Mutual Regulation and Unique Forms of Implicit Relational Knowing

Abstract

The Mutual Regulation Model (MRM; Tronick, 1989) sees infant and caretaker as components of a larger dyadic regulatory system, where each person - infant and adult - influences and is being influenced by the communications of the other, in a circular, moment-by-moment, continuous manner. A co-created relationship emerges out of this ongoing co-creative and messy process of mutual exchange. The mutual regulatory process is seen as the formative process for relationships (Tronick, 2001; 2003). These co-creative processes lead to changes in the infant’s and child’s moods and state of knowing about themselves in relation to the world, and generates implicit relational knowing and implicit ways of being together (Tronick et al. 1979; Tronick 2002a). In this paper, we focus on the co-creative process, the process of mutual regulation, and recent research on the development of implicit relational knowing in infants and mother-infant dyads.