How does attachment theory help psychotherapists in their practice - Dissertation Example

It is more evident when the child is distressed, in danger, or hurt. Once an attachment develops, it undergoes transformations and re-integrations with subsequent developmental attributes of the person throughout the lifespan of a human being (Bowlby, 1946, 207-228). According to attachment theory, infants during their first year of life develop attachment with primary caregivers By the end of the first year of age, attachment figures typically are the center of most infants' social worlds. The process of forming emotional bonds with attachment figures is proposed in attachment theory to be fundamentally universal (Ainsworth, Bell, and Stayton, 1974, 99-136).

HistoryIn 1944, Bowlby, an English child psychiatrist and psychoanalyst published a paper describing his experiences with young thieves at the London Child Guidance Clinic. The paper, entitled "Forty-Four Juvenile Thieves: Their Characters and Home Life," was his attempt to demonstrate the influence of children's environments, especially experiences of loss and separation, on the genesis of problematic behaviour. His Attachment Theory was a major theoretical development, later used in psychoanalysis and subsequently in psychotherapy.

He combined the rigorous scientific empiricism of ethology with the subjective insights of psychoanalysis leading to an enormous impact in the fields of child development, social work, psychology, psychotherapy and psychiatry (Bowlby, 1946, 1-57).BackgroundThe central aim of this dissertation is to bring together current psychoanalytic, attachment, neuropsychological and psychobiological perspectives of human emotional development that can be used in psychotherapy. Both the psychoanalytic and psychodynamic psychotherapeutic approaches are.

The central aim of this dissertation is to bring together current psychoanalytic, attachment, neuropsychological and psychobiological perspectives of human emotional development that can be used in psychotherapy. Both the psychoanalytic and psychodynamic psychotherapeutic approaches are derived from a set of core principles derived from psychoanalysis (Eisold, 2005, 1175-1195). The psychoanalytic approach to psychotherapy has undergone profound transformation since the era of Freud. In the present state of things, the fundamental set of concepts is expanded to include countertransference, the unconscious, psychic determinism, and a developmental perspective.

Presently, the developmental model of behavior takes the center stage in all psychoanalytic thinking, of which the fundamental assumption is that childhood events shape the adult person. It has been shown that repetitive patterns of problematic interactions with others stem from intrapsychic issues that are internalized during childhood. This means, genetically determined characteristics evoke specific responses from the parents, and these responses from the parents build attachment and shape the child's personality.

Thus, patient's difficulties are perceived in psychotherapy as a complex interaction between the child's characteristics, the parents' characteristics, and the fit between them (Quinney, 2004, 114-126). World Health Organization asked Bowlby in 1949 to prepare a report on the condition of children left homeless and orphaned by World War II.