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Ed Tronick Legacy Interview: Still-Face, Rupture and Repair Across the Lifespan
From infant–caregiver exchanges to psychotherapy with adults: why rupture and repair build resilience at every stage of life.
Access the recording + resources + 2 hour CE/CPD certificate for £39
“Thank you so much for an outstanding and informative interview! What an honor to be able to attend live and to hear Ed, Bruce, and Claudia speak. I took copious notes and will apply what I learned directly to my practice. I’m excited to read through all of the articles that were given as resources.”
– Nicole Mareno, Legacy Interview attendee
Special Guests
Bruce Perry & Claudia Gold
Why watch this recording?
For more than fifty years, Ed Tronick has revealed how resilience grows not through perfect harmony but through rupture and repair. His Still Face Experiment demonstrates how even infants protest disconnection and work hard to reconnect. These same dynamics shape psychotherapy, trauma recovery and adult relationships.
In this Legacy Interview, Ed is joined by trauma expert Bruce Perry and paediatrician Claudia Gold to explore how mutual regulation, meaning-making and repair remain the heartbeat of both development and therapeutic change.
What you’ll take away
- The Still Face Experiment and its lessons for daily life and clinical work
- Why rupture and repair are described as “food for the soul” and essential for resilience
- How infants and adults co-create meaning through micro moments of connection
- Bruce Perry on timing, sequence and his Neurosequential Model of trauma treatment
- Claudia Gold on “embracing the mess” in parenting and therapy
- How culture shapes caregiving practices and emotional development
Why this conversation matters
Ed Tronick has shown that relationships thrive not in perfect synchrony but in the capacity to recover when things go wrong. His mutual regulation model reframes trauma as the accumulation of repeated misattunements and the meanings children make of them. He demonstrates that gaze, voice and movement create dyadic states of consciousness, moments as central to psychotherapy as they are to infancy.
Bruce Perry highlights Ed’s generosity as a teacher and his insistence on complexity, showing how rupture–repair processes are the basis of change at every level of the nervous system. Claudia Gold illustrates how writing The Power of Discord mirrors this same process of mismatch and repair.
“Humans thrive in the very messiness of exchange. Rupture and repair are the engines of connection and growth.” – Ed Tronick
Key moments from the interview
- Ed Tronick recalls how his early work at Harvard’s first infant daycare centre overturns his assumptions about what babies need, showing that development depends on relationships rather than cognitive stimulation alone
- Ed explains that infants and parents are mismatched around 70 percent of the time, with repair emerging as the key developmental force
- The Still Face Experiment is shown, including footage of six-week-old infants actively shaping interactions
- Ed links infant research to the Boston Change Process Study Group, emphasising procedural and embodied forms of change in psychotherapy
- Bruce Perry stresses that therapeutic transformation depends on repeated micro moments of engagement rather than weekly doses of treatment, and shows how cultural rituals embody the same principles of repair
“Meaningful change happens in milliseconds, not in a 45-minute session once a week.” – Bruce Perry
- Claudia Gold shares case material from her paediatric practice, showing how holding the child in mind and tolerating uncertainty allows mutual regulation to unfold
- Together, the speakers reflect on maternal depression, cultural differences in caregiving, and the developmental risks when repair is absent or when parenting is “too good”
“It is not about making therapy perfect. It is about allowing the mess and trusting that repair fuels growth.” – Claudia Gold
Event highlights
- Rupture and repair build resilience from infancy to adulthood
- Mutual regulation and dyadic states of consciousness shape therapeutic change
- Trauma looks different when comparing single shocks with chronic misattunement
- Bruce Perry introduces the Neurosequential Model and shows why healing depends on timing and rhythm
- Claudia Gold demonstrates how listening to families, tolerating uncertainty and applying repair supports clinical work
- Cultural practices of caregiving influence how infants create meaning
- The speakers raise concerns about over-reliance on medication and the silencing of children’s voices
What you’ll learn
By watching you will gain insight into:
- Why rupture and repair are central to resilience, not failures to be avoided
- How implicit relational knowing and procedural change support therapeutic growth
- The impact of maternal depression and chronic misattunement on infant and adult functioning
- How infant–caregiver microanalysis translates into psychotherapy with adults and couples
- Practical strategies for co-regulation and pacing in trauma treatment
- Ways systems theory helps us understand resilience in families and therapy
- How meaning-making processes shape both pathology and recovery
Speakers
Ed Tronick
Developmental and Clinical Psychologist, University Distinguished Professor, University of Massachusetts Boston.
Creator of the Still Face Experiment and the mutual regulation model, Ed has transformed understanding of how infants and caregivers co-create meaning. His work spans infant research, maternal depression, cultural caregiving and psychotherapy, influencing generations of clinicians.
Bruce Perry
Principal of the Neurosequential Network; Professor, La Trobe University.
Internationally known for the Neurosequential Model, Perry links developmental neuroscience with trauma-informed practice. Author of The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog and What Happened to You?, he shows how Tronick’s microanalysis informs timing and pacing in therapy.
Claudia M. Gold
Paediatrician and infant mental health specialist; Faculty, Brazelton Institute, Boston Children’s Hospital.
Co-author with Ed Tronick of The Power of Discord, Gold brings developmental science into family practice and therapy. She emphasises how embracing misattunement and repair fosters resilience and reduces shame.
Interviewer
Ed is in conversation with Jane O’Rourke.
Jane O'Rourke, founder of MINDinMIND and a former award-winning BBC journalist now practising as a Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist, draws upon her combined expertise to create rich and thoughtful conversations with leading mental health clinicians. Her interviews weave together the personal and professional threads of her guests' journeys, capturing the experiences that have shaped their clinical work and thinking.
Details correct at time of recording – 19 September 2025
Who this recording is for
- Psychotherapists, counsellors and psychologists working with adults, couples or families
- Child and adolescent psychotherapists, paediatric clinicians and infant mental health specialists
- Social workers, educators and practitioners seeking evidence-based resources on resilience, trauma and repair
- Anyone interested in how early meaning-making shapes later mental health
How to watch
- Instant access to the HD recording
- 2-hour CPD/CE certificate included
- Unlimited replays in your MINDinMIND account
- Reading resources from Ed Tronick and Claudia Gold
Further reading
- Tronick, E. (1989). Emotions and Emotional Communication in Infants
- Tronick, E. and Hunter, R. Rethinking Early Childhood Trauma as a Dynamic Developmental Process
- Montirosso, R. and Tronick, E. (2013). Four-Month-Old Infants’ Long-Term Memory for a Stressful Social Event
- Gold, C. (2024). Listening to Infants and Parents: Observe, Reflect, and Embrace the Mess
- Tronick, E. and Gold, C. (2020). The Power of Discord
