Attachment Theory and Psychoanalysis

Rating:
Summary: A helpful book
Review: I thought this book covered most of the important theories in psychoanalysis and linked them in a cosntructive way with attachment theory. It tries to demonstrate that psychoanalytic thinking and attachment theory are not as far appart as people sometimes assume. It is also good at showing that there are major differences between the two. It provides a good summary of the research base of attachment theory.

Rating:
Summary: not the same material as in the Handbook of Attachment
Review: The previous reviewer says: 'Scholars who have read Fonagy's chapter in "The Handbook of Attachment" will recognize this material (read: the book is a bound version of the chapter.)'

This is not correct. While there may be considerable overlap in some sections, the chapter in the Handbook is some 30 pages, while the book contains over 250. The chapter ends with Daniel Stern, while this book (as you can see by looking in the table of contents) continues beyond Stern. I am particularly interested to note that Fonagy's book (but not his chapter for the Handbook) covers Stephen A. Mitchell, who was a truly great mind with a deeply compassionate heart. I highly recommend any and all of his books, but be careful: Amazon's search engine does not distinguish between "Stephen A. Mitchell" (the noted psychoanalyst) and "Stephen Mitchell" (the New Age mystic wannabe). Jeff Bezos, are you listening?

At any rate, I bought the Handbook of Attachment based on the mistaken information in the review directly below. I'm not sorry I did; it's excellent -- and MASSIVE at over 900 pages. Great stuff. Now I've also ordered Fonagy's Attachment Theory and Psychoanalysis and expect it to be five-stars-plus based on the *shorter* version in the Handbook. If you can't afford to buy both, don't be misled by the previous reviewer's misunderstanding. If money is no object (relation; heh), then get your hands on both. Attachment theory is finally becoming widely recognized and applauded, even by the psychoanalytic community, which gave Bowlby (the original theorist) and his collaborators so much grief for decades. This field contains a hugely important body of work that provides not only new insights into human relationships across the life cycle (i.e., it no longer applies only to infants and their primary caregivers) but opens up whole new perspectives. For instance, I am quite interested in how greater awareness of "avoidant" and "ambivalent" attachment styles can deepen and ventilate -- the atmosphere having become deadly oppressive -- more traditional psychoanalytic views of narcissistic and so-called borderline personality disorders. Bowbly himself was convinced that avoidant attachment was related to the development of narcissism, and Fonagy drops further fascinating hints along these lines (though, as far as I know, the ambivalent/borderline connection is my own hypothetical surmise). A la Richard Nixon, let me just say this about that...

Attachment: don't leave your base without it. Otherwise, all your base belong to THEM!

also recommended (in part to explain my lame pun, above, but also because it's superb) is John Bowlby's book, A Secure Base, as well as his three seminal volumes on Attachment, Separation, and Loss. I'll add these various other works on attachment theory to the recommendations section on this page so you won't have to hunt them down via the aforementioned [koff-koff] search engine.

Christopher Locke, co-author of The Cluetrain Manifesto, and author of Gonzo Marketing, and The Bombast Transcripts, none of which are related to the present topic... Hmmmm, or are they?

Rating:
Summary: not the same material as in the Handbook of Attachment
Review: The previous reviewer says: 'Scholars who have read Fonagy's chapter in "The Handbook of Attachment" will recognize this material (read: the book is a bound version of the chapter.)'

This is not correct. While there may be considerable overlap in some sections, the chapter in the Handbook is some 30 pages, while the book contains over 250. The chapter ends with Daniel Stern, while this book (as you can see by looking in the table of contents) continues beyond Stern. I am particularly interested to note that Fonagy's book (but not his chapter for the Handbook) covers Stephen A. Mitchell, who was a truly great mind with a deeply compassionate heart. I highly recommend any and all of his books, but be careful: Amazon's search engine does not distinguish between "Stephen A. Mitchell" (the noted psychoanalyst) and "Stephen Mitchell" (the New Age mystic wannabe). Jeff Bezos, are you listening?

At any rate, I bought the Handbook of Attachment based on the mistaken information in the review directly below. I'm not sorry I did; it's excellent -- and MASSIVE at over 900 pages. Great stuff. Now I've also ordered Fonagy's Attachment Theory and Psychoanalysis and expect it to be five-stars-plus based on the *shorter* version in the Handbook. If you can't afford to buy both, don't be misled by the previous reviewer's misunderstanding. If money is no object (relation; heh), then get your hands on both. Attachment theory is finally becoming widely recognized and applauded, even by the psychoanalytic community, which gave Bowlby (the original theorist) and his collaborators so much grief for decades. This field contains a hugely important body of work that provides not only new insights into human relationships across the life cycle (i.e., it no longer applies only to infants and their primary caregivers) but opens up whole new perspectives. For instance, I am quite interested in how greater awareness of "avoidant" and "ambivalent" attachment styles can deepen and ventilate -- the atmosphere having become deadly oppressive -- more traditional psychoanalytic views of narcissistic and so-called borderline personality disorders. Bowbly himself was convinced that avoidant attachment was related to the development of narcissism, and Fonagy drops further fascinating hints along these lines (though, as far as I know, the ambivalent/borderline connection is my own hypothetical surmise). A la Richard Nixon, let me just say this about that...

Attachment: don't leave your base without it. Otherwise, all your base belong to THEM!

also recommended (in part to explain my lame pun, above, but also because it's superb) is John Bowlby's book, A Secure Base, as well as his three seminal volumes on Attachment, Separation, and Loss. I'll add these various other works on attachment theory to the recommendations section on this page so you won't have to hunt them down via the aforementioned [koff-koff] search engine.

Christopher Locke, co-author of The Cluetrain Manifesto, and author of Gonzo Marketing, and The Bombast Transcripts, none of which are related to the present topic... Hmmmm, or are they?

Rating:
Summary: A great chapter made into a worthy book
Review: This book is probably the best examination of the relationship between attachment theory and psychoanalysis written in recent memory. Fonagy candidly describes the differences that exist between psychoanalysis and attachment theory while drawing attention to specific shared points of departure. Scholars who have read Fonagy's chapter in "The Handbook of Attachment" will recognize this material (read: the book is a bound version of the chapter.) An essential read in either form.

Rating:
Summary: Intelligent overview
Review: This intelligent overview of attachment theory succeeds most when it integrates attachment theory with broader psychoanalytic understanding. Particularly helpful is its discussion of borderline personality disordered patients' ways of communicating, where attachment theory links up interestingly with contemporary Kleinian notions of projective identification.