Attachment Therapy with Adolescents and Adults

Dorothy Heard is a pyschoanalytic psychotherapist in private practice and was formerly a Consultant in John Bowlby's Department at the Tavistock Clinic, London. Brian Lake was formerly Consultant in Psychotherapy at St James's University Hospital, Leeds. Una McCluskey graduated from University College Dublin, did her professional social work training at the University of Edinburgh, and got her PhD from the University of York. She has written extensively on individuals, couple, family and group systems, and has developed her own model for exploring attachment dynamics in adult life. Her research on affect attunement in adult psychotherapy led her to develop a theory of interaction for psychotherapy and particularly to identify and rate the concept of goal corrected empathic attunement. Throughout the last ten years she has been providing courses for workers and experienced professionals in the field of psychology, psychotherapy, social work, medicine, organisational management and development, education, nursing, art therapy, legal practice, religious and pastoral carers, to enable them explore their own dynamics of attachment in adult life as outlined by the work of Heard and Lake and to check its application to their personal and work life.

CONTENTS PART 1: THE THEORETICAL BACKGROUND OF AN AUTONOMOUS SELF THAT IS IMMERSED IN THE DYNAMICS OF ATTACHMENT AND INTEREST SHARING 1. Introducing a new attachment paradigm 2. Introducing a new conceptualisation of the self 3. How the self communicates with other people and with itself 4. The defensive self 5. The careseeking self 6. The caregiving self 7. The interest sharing self 8. The sexual self 9. Diagrams depicting the interplay between five of the systems that take part in the dynamics of attachment and interest sharing 10. The self under threat and alone: supported or unsupported by the sixth and seventh systems PART 2: THERAPY GUIDED BY THE NEW ATTACHMENT PARADIGM 11. The principles of therapy guided by the dynamics of attachment and interest sharing 12. Descriptions of training events that enable participants who are professional caregivers to experience the effects on the self of achieving and not achieving the goal of careseeking. 13. Working with an individual adult client with a focus on her defensive identity 14. Exploring the dynamics of attachment and interest sharing with groups of professional caregivers: The structure, composition and timing of the course of therapy attended by a group of professional caregivers 15. Exploring the dynamics of attachment and interest sharing with groups of professional caregivers: Findings that support a paradigmatic shift in therapeutic practice 16. Exploring the dynamics of attachment and interest sharing with groups of professional caregivers: How learning from attending the course is applied in a variety of work settings. PART 3 Appendix 1. Bowlby's original ideas Appendix 2. Ainsworth's contribution to Bowlby's ideas Appendix 3. The Strange Situation Test Appendix 4. The Adult Attachment Investigation The Glossary