Fonagy, P;
Luyten, P;
Allison, E;
Campbell, C;
(2018)
Reconciling Psychoanalytic Ideas with Attachment Theory.
In: Shaver, P and Cassidy, J, (eds.)
Handbook of Attachment.
Guilford Press: New York, NY, United States.
(In press).
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Abstract
The relationship between attachment theory and psychoanalysis, historically, has not been an easy one (Cassidy & Shaver, 2008; Eagle, 2013; Fonagy, 2001). But in recent years, developments in both fields have led to a growing rapprochement (Eagle, 2013; Holmes, 2009). Changes in psychoanalytic thinking have made it more accommodating of attachment thinking; conversely, aspects of the development of attachment findings, applications, and theory have made it more pertinent to psychoanalysis. In this chapter we examine the disagreements between psychoanalysis and attachment theory, and point to some of the two disciplines’ common foundations. We then describe an approach to the role of attachment in human development that considers it in relation to the capacity to mentalize, that is, to understand ourselves and others in terms of intentional mental states, and places both attachment and mentalizing in the context of the development of epistemic trust—the capacity to trust others as a source of knowledge about the world. This approach builds on some of Bowlby’s assumptions drawn from evolutionary biology, placing some of the better founded psychoanalytic criticisms of attachment theory in a different perspective. We suggest that this context allows the ongoing significance of Bowlby and Ainsworth’s thinking for the psychoanalytic project to be appreciated.
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