Attachment in Psychotherapy

by Wallin, David J.

• ISBN13: 9781462522712
• ISBN10: 1462522718
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2015-04-27
• Publisher: The Guilford Press

Summary

This eloquent book translates attachment theory and research into an innovative framework that grounds adult psychotherapy in the facts of childhood development. Advancing a model of treatment as transformation through relationship, the author integrates attachment theory with neuroscience, trauma studies, relational psychotherapy, and the psychology of mindfulness. Vivid case material illustrates how therapists can tailor interventions to fit the attachment needs of their patients, thus helping them to generate the internalized secure base for which their early relationships provided no foundation. Demonstrating the clinical uses of a focus on nonverbal interaction, the book describes powerful techniques for working with the emotional responses and bodily experiences of patient and therapist alike.

Author Biography

David J. Wallin, PhD, is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Mill Valley and Albany, California. A graduate of Harvard College who received his doctorate from the Wright Institute in Berkeley, California, he has been practicing, teaching, and writing about psychotherapy for nearly three decades. Dr. Wallin is the coauthor (with Stephen Goldbart) of Mapping the Terrain of the Heart: Passion, Tenderness, and the Capacity to Love.

Table of Contents

1. Attachment and Change
I. Bowlby and Beyond
2. The Foundations of Attachment Theory
3. Mary Main: Mental Representations, Metacognition, and the Adult Attachment Interview
4. Fonagy and Forward
II. Attachment Relationships and the Development of the Self
5. The Multiple Dimensions of the Self
6. The Varieties of Attachment Experience
7. How Attachment Relationships Shape the Self
III. From Attachment Theory to Clinical Practice
8. Nonverbal Experience and the "Unthought Known": Accessing the Emotional Core of the Self
9. The Stance of the Self toward Experience: Embeddedness, Mentalizing, and Mindfulness
10. Deepening the Clinical Dimension of Attachment Theory: Intersubjectivity and the Relational Perspective
IV. Attachment Patterns in Psychotherapy
11. Constructing the Developmental Crucible
12. The Dismissing Patient: From Isolation to Intimacy
13. The Preoccupied Patient: Making Room for a Mind of One’s Own
14. The Unresolved Patient: Healing the Wounds of Trauma and Loss
V. Sharpening the Clinical Focus
15. The Nonverbal Realm I: Working with the Evoked and the Enacted
16. The Nonverbal Realm II: Working with the Body
17. Mentalizing and Mindfulness: The Double Helix of Psychological Liberation