Attachment Across Clinical and Cultural Perspectives

Book excerpt: Attachment Across Clinical and Cultural Perspectives brings together leading thinkers in attachment theory to explore its importance across cultural, clinical and social contexts and the application of attachment relationship principles to intervention with diverse groups of children and families. These contributions collectively illustrate the robustness of attachment research in the contexts of culture, early extreme deprivation, trauma and the developing brain, providing great inspiration for anyone embracing the idea of evidence-based practice. Two chapters convey fundamentals of attachment theory, covering links between attachment and normal and pathological development and the interface between attachment and other features of evolutionary theory. Two others specifically tackle the cultural context of attachment; fundamental research findings with North American and European samples are shown to hold as well among indigenous people in a rural Mexican village, whilst the link between maternal sensitivity and secure attachment is demonstrated in a variety of cultures. Further chapters explore the role of fear and trauma in the formation of attachment; one establishes intergenerational links between parental history of trauma, dissociative states of mind and infant disorganized attachment, another looks at the consequences of early extreme deprivation (institutional rearing) for attachment. A third describes the impact of attachment experiences on brain development. Finally, the book explores intervention guided by attachment theory, research on fear and trauma, and an understanding of how attachment experiences leave their mark on parental psyche and behaviour. Attachment Across Clinical and Cultural Perspectives gathers authoritative information from leading experts in the field in an easily readable, practical way. It will appeal to psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists, to professionals who serve the developmental and mental health needs of adults, children and families, and anyone seeking to base their intervention work and therapy upon attachment principles.