What is Nurture and Play?

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NaP is based on mentalization theory (supporting parents' mentalization abilities), emotional availability theory, and Theraplay ® interaction therapy. NaP’s developers are psychotherapists with extensive training and experience in various interaction-based work formats and mentalization therapies.

NaP is a practical, preventive, short-term, and manualized working method for strengthening interaction. NaP is based on direct work with the parent-child relationship, i.e., the child is strongly involved in the treatment from the time of pregnancy onwards. Direct, experience-based, and emotional attunement to sensitivity is a central feature of NaP. Many forms of parenting support are based on guidance through discussion or working with a parent's images and experiences. NaP aims to combine interactive play and reflective work that supports mentalization in a systematic way.

NaP is based on the Emotional Availability Theory ( www.emotionalavailability.com ) of interaction (Salo & Flykt, 2013). This theory emphasizes sensitivity, guidance, non-hostility, and non-intrusiveness as components of effective interaction on the parent's side. Responsiveness and initiative are examined on the child's side. A functioning emotional connection is the foundation of interaction.

There are hundreds of studies on the importance of emotional availability; how it is connected to a child's safe development and effective emotional regulation (see www.emotionalavailability.com ). Saara Salo, one of the developers of NaP, has been conducting research on Emotional Availability since 2009 (Salo et al., 2009, 2010, 2021, 2022) with both ordinary and clinical materials (see research list ). Saara Salo has also developed the Emotional Availability Observation Method during Pregnancy (Pre-EA; Salo et al., 2019) . The developer of the theory, Prof. Zeynep Biringen, is in continuous collaboration with Salo and has given permission for her materials to be used as part of the NaP intervention.

In practice, the implementation of Hoilei also applies the principles of Theraplay therapy, which is a model for nurturing the child-parent relationship ( www.theraplay.org ).

Theraplay is an adult-led, active play-based therapy. Theraplay requires longer training and is longer and more intensive in nature. Based on Theraplay, NaP includes active games that are intended to evoke positive emotions and help parents guide and regulate their child. Both of HoiLei's developers, Saara Salo and Hanna Lampi, have long been Theraplay trainers and supervisors.

NaP is also based on the mentalization theory of parenting (Pajulo et al. 2015). Mentalization refers to the parent's ability to reflect on the child's experiences behind their behavior, feelings, thoughts, desires, etc. It is also an understanding of their own feelings as a parent in relation to their child. How they relate to their own childhood, for example, and on the other hand, how much the child senses the parent's experiences, including nonverbal ones.

NaP aims to support parents in observing their child as a separate person who has their own experiences from the beginning. Various tasks have been selected from mentalization interventions, the purpose of which is to help the parent observe and wonder about the child's experiences in the here and now. Increasing mentalization ability is considered central to various early interaction interventions (Kalland & Salo, 2020). 

NaP developers have training and experience in strengthening mentalization as part of psychotherapeutic work. Saara Salo is also an Anna Freud Center-approved family mentalization intervention trainer and is in continuous international cooperation with mentalization therapeutic trainer communities.

Parental emotional regulation plays a special role in the development of a functioning emotional and mentalizing relationship. It can be affected by, for example, different sensory sensitivities, life stress, or mood problems. One of the developers of Hoilei, Hanna Lampi, is currently working on her doctoral dissertation at the University of Helsinki on the importance of parental sensory regulation in a child's early development.