ABSTRACT
Colwyn Trevarthen has made rich use of micro-descriptions of mothers and infants in "proto-conversation" to explore the dynamics of the infant's first relationship. His study of communicative and co-operative exchanges between infants and adults brought about radical change, undermining the reductive cognitive perspective and the classical psychoanalytic models. The sounds a mother makes, including "motherese" or baby talk, vocalizations, and rhythmic songs and rhymes, are an important element of bonding. From the moment that she first responds to sound around seven months' gestation, the infant has been hearing her mother's voice. Voice is not just heard but sensed. Listening to music or a voice is an experience of contact, which has the same effect as touching and can have the power of modulating a relationship, just like an orchestral conductor. If synchronization facilitates attuned communication and interactions, misattunement is triggered by a mismatch and relates to stressful desynchronization and destabilization within the dyad.
