Behavioural systems: attachment (care seeking), care giving, exploration, sex, & power
Last updated on 18th April 2013
This post is also available as a Word format download.
This post is also available as a Word format download.
I'm a doctor and psychotherapist who's interested in using attachment ideas to improve how helpful I can be for clients. Awareness of attachment issues informs therapy, it doesn't dictate it. An obvious question is whether it's sometimes worth assessing attachment in a "formal" way. I'm no expert in this area. I'm an "informed amateur" and, after reading and exploring a good deal around the subject, my impression is that it can be pretty useful at times to assess attachment. The Wikipedia article on Attachment measures provides an excellent overview of the field while, for much more in depth information, the two attachment books and the various websites that I've described in previous blog post
Last week I wrote about "A couple of fine books on attachment". Today I want to highlight what a fantastic resource the internet is - below are details of half a dozen websites that offer lots of attachment information, and also details of further websites that are helpful but more limited.
I wrote earlier this month on "Attachment, compassion & relationships". I've been aware of John Bowlby's work on adult-child attachment for many years but, when I've approached it for insights that might help in my work as a psychotherapist, I've been put off by the complexity of assessment methods and variety of reported attachment styles, as well as by the rapidly growing size of the relevant academic literature. As Jude Cassidy and Phillip Shaver write in their preface to the 2008 meister work "Handbook of attachment (2nd ed)" - see more details at the end of this blog post - "Anybody who conducts a literature search on the topic of 'attachment' will turn up more than 10,000 entries since 1975, and the entries will be spread across scores of physiological, clinical, developmental, and social psychology journals, will include numerous
Well I didn't sleep too well last night. Catero, my wife, and I went to the cinema yesterday evening and watched "500 Days of Summer" . I enjoyed it and it got me thinking about relationships. The "Summer" of the title is a woman who doesn't believe in romantic love. She's kind of charming and maddening and, as I biked away from the cinema, I wondered how I would have approached treating her if she had come to me for therapy! Interestingly a newspaper reviewer commented that the film is "weirdly incurious about the inner life of its female lead".
A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
- Einstein
Here are a series of questionnaires and handouts on couples, sexuality, parenting, attachment, and abuse. The first sequence of 20 or so handouts are from a two day workshop I run - for more details including downloadable copies of the slides, see the blog post "Psychotherapy with couples & other close relationships". Listed below these are further relevant handouts & questionnaires.