conflicted parenthood is the common condition, our experience shows that the majority of our parents did not inflict their pain upon the blind baby. Our study of the qualitative aspects of parent-child attachments gives eloquent testimony for the ascendency of protective love over anger and grief under circumstances which cruelly test that love. The children themselves provided their own testimony for the qualities of parental love and nurture. With few exceptions, these imperiled babies achieved stable love bonds and demonstrated preference, valuation, and love of their parents in ways that can be fairly compared to the characteristics of human attachments in sighted children (Fraiberg, 1968; 1971a).1 Similarly, where the developing ego of the young child provides its own tests of adequacy in love and nurture, the majority of our children in Group I demonstrated adaptive capacities and developmental achievements which placed them in the upper half of a blind child population on all measures. While we credit our guidance program for some of these achievements, we must fairly credit the parents who were able to use our guidance. 2. There was no bias in our observational procedures which would have favored "baby games" over any other aspect of parentchild interaction. In our study of human attachments in blind infants, we recorded in descriptive detail all aspects of parent-child interaction in feeding and care-giving circumstances, in the tactilevocal-auditory dialogue, in discrimination of parent and strangers, in separation and reunion behaviors. The game observations constituted one of 25 major categories in human attachments; we did not attribute special significance to games during our data-colleetion period. (My own bias was actually in favor of the significance of nurturing behavior, and in the games study I was really looking for something else. I had included games in order to examine the I A volume describing the course of human attachments in blind infants and young children is in preparation.
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purely social aspects of parent and blind infant reciprocity. I was looking for cooperation in games, the beginnings of baby initiative in games, etc.) WHAT CAN BABY GAMES TELL US?
We should not be surprised to see that adults "at play" with a baby may use the freedom and the privilege of play to express love in many dimensions and many styles, to express anxiety, hostility, and even sadism in "the harmless game" or the "nonsense" of baby talk. If we grant ambivalence to all parents, and concede a larger measure of conflict to parents of a blind baby, we might also expect that the invented games of our parents would reflect these conflicts, rendered "harmless" in play. This, in itself, adds little to our understanding of conflicted parenthood or the nature of play. But games and play have another function; they regulate, through ritual and through the conventional disguises of play, the discharge of forbidden impulses. In the case of parent and baby there is a biological contract, as old as the race, which normally guarantees that the love bonds will protect the baby against harmful or potentially harmful parental impulses, that aggressive impulses will not be discharged in physical acts against the body of the baby and must find pathways away from the body and the person of the baby. Normally, the game circumstance permits discharge in ways that are harmless to the baby, and I :the game conventions afford regulation and inhibition of hostile motives. If we are interested in the clinical significance of games, we will be as attentive to the defenses and regulation of discharge as to the conflictual material which is revealed in play. In the following sections I shall present selections from a group of baby games from our narrative records, films, and videotapes of blind infants and their parents at play. I have chosen games illustrations from seven cases. For examination of the diagnostic problem, I propose that we arrange them in a contrast series. Two cases (Carol and Jamie) provide good examples of invented parental games in a category which I will call "Parental Conflict and Defense." (The game is, indeed, a harmless expression of parental cmflicr and the unconscious hostile motive is maintained in represson.) Five cases (Robbie, Ronnie, Jackie, Timothy, and Ernest) provide illustrations of a second category which we may call 'Parental Conflict and Acting Out." (In these cases, hostile, sadistic, or erotic motives break through in the "harmless" game and the af-
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fective component emerges undisguised.) The five cases in the "Acting Out" group are exceptional ones. For illustration, then, two cases in the "Defense" group adequately describe the normal function of games and playas seen in the majority of our cases. Here the game follows a familiar and unremarkable course. It maintains the function of rendering harmless unconscious motives. The five cases in the "Acting Out" group are both atypical and of particular clinical interest. The games "rules" are broken by the parents in conflict, and harmful impulses break through the defense barriers. In retrospective analysis these "Acting Out" games informed us of "danger" in many cases before other information was available to us. As a measure of pathological conflict in parenthood, the "Acting Out" games both described and predicted present and future disturbances of parent-child relationships with a fidelity which invites extended inquiry with other populations of at-risk infants. It is important to note that the conditions of our intervention did not give us the privilege of the psychotherapist in making a clinical inquiry. While the observers and the guidance workers were trained clinicians, our parents had not come to us for psychotherapy, but for developmental guidance on behalf of their blind infant. Where pathological conflicts existed in the parents and when psychotherapy was indicated, or, sometimes, actively sought by one or both parents, we provided that help through mental health agencies in the family's own community. (In some cases it was needed, but not sought or not accepted.) PARENTAL CONFLICT AND DEFENSE
In the two cases of Carol and Jamie, a "favorite game" is described. In each case, a parental conflict is revealed in the game which is consonant with clinical observations derived from all other sources of data. The game reveals an unconscious motive, and the game renders these motives harmless. There are many other examples in our records. The examples chosen will strike the reader as unremarkable, which they are. They belong to a repertoire of games which emerge in one form or another among all normal families. They have no morbid significance. Carol
This game, a favorite between Carol and her mother, is a variant of a common nursery game. In citing it, we have no intention of read-
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ing "pathology" into this game between an adequate blind baby and a mother whose devotion is unquestioned. It is of interest because "the favorite game" has close correspondence with one area of the mother's greatest concern for her child: "She might fall.. . ." 0:9:5 (on videotape) Carol is bounced on mother's knee while mother chants the rhyme, "Ride little Horsie/ trot downtown/ watch out CaroV that you don't fall down." The last phrase of the rhyme is slowed down when spoken, and on the word "down," mother extends her legs so that Carol (who had been seated on her mother's knee) falls backward onto her mother's legs. After a few seconds mother pulls Carol back up. Carol's enjoyment of the game was evident, and she vocalized "dada" and squealed excitedly with each bounce. At the end of the sequence, mother kissed Carol on the cheek. Carol's mother is devoted to her blind baby and eager for all help that we can give her. But she is apprehensive when Carol pulls to stand, overprotective as Carol experiments in new postures. In spite of Carol's demonstrated readiness for advances in locomotion (creeping, and later, walking), the mother's anxieties sometimes impede Carol's experimentation. We understand that she has centered her unconscious anxieties about her blind baby in afear that the baby might fall. This, in fact, is the only area in which mother's anxiety is an impediment to Carol's development. In the "favorite game" mother's anxieties are given a voice and Carol becomes a game partner where falling down is safe, ritualized, rendered harmless in play. Is there an unconscious wish concealed in the fears that the baby will fall? This may be, yet the unconscious wish is maintained in repression and it is not directed against the child in the form of aggressive acts. The game is a paradigm here, for in no observations that we have in our records is a destructive wish openly expressed in words or acts. Mother's conflictual feelings about Carol may be responsible for a slight delay in taking first steps (this is achieved at 18 months, in the low range for Group I babies), but the unconscious hostile impulse is not directed against the baby, and, in analogy with mother's delense, the baby is protected by love against the unconscious mouves.
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I: 1:9 j amie's father has taught him a game. When father says, "Tarzan! Tarzan!" Jamie starts thumping his chest, imitating the Tarzan call. This is regularly greeted by laughter in the family, and Jamie joins in with his own laughter. jamie's father's grief at the birth of his blind baby was overwhelming. It was many months before he could accept the fact that his son was blind. The wound to his own masculinity was very large, but he bore it with courage. The Tarzan game is an eloquent and touching statement of the father's shattered daydreams of a strong and powerful manchild, but the game is a harmless playing out of the old dream and the child's play-acting makes him a partner in the impossible daydream. From all other observations of Jamie in his family, we know that the father has never inflicted his own pain on his child. He is a loving, tender man, adored by his blind child, and the love of his child has, to some measure, healed the wound. Assuming that all parents have ambivalent feelings at one time or another toward the infant or young child, and considering especially the conflicted feelings of parents toward a blind child, it is impressive to see in our records the range of behavior manifest in our parent-child observations. The majority of parents protected the child from the acting out of their own aggression. While many of the examples that I shall now cite show the breakthrough of conflictual feelings and even direct hostility toward a damaged child, the largest number of the parents known to us did not inflict their pain upon the child. PARENTAL CONFLICT AND ACTING OUT
In a continuum from "Defense" to "Acting Out," the five cases described in this section represent a contrast group. They represent a small segment of the grou p of 81 cases, but in every case parental conflict engaged the baby as a partner in acting out. The baby games both described and predicted conflict between parents and child. Again, as with the "Defense" games, the "Acting Out" games were consonant with all other data in parent-child interaction which were available to us. As an early indicator of pathology in the parents and in parent-child relationships, these games should be regarded as clinically significant and merit study.
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Robbie In a family in which domestic argument and aggression are commonplace, the invented games in Robbie's record become a paradigm for family relationships and show how the baby becomes a partner in conflict. 0:9:8 Mother has invented a "no" game with Robbie. Mother is very proud of Robbie's new achievements. He can pat-a-cake on request. He has also learned to shake his head "no" on request. "Say 'no,' Robbie," says mother. Robbie shakes his head in response to her words. Mother (proudly), "He's so cute when he says 'no.' " We may wonder why a mother would take pride in teaching her baby to say "no." In our records we can follow a curious correspondence between this game and characteristics in the mother's personality. "Negativism" is one of the distinguishing character~tics of her personality. In our work with Robbie's mother, she first negated nearly all the suggestions and help offered her by our staff. Our records tell a story of "first negating," "then affirming," in a pattern which we learned to use. Weeks after negating a suggestion, Robbie's mother would employ it, unselfconsciously, as an idea of her own. After making the suggestion her own (and lypically without any memory of its source), she could use it; it became her own invention. Her pride in Robbie's "no" tells us how this trait in herself is narcissistically cathected. It is of some interest lhat among all of our blind children in the second and third year of life, Robbie ranks high above his peers in the traits of negativism and obstinacy.
1:0: 19 Mother boasted about another "trick" which they have taught Robbie. She holds him close to her face and says, "Robbie, slap mommy." Robbie pats his mother's face. Mother claims that he "slaps" in anger, but we have no demonstration of this. How did the game get started? Father tells this story: Robbie was patting father's face in an affectionate manner when mother said, "Slap daddy, Robbie." Father then took Robbie's hand and slapped mommy's face, saying, "Slap mama, Robbie." Now Robbie can "slap" on request. . Here, the game speaks eloquently for another aspect of the famIly; the child becomes an instrument for parental acting out of aggression against each other (a recurrent theme in our record).
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Again, an irony that we see later in jackie's story: the aggression which is nurtured in infancy brings the 2-year-old into conflict with his parents. Complaints in the second and third year have to do with Robbie's impulsiveness, his "stubbornness," and his "mean. ness." The two games that I have cited, the only "invented games" that we have in our records of Robbie during this period, have perfect correspondence with a body of observations in parent-child rela tionships in Robbie's records during this period. The adversary relationship was well on its way. In feeding, in discipline, we sail' variations of the theme. The games can be regarded as revelations through play of a central tendency evolving in the relationship of parent and child. Yet, in order not to distort the picture, I should mention that Robbie demonstrated adequacy in other aspects of development. In language, concept development, and motor achievements, Robbie's development was not impaired as judged by our assessment at the 3-year termination date. Much help was given by us to the family during the first 3 years of Robbie's life, and the parents were able to use this help in many critical areas for promoting the child's development. We were, however, least effective in modifying the adversary relationship which existed in this family and which brought the baby into conflict with his parents. This must be regarded as a limitation of our guidance methods. Our guidance program was an educational program. Our parents did not come to us as patients. To modify the adversary relationships within this family we would have needed the permission and the privilege of psychotherapy to explore these relationships and bring about changes through insight. Ronnie
During the first year of Ronnie's life, the conflictual elements in his parents' feelings toward the blind baby were revealed in a sequence of games. In the early weeks we saw much tenderness on the part of both parents toward their baby. They could not fully share their grief with us, and since no parents in our program had come to us as psychiatric patients, we did not have the privilege that is given us in psychotherapy to explore the dimensions of their grief and conflicting emotions. Only when parents wished to share their feelings with us did we feel we were granted the privilege, and in the case of Ronnie's parents, we felt ourselves closed out. During the first 3 months of our observations (Ronnie was first
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seen by us soon after birth), we have numerous examples in our records of joyful exchanges with mother in games, in feeding, and in bath play. "Give mommy a kiss," "give mommy a hug," were favorite games. Then a puzzle appears. It is a game which is curiously out of context in the record of affectionate play between mother and child. The game is "hit mommy!" and a variation is "hit baby!" 0:3:9 Mother shows us a game that Ronnie "enjoys very much." With Ronnie lying on her lap, she holds his arms and brings his hands to her cheek in a striking motion and says, "Hit mama! Hit mama!" She repeats this chant for a minute or so with sustained movements. Ronnie smiles. Then mother takes Ronnie's hands and taps them lightly against his cheeks and says, "Hit baby! Hit baby!" Ronnie again laughs. During this same period the love games continue: "Give mommy a kiss!" "Give mommy a hug!" and Ronnie showed much enjoyment in these games. Between 3 months and 6 months the number of aggressive games begins to proliferate. At 5 months of age, we begin to see even more ominous signs. Ronnie is hitting himself in the mouth. It is the "hit baby" game now employed for self-stimulation. 0:5:3 He is very much absorbed in his private game and when mother attempts to join him in the game, he becomes fretful at the interference with his own activity. He immediately goes back to the game, striking himself repetitiously in the mouth with his fist. One month later we have more examples of aggressive games with father. 0:6:10 Ronnie is playing with father. Father says, "Hit daddy! Hit d~ddy!" and takes Ronnie's hand in his, striking his own face with the baby's hand. Ronnie smiles briefly and then comes closer to father's face. Father says, "Bite daddy's nose! Bite daddy's nose!" Ronnie leans over and bites father's nose. Between 6 months and 12 months we witness a gradual deterioratIon in the relationship between parents and baby. Offers of help from us are turned aside by the parents. We are permitted to visit re~ularly, to make observations, but the parents were seeking educatIOnal counseling elsewhere in the community. The advice they
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were receiving from another handicapped child program was very different from our own. Sternness, forcefulness, "early discipline" were now the principles which Ronnie's parents were following. (It was, we feared, a more congenial advice to Ronnie's parents.) We then became helpless witnesses to increasing conflict between Ronnie and his parents. We had the impression that a critical change was taking place in the relationship of parents and baby, yet much information was withheld from us by (he parents, who refused our guidance program. When the full year of records is reread, we see that the story could be read through the games. While the "Hit mama, hit daddy, bite daddy's nose" games proliferated in the record, we also saw something new in the love games between mother and child. Our staff reviewed a play sequence between Ronnie and mother on film and records. 0:11:20 We are struck by the sensuality of mother's kisses, an openmouthed, prolonged, lover's kiss, which the baby sustains with her. During the same period, 8 to 12 months, it is fair to mention that Ronnie's spontaneous gestures of affection, reaching up to kiss his mother, embracing his mother, extending his arms to mother to be picked up, would testify for libidinal investment of the mother. But we need the erotic kissing games to give us another dimension of the mother-child relationship. The story of the baby games throughout the first year of Ronnie's life were telling an eloquent story. The aggressive "hit mama, hit daddy" games, along with many examples of tender and affectionate games, were already a sign that hostile feelings on the part of the parents were breaking through the protective boundaries of love. And the mother's sensual kissing, the lover's kiss, which we saw in the last months of the first year, were signs that erotic feelings had broken through the boundaries that normally protect the maternity of a woman and the libidinal development of her child. It was very painful for our staff to review Ronnie's records. Since we had always placed clinical considerations above our research objectives, the parents' firm refusal of our guidance program placed us in the position of helpless witnesses to the unfolding of a tragedy. Ronnie, who was later seen at our hospital at the age of 6, some years after the family had terminated its relationship to us, was a severely disturbed child, impaired in all aspects of interpersonal relationships, in language, mobility, and impulse control.
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Jackie In Jackie's family, oral aggressIOn IS a dominant mode. The mother's periodic depressions (which antedated the birth of the blind baby) and her compulsive eating give their own testimony for oral-sadistic conflicts. "Love games" between mother and baby are playful biting games in which the baby at 7 months solemnly accepts the playful nips, and at 9 months responds with appreciative laughter. In our records there are no descriptions of tender kissing or embracing. 0:9:24 Mother says Jackie "loves" being bitten and "eaten" in his chest. She holds him against her and begins chewing his shoulder. Jackie responds with great smiles and laughter. 0:11:26 Jackie has a game with mother. Seated on her lap, back against her chest, he wiII lean forward, then backward, banging against her chest. Mother says he mainly plays this game with her. "He likes to beat me," she says fondly. At an age when blind as well as sighted children can respond to simple requests, "Where is your nose?" or "Let's play pat-a-cake," we have only one example in jackie's records.
0:9:8 When mama says, "Where is your tongue, Jackie?" he complies by sticking out his tongue. (Mother is vastly amused.) Throughout our records, biting games and other aggressive games proliferate in this family, and Jackie becomes an active partner in them. The encouragement, and indeed the education of aggressive acts against the body of a partner, can begin early in life. The mother's enjoyment of the body-banging game, "he likes to beat me," speaks for her aggressive-erotic characteristics (very largely documented in our records), and the games with the baby tell us how such characteristics can be transmitted to a very small child. Ironically, when Jackie is in the second and third years of life, the aggression which was nurtured in infancy brings him into serious conflict with his parents.
Timothy Timothy's mother is very tender and protective. His father is a man who values his own rough masculinity. The birth of a blind son has been a severe wound to his masculinity. He cannot confide
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his grief and pain to our educational consultant, who visits regu. larly. He plays rough games with his baby, which the baby endures helplessly. "Timmy likes to play rough," says his father. When our consultant points out Timmy's evident distress, the father brusquely disagrees. In this way, we become pained and helpless witnesses to a story of father-baby conflict which unfolds through "the harmless games." 0: 1:26 (on videotape) Father is playing with Timothy. At first impression, the game looks like an unextraordinary father-baby roughhousing. Then father's own actions begin to acquire an intensity, a physical energy that is more than playful aggression. What is the father saying? The sound track is poor; he seems to be uttering gibberish. When we turn up the volume, we hear the words distinctly. Father puts Timothy on his lap and begins to play with him. He taps Timothy's fisted hands, knocking them up and down. Father now plays with the baby's feet, something he calls "running" Timothy, holding him by the feet and moving his legs rapidly up and down. Father briskly pats Timothy's bottom as though spanking him and says, "You're bad . . . again." He then holds Timothy's arms and moves them in a mock boxing motion. He says, "Bet you like to be beat up, you like to fight. I could break you right in half. . . ." [Later:] Father holds Timothy supine and elevated in his arms. He throws Timothy up a foot in the air and catches him several times. The consultant indicates her worry about Timothy falling. Father says humorously, "No. He won't fall. If he falls, that'll be the last time." For Timothy's father (and his mother too), these are "harmless games" and "words in jest." To us, as clinical observers, these games were already revelations of conflict and danger. In reviewing this tape as a staff, we shared the alarm that our consultant had experienced as a witness in the home. It was the breakthrough of hostile affect that disturbed us. These father-baby games, with only slight variations, are witnessed frequently in the months that follow. Our consultant repeatedly expresses her concern and tries to reach the father's conflicted feelings in areas that are accessible in the home visits, but the father is defensive. It appears to us that he is not even aware of the strength of his ambivalent feelings. "I'm gonna beat ya," "I'm gonna break you in half" becomes a ritualized speech in these
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games for many months, and the father, borrowing the protection and disguise of the game, can see this only as play. Timothy's mother, who is always a witness, sometimes utters small protests when father's games become too rough, but more often she is the silent observer, Her own mothering capacities are very large. She is normally protective and tender. What prevents her from acting assertively to protect her baby in these rough games? She is, without any conscious intention, a co-conspirator, a silent partner. Yet, the good aspects of mothering serve Timothy well for many months. He is a very responsive baby, deeply attached to his mother, and is progressing well in language and social development. At 13 months of age, the games between father and baby disintegrate. The father's destructive rage, which had emerged in muted form in play, words, and a too real pantomime of physical fighting, now breaks through in an act of abuse. 1:1:3 Father picks up Timothy and swings him roughly to one side. Timothy is frightened and begins to cry . . . . Father places him on the floor supine. . . . He is playing with a bell. When the bell drops, father returns it. First he touches it gently to Timmy's stomach. Then, a sudden shift of mood and intention. Father picks up the bell and strikes Timothy in the genitals. Timmy screams. The father, strangely, is not contrite. The mother makes no attempt to rescue Timmy. At this point, our own alarm for Timmy and for his parents brings us to move directly into the parental conflicts which are endangering Timmy. In private sessions with the father, our consultant begins the work which centers around the father's own pain and uncontrolled anger which had emerged in the episode of abuse. There are no further episodes of abuse. The "rough games" are moderated. Timmy's father, at the time of this writing (Timmy's age: 20 months), has found new satisfactions through his baby. Now there are gentle and affectionate lap games in which Timmy and his father carryon "conversations." .In Timmy's case, the baby games told their own story of confilcted parenthood. The hostile and destructive wishes of the father \lere barely disguised; the breaking through of affect in the games \las ominous. When we witnessed the chilling episode in which the father struck his baby's genitals, the full meaning of the games was
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disclosed. The cruel unconscious statement was, "This is where you hurt me; this is where I will hurt you." Ernest
Ernest is first seen in our program at I :4: II. His mother is severely depressed: the baby is neglected, retarded in all aspects of develop'. ment. The baby is fearful-with cause-of the mother whose neglect provides more safety than her attentions. 1:11:21 When mother feeds Ernie his bottle, she intentionally teases him, stimulating his mouth with the nipple and withdrawing it. ... Mother describes (with joy) a game in which she likes to "sneak up on Ernie" because he can't see her. (Until the guidance worker discusses the implications of "sneaking up" on a blind child, mother seemed unaware of its meaning.) Mother shows the guidance worker how she persuades Ernie to creep. Ernie was in bridging position on the floor, rocking back and forth. Mother: "I'm gonna get you. You'd better crawl away." (The guidance worker notes to herself that Ernie's mother is the rare mother who teaches her child to creep by get· , ting him to move awa~'V from her.) There was no evidence of playful interaction between mother and her two boys (Ernie and his older brother) until the end of , the hour. I She played a favorite game with them. "I'm gonna get you!" In the game she walked her fingers up their legs. Then she would say, "I got you" and tickled them. The favorite game is "I'm gonna get you!" in many variations during this period. In itself, it is not yet ominous. There is even a kind of tradition in some families for such "scare-tease" games with babies. But we, in our guidance role, find it very disturbing to watch. The blind baby is frightened, and the mother not only does not see his anxiety, but appears to enjoy it. The guidance worker's tactfully expressed concern does not reach this mother. Then, in the months that follow, the games begin to take an orninous course. The games and utterances become explicitly hostile and destructive. They are consonant with a large number of observations in the mother-child relationship which create alarm and dread in us. 2: 1:2 (communication to guidance worker) Mother begins to confide her fears to the guidance worker. She
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is afraid of losing control. She speaks of a man who killed several members of his own family . . . . Tells of a friend's father who had killed his wife with a hunting knife. The other day, when Ernie was screaming, she had to drop him off at a friend's house. She was afraid she might hurt him. The guidance worker discusses psychiatric treatment with the mother. (The family lives 30 miles from Ann Arbor.) The mother is reluctant to seek help. People would think she was crazy. All attempts to bring the mother to seek and use help meet opposition from her and her husband. There is a tense period described in the record, while we attempt to bring help to the family from psychiatric and protective agencies in their community and make frequent visits to the home to give support to the mother. No agency in their community wishes to be involved. "There have been no overt acts of child abuse." During this period the baby games tell their own story, and our alarm grows with every visit.
2:3:26 At the end of the visit, mother picked up Ernie. She held him under his arms and bounced him in the air, saying, "You're too mean to be a baby," and, "1 could beat you up!" (The observer notes that there was a tenseness in mother's voice that made her feel these words were not in jest.) 2:4:22 Mother sat Ernie on her lap. She began to play her favorite game. "I'm gonna get you," she said. And this time she closed her hand around the baby's neck, briefly, and then removed it. The game, "I'm gonna get you," has become chillingly explicit. She tried to tickle Ernie to make him laugh, but Ernie did not laugh and pushed her hand away. Mother said, "I could break you in two," and jerked at Ernie's crossed hands. Throughout, Ernie looked very apprehensive. . . . The observer notes, 'Throughout this sequence mother's behavior was quite frightening to observe. Although she was saying things in a joking manner, there was something in her voice and her intense stare. . . ." .The mother initiates her own plans to place Ernie in an instituten. While plans are proceeding for placement of Ernie, the mother's own destructive wishes toward the baby emerge with a terrible explicitness.
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2:6:3 While dressing Ernie, mother handles him roughly. ''I'm going to throw you against the wall," she says. "I could throw you out the window." When Ernie is dressed, she carries him over to the guidance worker, drops him on the floor and says, "Go see her." "Throwing out" the baby, "giving him to someone else" is briefly acted out. This is no longer a game, and the utterance of destructive wishes which preceded this act during the dressing period tells us clearly that the placement represents protection of the babv against her own destructive wishes. ' When the guidance worker speaks of psychiatric treatment once again in this session, the mother says, "I really belong in a mental institution." 2:6:8 The guidance worker calls "to see how things are." (She is keeping in close touch with the family during this ominous period.) The mother is in despair. "I would like to shoot him," she says (meaning Ernie), "but I know I couldn't get away with it." As plans move ahead for placement of Ernie, the mother's explicit destructive wishes begin to diminish. Between the 2:6:8 communication and the time of Ernie's placement at 2: 10:23 the mother is more composed than at any other period in our records. There is some ambivalence about placing Ernie, but mother and father clearly have made their decision. The mother is relieved. "To send him away" is protection for the child whose mother is afraid she might kill him. In this sequence from Ernie's records, the games provide a chilling paradigm for the sadistic conflicts of the mother. Before we can know the depths of this mother's destructive wishes, "the favorite game" is ''I'm gonna get you." It is not the game alone that warns us, but the breakthrough of affect in a 3-month sequence. The game is no longer a game. As mother's destructive wishes become more and more explicit in her communications to the guidance worker, the games themselves disappear from our records, in analogy with a recurrent dream which dissolves when the hidden motive breaks through disguise. (It should be noted that in our educational program our guidance worker in no way encouraged these revelations of motive.) As we follow the sequence of baby games along with other observations in mother-infant interaction, we can see how the game at each stage of the record is consonant with other observed events
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and communications in the area of conflicted motherhood and mother-child interaction. CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS
The baby games in the examples chosen fairly describe conflictual elements in the parent-infant relationship which are supported in these cases through data derived from all other aspects of our study of the parent-child interaction. Our findings suggest that an extended study of "baby games" employing another sample may provide the clinician with a valuable diagnostic instrument for assessment of infant-parent relationships. Our data also provide caveats for clinical inference. In Carol's mother's game, "Watch out, Carol, that you don't fall down," the unconscious wish "may she fall" does not endanger the child; rnaternallove, which is also manifest in the game, protects the child, in analogy with the defense, "Don't fall down." The hostile motive is not directed toward the child's bod y or her person in acts or words. On the other hand, Timothy's father, in his game of rough tossing of the baby into the air, expresses his hostile wish in his carelessness and in words, "No, he won't fall. If he falls, that'll be the last time." It is the breakthrough of the wish that is ominous, and it is Timothy's father who later brings his rage into acts of abuse. In jamie's father's game, "Tarzan," father's wounded masculinity is given an eloquent voice, but the father's injury is not inflicted upon his baby; it is rendered harmless, as in the game. In contrast, we see Timothy's father, in rough and aggressive games in which the wish to hurt comes through in the too energetic play and the hostile words, "I'm gonna beat you. . . I'm gonna break rou iri half," and, finally, in the climactic striking of his baby's genitals. For Ernie's mother, it is not the tease game, "I'm gonna get rou" which has morbid significance, but the breakthrough of sadistic affect in the game, which culminates one day in the words, "I'm gonna get you" and the chilling pantomime in which her hands close around the baby's neck. She is finally afraid, explicitly, that she will kill her child and places him in an institution. This means, of course, that as we have become attentive to baby g,ames in our new program for a heterogeneous population of atfisk infants, we are interested not only in the content or the dialogue of the game, but in the affect and the defenses against unconscious motives which appear in the game. The game (in a~alogy with play and jokes) normally serves to keep the uncon\ClaUs motive and its original affective charge in a state of repres-
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sion, allowing small charges of affect to emerge in conventional disguise. The game, in this sense, keeps the biological contract in which parental love protects the child against aggression. The ago gressive and sadistic games which we have observed are ominous because they betray the wish, make it explicit, and give license for aggressive discharge. The ancient contract is broken; love does not protect against the aggressive wish; the child is in psycholog. ical and physical danger. In our new work we are continuing to examine the clinical dimension of baby games in a population that includes a wide range of infants with developmental disorders and disturbances in their human attachments. Both the "baby games" and "baby talk" (adult monologues with the baby) are enlarging our clinical assessment and providing vital diagnostic information and guidelines for treatment.
REFERENCES FRAIBERG, S. (1968), Parallel and divergent palterns in blind and sighted infants. The Ps; choanalytic Study oj the Child, 23:264-299. New York: International Universities Press. . - - (I97Ia), Intervention in infancy. This Journal, 10:381-405. - - (I97Ib), Smiling and stranger reaction in blind infants. In: The Exceptional Ill/alii, Vol. 2, ed.]. Hellmuth. New York: Brunner/Mazel, pp. 110-127. - - SMITH, M., & ADELSON, E. (1969), An educational program for blind infants.]. Spec. Educ., 3:121-139.