Wendland, Jaqueline

Cotherapy: A recommended setting for parent-infant/toddler treatment - 2015.


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Cotherapy is a particular therapeutic setting where two cotherapists are brought in to combine their interventions into one setting in order to treat one or more patients. This setting is largely employed in couple or family therapy, but remains quite unexplored and poorly described in the field of perinatal and infant mental health. In this context, the patients may be a parent and his infant/toddler, a couple of parents and their children, or even a future parent and his unborn infant. Two profes­sionals bring together their therapeutic resources to help a parent-infant/foetus dyad or triad. Generally, the professionals are a psychologist- psychotherapist and a paediatric nurse or infant/young child educator. In the present paper, the characteristics of this particular therapeutic setting are described and discussed on the basis of our clinical experience in a parent-infant mental health unit. Some clinical vignettes illustrate these issues.