Attachment research: Evidence for psychoanalytic developmental theories

Pages: 2051-2054
Abhijatya Dhar (Department of Clinical Psychology, Amity Institute of Behavioural Health and Allied Sciences, Amity University, Noida, Uttar Pradesh)

“There is bad blood between psychoanalysis and attachment theory. As with many family feuds, it is hard to identify where the problem began” (Fonagy, 2001, p. 1). The operative word to focus on, one could say is ‘family feud,’ as attachment theory had its roots in psychoanalytic thinking. Bowlby first conceptualized attachment theory in the 1950s (Slade, 2000) and his conceptualization came about from his observation of hospitalized children and delinquent boys all of whom had experienced separations, traumatic loss or abandonment at an early age (Bowlby, 1944; Bowlby & Robertson, 1952). This paper attempts to shed light on how the findings of the attachment theory-based contemporary researches are in fact reinforcing some of the postulates of psychoanalytical developmental theories.