Psychosomatic Medicine 35:472-483 (1973)
© 1973 American Psychosomatic Society

Anxiety as a Determinant of Parent-Infant Contact Patterns

¹ Department of Child Psychiatry, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, California
² Northridge Psychiatric Medical Group, Northridge, California

Salk observed that female primates, irrespective of preferred handedness, tended to hold their infants to the left of the midsternal line. He offered and partly tested a complex and provocative hypothesis: that heartbeat sounds, because they were part of an imprinted pattern, could reduce the anxiety level of the mother and of the infant. In the present studies, we focus on how anxiety as a general phenomenon or emotions associated with babies act as determinants to influence young adults in their selection of a body placement site. Experimental conditions inducing neutral emotions, high anxiety without reference to the human baby, and thoughts of contact with the human baby under conditions of security and high anxiety were set up by verbal stimulation methods for eliciting fantasy. Significant shifts in body placement sites were observed.