the origins of attachment theory: john bowlby and mary ainsworth ...

information may at times seep through.
Some of the dissociative or repressive phenomena involved in the deactivation of the
attachment system occur during pathological mourning. For example, complete or partial
disconnection of an emotional response from its cause is frequent. When the disconnection is only
partial, emotional responses may be directed away from the person who caused them to third
persons or to the self. I knee, a bereaved person may become morbidly preoccupied with personal
reactions and sufferings, rather than attributing his or her feelings to the loss of a close
relationship. Similarly, in disordered mourning, a bereaved person’s disposition toward compul-
sive caregiving may derive from the redirection of attachment behavior. The individual may he
taking the role of attachment figure instead of seeking care.
Attachment and Therapy
This discussion of defensive processes leads into the topic that preoccupied Bowlby during
the last 10 years of his life: the uses of attachment theory in psychotherapy (Bowlby, 1988),
Under attachment theory, a major goal in psychotherapy is the reappraisal of inadequate,
outdated working models of self in relation to attachment figures, a particularly difficult task if
important others, especially parents, have forbidden their review. As psychoanalysts have
repeatedly noted, a person with inadequate, rigid working models of attachment relations is likely
to inappropriately impose these models on interactions with the therapist (a phenomenon known
as transference). The joint task 0f therapist and client is to understand the origins of the client’s
dysfunctional internal working models of self and attachment figures, Toward this end, the
therapist can be most helpful by serving as a reliable, secure base from which an individual can
begin the arduous task of exploring and reworking his or her internal working models.
NEW DIRECTIONS
Currently, attachment theory and research are moving forward along several major fronts,
inspired by the second and third volumes of Bowlby’s attachment trilogy, by methodological
advances, and by the infusion into attachment theory of complementary theoretical perspectives.
Attachment and Representation
As a result of Mary Main’s Berkeley study (Main, Kaplan, & Cassidy, 1985) and, I think, the