Shyshak O. Maternal identification in case of psychogenic hypogalactia: clinical psychology aspect.

The aim of this research is to introduce the psychological way of understanding lactation disorders etiology. The stress is imposed on the microprocesses of identification in the mother-baby everyday communication, because the oxytocin reflex of lactation begins to work due to mother's anticipation of her baby's stressful cues. The proposed psychological construct of hypogalactia is grounded on the results of 3-months-long day-by-day longitude study, designed in both qualitative and quantitative methods of data collecting and analysis. Grounded on psychodynamic and cognitive theories the author's model of maternal identification is built. This model provides the algorithm for empirical investigation of identification mechanism and mother-baby attachment. The 3 main maternal identification styles are discovered as factors of dyad's functioning disorders at physiological, behavioral and mental levels, and named avoidant, compensatory and ambivalent in order to underline their motivation in relation to the baby. In this sense hypogalactia may be viewed as attenuation of the oxytocin reflex, based on permanent breaks of mother-baby relational tie under the pressure of avoidant identification in stressful situation. The main points of psychological intervention in early medical prevention activities and psychotherapeutic treatment of psychogenic hypogalactia are formulated.