Attachment in Psychotherapy

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Perhaps the specific mechanism involved is that clinicians disconfirmed their clients' usual interpersonal and emotional strategies and expectations, increasing the repertoire of clients' interpersonal behavior patterns and thus leading to greater client satisfaction. Attachment theory provides a model for understanding (1) development within the context of the child's primary, and formative relationships, and (2) an adult's orientation toward lifelong intimate connections, social relationships, and autonomous exploration.

Suttle M, Hall MW, Pollack MM, Berg RA, McQuillen PS, Mourani PM, Sapru A, Carcillo JA, Startup E, Holubkov R, Dean JM, Notterman DA, Meert KL. Finally, he considers the implications for therapeutic practice, examining the role of therapist as a secure base, as a mirror, decoder and regulator of the ‘couple as the patient’. Ruptures may provide an opportunity for the therapist and patient to explore the patient's expectations in relationships and to resolve maladaptive relationship problems.Second, clinicians can help those with attachment anxiety and avoidance find alternative ways to meet their unmet needs. Expert therapists’ approaches to psychotherapy with adult clients who present with attachment avoidance or anxiety. Some of the talks in our online module The Nature of Trauma and Dissociation are also about the application of attachment theory to clinical practice, for example, the talks by Dr Allan Schore. He would also have been delighted to see his theory articulated as a guide to psychotherapy in such an eminently readable manner.

John Bowlby would have been delighted with this book, which links the biological imperatives of attachment to the dialogues that define the self and the nature of key relationships. In this presentation, Sarah Daniel draws on case material from psychotherapy to illustrate how we can apply knowledge of attachment patterns in guiding therapeutic interactions and in the organisation of the treatment process. For these clients, a fully secure attachment to therapist with all five critical features in place is not a starting point for the work, but rather a marker that it is nearing its conclusion (Mallinckrodt, 2010). A renowned expert on attachment theory shares tools and insights for transforming the therapeutic relationship for ourselves and our clients.Conversely, those with high attachment avoidance tended to be reluctant for self-disclosure and hold a negative view of others. These include psychotherapy as ‘soft power’, acting as a catalyst (but not as a reagent) and offering sufficient stability until new equilibrium achieved. One of Bowlby’s paradigm-changing insights was to realise that to understand attachment we need to be aware of the evolutionary forces that have shaped human bodies and minds.