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Previewing, a phenomenon that occurs within the caregiver-infant relationship, enhances the infant's awareness of future interpersonal behavior patterns and the infant's capacity to regulate stimuli from internal and external sources. Previewing—for example, the caregiver's manipulation of the infant's limbs to stimulate the movements of crawling behavior in order to expose the infant to the experience of that milestone in its consolidated form—integrates the analogic mode of communication (behavioral replications of the previewed experience) with the digital mode of communication (symbolic replications of the previewed experience), and results in the sharing of developmental changes within the dyad. Moreover, previewing behaviors help explain the nature of the evolving relationship between caregiver and infant and the processes whereby expectations concerning the future are generated.
New research is using previewing as a therapeutic technique with adult patients, in order to transcend the limitations posed by traditional analytic communication, to predict psychological conflict, and to overcome the communication, to predict psychological conflict, and to overcome the communication deficits that often occur with conventional techniques which rely primarily on retrospective inquiry and narrative reconstruction by the patient. Previewing exercises can also foster the transference relationship between analyst and patient, and can promote the emergence of a mastery orientation that will endure after the treatment is terminated. This article addresses the scope of previewing as a psychotherapeutic technique for promoting adaptive change.