This book is intended as an inspiration and as an introduction to what Susan Hart has called neuroaffective developmental psychology. As an underlying theme throughout the book, she seeks to emphasize the importance of attachment for the formation of personality in all its diversity. This book presents a merger of systems that are not normally brought together in a structured psychodynamic context. Thus it operates on three levels: a neurobiological level, an intrapsychological level, and an interpersonal level. It also focuses on the brain structures that are essential for the formation of relationships, personality development, and emotions. It attempts to provide an understanding of the way that the uniquely human nervous system develops capacities for empathy, mentalization, and reflection that enable us to address such aspects as: past and present, interpersonal relations, ethics, art, and aesthetics. Susan Hart has endeavoured to make the text meaningful and comprehensible in order to make the topic interesting and inspiring to the reader, and to spark an interest in further studies.
This book presents cutting-edge research on adult attachment together with a complete overview of the Adult Attachment Projective Picture System (AAP), the authors' validated developmental assessment. In addition to identifying attachment classification groups, the AAP yields important information about dimensions--including defensive processes--not evaluated by other available measures. Detailed case illustrations show what the AAP looks like "in action" and what it reveals about individuals' early experiences, sense of self, and capacity to engage in close, protective relationships. The AAP can be used in clinical or research settings; the concluding chapter discusses promising applications to studying the neurobiology of attachment.
“Over a decade after its publication, one book on dating has people firmly in its grip.” —The New York Times We already rely on science to tell us what to eat, when to exercise, and how long to sleep. Why not use science to help us improve our relationships? In this revolutionary book, psychiatrist and neuroscientist Dr. Amir Levine and Rachel Heller scientifically explain why some people seem to navigate relationships effortlessly, while others struggle. Discover how an understanding of adult attachment—the most advanced relationship science in existence today—can help us find and sustain love. Pioneered by psychologist John Bowlby in the 1950s, the field of attachment posits that each of us behaves in relationships in one of three distinct ways: • Anxious people are often preoccupied with their relationships and tend to worry about their partner's ability to love them back. • Avoidant people equate intimacy with a loss of independence and constantly try to minimize closeness. • Secure people feel comfortable with intimacy and are usually warm and loving. Attached guides readers in determining what attachment style they and their mate (or potential mate) follow, offering a road map for building stronger, more fulfilling connections with the people they love.
A great deal is known about how infants form attachments, and how these processes carry over into adolescence. But after that, the trail grows cold: the study of adult attachment emphasizes individual variations, paying little attention to the normative mechanisms of adult bonding. A much-needed corrective, Bases of Adult Attachment examines this under-investigated topic with an eye toward creating a robust theoretical model. The first volume of its kind, its multilevel approach integrates current findings from neuroscience and psychology to analyze the processes by which adult relationships develop, mature, function and dissolve. Here in relevant detail are factors contributing to initial attraction, possible scenarios in the evolution from friendship to attachment and the changes that occur on both sides of a relationship as partners mutually influence each other's behavior, emotions, cognition and even physiology. And expert contributors address long-neglected questions in the field with stimulating topics such as: The distress-relief dynamic in attachment bonding. An expectancy-value approach to attachment. The biobehavioral legacy of early attachment relationships for adult emotional and interpersonal functioning. How early experiences shape attraction, partner preferences, and attachment dynamics. How mental representations change as attachments form. Insights into the formation of attachment bonds from a social network perspective. Bases of Adult Attachment will interest scholars approaching adult attachment at multiple levels of analysis (neural, physiological, affective, cognitive and behavioral) and from multiple perspectives. This wide audience includes developmental, social and cognitive psychologists as well as neuroscientists, neuropsychologists, clinicians, sociologists, family researchers and professionals in public health and medicine.
This volume showcases the latest theoretical and empirical work from some of the top scholars in attachment. Extending classic themes and describing important new applications, the book examines several ways in which attachment processes help explain how people think, feel, and behave in different situations and at different stages in the life cycle. Topics include the effects of early experiences on adult relationships; new developments in neuroscience and genetics; attachment orientations and parenting; connections between attachment and psychopathology, as well as health outcomes; and the relationship of attachment theory and processes to clinical interventions.
The concluding chapter reflects on the key issues addressed, considers the deeper philosophical implications of current work in the field, and identifies pivotal directions for future investigation."--BOOK JACKET.
Winner of the 2018 International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD) Pierre Janet Writing Award. A comprehensive treatment approach for the repair and resolution of attachment disturbances in adults, for use in clinical settings. With contributions by Paula Morgan-Johnson, Paula Sacks, Caroline R. Baltzer, James Hickey, Andrea Cole, Jan Bloom, and Deirdre Fay. Attachment Disturbances in Adults is a landmark resource for (1) understanding attachment, its development, and the most clinically relevant findings from attachment research, and (2) using this understanding to inform systematic, comprehensive, and clinically effective and efficient treatment of attachment disturbances in adults. It offers an innovative therapeutic model and set of methods for treating adult patients with dismissing, anxious-preoccupied, or disorganized attachment. In rich detail, it integrates historical and leading-edge attachment research into practical, effective treatment protocols for each type of insecure attachment. Case transcripts and many sample therapist phrasings illustrate how to apply the methods in practice. Part I, "Foundational Concepts," features a comprehensive overview of the field of attachment, including its history, seminal ideas, and existing knowledge about the development of attachment bonds and behaviors. Part II, "Assessment," addresses the assessment of attachment disturbances. It includes an overview of attachment assessment for the clinician and a trove of practical recommendations for assessing patients' attachment behavior and status both outside of and within the therapeutic relationship. In Part III, "Treatment," the authors not only review existing treatment approaches for attachment disorders in adults, but also introduce an unprecedented, powerful new treatment method. This method, the "Three Pillars" model, is built on three essential clinical ingredients: Systematically utilizing ideal parent figure imagery to develop a new positive, stable internal working model of secure attachment Fostering a range of metacognitive skills Fostering nonverbal and verbal collaborative behavior in treatment Used together, these interdependent pillars form a unified and profoundly effective method of treatment for attachment disturbances in adults—a must for any clinician. In Part IV, "Type-Specific Treatment," readers will learn specific variations of the three treatment pillars to maximize efficacy with each type of insecure attachment. Finally, Part V, "A Treatment Guide and Expected Outcomes," describes treatment in a step-by-step format and provides a success-assessment guide for the Three Pillars approach. This book is a comprehensive educational resource and a deeply practical clinical guide. It offers clinicians a complete set of tools for effective and efficient treatment of adult patients with attachment disturbances.
Born out of the excitement of a convergence of ideas and passions, this book provides a synthesis of the work of researchers, clinicians, and theoreticians who are leaders in the field of trauma, attachment, and psychotherapy. As we move into the third millennium, the field of mental health is in an exciting position to bring together diverse ideas from a range of disciplines that illuminate our understanding of human experience: neurobiology, developmental psychology, traumatology, and systems theory. The contributors emphasize the ways in which the social environment, including relationships of childhood, adulthood, and the treatment milieu change aspects of the structure of the brain and ultimately alter the mind.
An exploration of human relationships as understood through basic concepts of interpersonal neurobiology, this revised edition reflects the wealth of social neuroscience research just out, including how mirror neurons, the polyvagal theory, and epigenetics affect the architecture and development of brain systems and, in turn, how we interact with others.
