Mothers, Infants and Young Children of September 11, 2001：A Primary Prevention Project

The group of papers presented in this volume represents ten years of involvement of a group of eight core therapists, working originally with approximately forty families who suffered the loss of husbands and fathers on September 11, 2001. The project focuses on the families of women who were pregnant and widowed in the disaster, or of women who were widowed with an infant born in the previous year.

This book maps the support and services provided without cost to the families by the primary prevention project – the 'September 11, 2001 Mothers, Infants and Young Children Project' – organised by a highly trained group of therapists specialising in adult, child, mother-infant and family treatment, as well as in nonverbal communication. The demands of the crisis led these therapists to expand on their psychoanalytic training, fostering new approaches to meeting the needs of these families. They sought out these families, offering support groups for mothers and their infants and young children in the mothers’ own neighbourhoods. They also brought the families to mother-child videotaped play sessions at the New York State Psychiatric Institute at Columbia University, followed by video feedback and consultation sessions.

In 2011, marking the 10th anniversary of the World Trade Center tragedy, the Project continues to provide services without cost for these mothers who lost their husbands, for their infants who are now approximately ten years old, and for the siblings of these children.

This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Infant, Child, and Adolescent Psychotherapy.

Beatrice Beebe is a psychologist, psychoanalyst, mother-infant therapist, and researcher in mother-infant communication at the New York State Psychiatric Institute at Columbia University, USA. She teaches at several psychoanalytic institutes in New York City.

Phyllis Cohen is a psychologist, psychoanalyst, child and adolescent therapist, and couples therapist. She teaches child, adolescent and couples therapy at several psychoanalytic institutes and at New York University Postdoctoral Program, USA.

K. Mark Sossin is a psychologist, psychoanalyst, and Professor of Psychology at Pace University, USA. His ongoing research focuses on infant-parent interaction, transmission of stress, autism, nonverbal/movement behavior, and early childhood affective development.

Sara Markese is a clinical psychologist specializing in the treatment of trauma in early childhood and practices in Alexandria, Virginia, USA. She is a former Postdoctoral Fellow, and current research collaborator with Dr. Beebe, in the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the New York State Psychiatric Institute at Columbia University.