18/01/2026
Infant Mental Health door onder andere Selma Fraiberg zichtbaar gemaakt.
Deze bril zetten we ook op in ons werk.
Mothers who didn't bond with their babies were called cold, broken, unnatural. Then a psychologist asked a different question: "What has this family lived through?" That question changed everything.
1970s. Ann Arbor, Michigan.
A young mother sat in Selma Fraiberg's office, holding her six-month-old baby at arm's length, tears streaming down her face.
"I don't feel anything," she whispered. "I feed him. I change him. I do everything right. But I don't feel... I don't feel what I'm supposed to feel."
She expected judgment. Expected to be told she was a bad mother. Expected confirmation of the terrible thing she already believed about herself.
Instead, Selma Fraiberg asked quietly: "Tell me about your own mother."
That question—not "What's wrong with you?" but "What happened to you?"—would eventually transform how medicine understands motherhood, trauma, and infant development.
But first, it would save this particular mother and baby.
Selma Fraiberg was born in 1918 in Detroit to Eastern European Jewish immigrants. She studied psychology at Wayne State University and eventually earned her master's in social work, specializing in child development.
But her real education came from watching families in crisis.
In the 1950s and 60s, Fraiberg worked with impoverished families, many dealing with trauma, mental illness, and multi-generational pain. She made home visits—entering chaotic apartments, witnessing overwhelmed mothers and distressed infants, seeing bonds that should have formed but hadn't.
The dominant psychological theories of the time blamed mothers for everything. Cold, rejecting "refrigerator mothers" supposedly caused autism. Schizophrenia was attributed to maternal pathology. If a baby cried inconsolably or didn't bond, the mother must be defective.
Fraiberg watched this blame destroy already struggling women. And she didn't believe it.
Because what she observed didn't match the prevailing theories.
These mothers weren't cold. They were traumatized. Depressed. Haunted by their own childhoods of abuse, neglect, or loss. And their babies were responding not to lack of love, but to environments saturated with unprocessed pain.
The mother in her office that day was a perfect example. As they talked, the story emerged: her own mother had been severely mentally ill, sometimes violent. As a child, she'd learned that needing comfort brought punishment. That crying meant danger. That love was unsafe.
Now, holding her own infant, those old patterns had awakened. When her baby cried—expressing normal infant needs—something inside her shut down. Not because she was unloving, but because her nervous system was protecting her from feelings that had once been dangerous.
Her baby sensed that disconnection and cried more. She felt more inadequate and withdrew further. The cycle deepened.
"You're not broken," Fraiberg told her gently. "You're responding to ghosts."
That phrase—"ghosts in the nursery"—would become the title of Fraiberg's most famous paper, published in 1975.
In "Ghosts in the Nursery," Fraiberg articulated something revolutionary: that unresolved trauma from a parent's own childhood could haunt their relationship with their baby. These "ghosts" weren't supernatural—they were neurological and psychological patterns formed by early experiences.
A mother who'd been abandoned might unconsciously pull away from her infant to avoid future pain. A father who'd been abused might struggle with a crying baby because the sound triggered his own childhood terror. These weren't moral failures. They were trauma responses.
And they could be healed.
Fraiberg developed infant-parent psychotherapy—a therapeutic approach that worked with parents and babies together, addressing both the infant's immediate needs and the parent's unresolved trauma.
She made home visits, meeting families where they lived rather than expecting them to come to sterile clinical offices. She sat on floors in cramped apartments, observing how mothers held their babies, how babies responded, where the connection broke down.
And she intervened with radical compassion.
Instead of criticizing mothers, she helped them understand their own histories. She treated their depression and trauma. She taught them to recognize when "ghosts" were interfering—when their baby's cry triggered their own childhood pain rather than evoking nurturing responses.
The medical establishment resisted this approach. Infant mental health wasn't a recognized field. The idea that babies had emotional lives was controversial. And the suggestion that mothers needed therapeutic support rather than judgment was radical.
But Fraiberg's results were undeniable.
The mother in her office—the one who'd felt nothing—returned weeks later holding her baby differently. Close. Tender. The therapeutic work had helped her understand that her numbness wasn't about her son. It was about protecting herself from feelings that had once been dangerous.
Once she understood that, she could begin to feel safely. The bond that couldn't form before began developing. Not instantly. Not perfectly. But genuinely.
Fraiberg documented case after case like this. Mothers who'd been labeled "cold" or "rejecting" who transformed when their trauma was addressed. Babies who'd been inconsolable who calmed when their mothers' depression was treated.
In 1977, Fraiberg founded the Child Development Project at the University of Michigan, creating one of the first formal programs in infant mental health. She trained therapists, conducted research, and advocated for policy changes that would support struggling families.
She proved that early intervention—helping families in the first months after birth—could prevent decades of problems. That treating maternal depression wasn't just good for mothers; it was essential for infants' development.
She showed that bonding isn't instinctive and automatic for everyone. It's a process shaped by context, history, and mental health. And when it doesn't happen easily, the answer isn't blame—it's support.
This was revolutionary.
For generations, women who struggled after birth had carried private terror. The fear that they were doing something unforgivable by not feeling immediate overwhelming love. The fear that admitting numbness would invite condemnation or have their babies taken away.
They smiled at baby showers while drowning internally. They performed gratitude they didn't feel. They stayed silent about the darkness.
Fraiberg gave them permission to speak.
She named postpartum depression, unresolved trauma, and environmental stress as real forces that interfere with bonding—without turning mothers into villains.
She said something women desperately needed to hear:
You are not failing because this is hard.
You are not unloving because you're struggling.
Your baby is not broken because they cry.
Bonding is not a switch that flips at birth. It's a process. And processes can be supported.
Selma Fraiberg died in 1981 at age 63, but her legacy transformed maternal and infant care.
Today, infant mental health is a recognized field with training programs worldwide. Postpartum mood disorders are screened for—imperfectly, but openly. Home visiting programs exist specifically to support struggling families in those crucial early months.
Therapists are trained to ask "What happened to you?" instead of "What's wrong with you?"
That progress rests on foundations Fraiberg built when mothers were still being blamed in silence.
For the millions of women who struggled after birth without language or help—who believed they were uniquely broken, uniquely incapable of normal maternal love—her work says something profound:
What you felt was real.
What you needed was support, not judgment.
And love doesn't disappear just because it arrives late.
The mother who sat in Fraiberg's office in the 1970s, holding her baby at arm's length, learned that her numbness wasn't about failing to love her son. It was about surviving her own childhood.
Once she understood that, she could begin healing. The bond formed. Not perfectly. Not without continued work. But genuinely.
They called mothers who didn't bond "cold" and "broken." Then Selma Fraiberg asked: "What has this family lived through?" instead of "What's wrong with this mother?"
That one question changed how we understand motherhood, trauma, and love.
Because sometimes the most healing thing is to stop demanding mothers be better—and start helping them be okay.
