title: Affect regulation: holding, containing and mirroring.
abstract: Gergely and colleagues' state that their "Social Biofeedback Theory of Parental Affect Mirroring" can be seen as a kind of operationalization of the classical psychoanalytic concepts of holding, containing and mirroring. This article examines to what extent the social biofeedback theory of parental affect mirroring may be understood as a specification of these concepts. It is argued that despite similarities at a descriptive level the concepts are embedded in theories with different ideas of subjectivity. Hence an understanding of the concept of affect regulation as a concretization and specification of the classical concepts dilutes the complexity of both the concept of affect regulation and of the classical concepts.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Copenhagen, 2A Oester Farimagsgade, DK - 1353 Copenhagen K, Denmark. signe.holm@psy.ku.dk.
authors.forename: Signe Holm
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Pedersen
authors.forename: Stig
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Poulsen
authors.forename: Susanne
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lunn
mesh_terms: D000339:Affect; D006801:Humans; D009769:Object Attachment; D011574:Psychoanalytic Theory; D012649:Self Concept; D012919:Social Behavior; D012927:Social Control, Informal
keywords: affect regulation; bulimia nervosa; containing; holding; mirroring