The Search for the Secure Base: Attachment Theory and Psychotherapy

by Holmes,Jeremy

• ISBN13: 9781583911525
• ISBN10: 1583911529
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2001-08-09
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

The Search for the Secure Baseintroduces an exciting new attachment paradigm in psychotherapy with adults, describing the principles and practice of attachment-informed therapy in a way that will be useful to beginners and experienced therapists alike. Based on the scientific foundations of attachment theory and research, Jeremy Holmes identifies the areas within which attachment-informed therapy operates, including secure base, exploration and pleasure, anger and protest, and loss. Therapeutic techniques including providing a secure base, methods of listening and responding, facilitation of emergent meaning and reflexive practice. Jeremy Holmes uses a wide range of clinical and literary examples to illustrate these techniques, and discusses topics such as Basic Fault, the intergenerational transmission of attachment insecurity, and working with traumatized and abused clients. Viewing attachment-based therapy as a variant of object relations, the book argues strongly for a rapprochement betweenpsychoanalysis and attachment theory.

Author Biography

Jeremy Holmes is Consultant Psychotherapist in North Devon and Senior Lecturer in Psychotherapy in the University of Exeter.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	ix
Preface	xi
The psychological immune system: An extended analogy	1	(5)
The six domains of attachment theory	6	(14)
Attachment theory and psychoanalysis: Finding a common language	20	(15)
Attachment in clinical practice	35	(6)
An integrative perspective on change in psychotherapy	41	(11)
Disorganized attachment and the `basic fault'	52	(13)
Attachment and the `storied self'	65	(15)
Attachment and narrative in psychotherapy	80	(15)
Abuse, trauma and memory: An attachment perspective	95	(13)
Art, attachment and psychotherapy	108	(13)
Money and psychotherapy	121	(9)
Endings in psychotherapy	130	(14)
Appendix: BABI --- brief attachment-based therapy, a treatment modality based on attachment theory	144	(25)
References	169	(8)
Subject index	177