Integrative Baby Therapy
What is Integrative Baby Therapy?
Integrative Baby Therapy (IBT) acknowledges babies as sensitive and aware beings, who are affected by their birth and womb life. Inconsolable crying, restlessness, colic, sleep and feeding problems can often be traced back to earlier issues that have not been resolved.
This can be identified by ‘Baby Body Language’, which parents/close care-givers are supported to understand, and ‘memory crying’ which can be differentiated from a ‘present moment needs cry’, such as hunger, tiredness or boredom.
Based on decades of research in the field of pre and perinatal psychology, IBT helps babies to move through earlier experiences that have not yet been integrated. Working with the inner impulses of the baby IBT supports natural self-regulation, where this has been disturbed.
All work is strictly permission based, with parents being consulted and informed throughout. At its core, IBT gives space for babies to ‘tell their story’ and non-judgmental support for parents/close care givers to acknowledge their own feelings. This enables the family as a whole to settle and relate together at a deeper level than was previously possible.
IBT in practice
There are no specific age limits to IBT. Its principles are adaptive to include antenatal support for parents, work with newborns, infants and children of all ages. This may include using play and creative expression to uncover the underlying prenatal or birth story that is still active in the child’s psyche. It can also inform work with adolescents and adults.
IBT recognises that our nervous systems carry the ‘imprints’ of our early experiences and that birth is a profound transition that will influence how we react in times of stress and transitions later on in life. This can include behavioural issues in children and difficult feelings or recurrent nightmares at any stage in life.
IBT is taught in a number of countries and its graduates include obstetricians, nurses, midwives, doulas, psychotherapists, osteopaths, craniosacral therapists and other body-workers. It is taught in cooperation with the International Society of Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Medicine.