The Origins of an Attachment Approach to Social Work Practice with Adults

Abstract

Intimate attachments to other human beings are the hub around which a person's life revolves, not only when he is an infant or a toddler or a schoolchild but throughout his adoles-cence and his years of maturity as well, and on into old age. Bowlby (1980, p. 442) Attachment theory is widely accepted and acclaimed as a major influence on psychological understanding and psychotherapy and has been gaining attention from social work researchers, educators, and clinicians. Its account of lifespan development has changed our thinking about the significance of certain close rela-tionships, how they are made and maintained, and how they can be affected by disruptions such as separation or loss. An attachment approach offers a view of the emotional needs of children, emphasizing that the quality of early caregiving may have lasting effects on feelings of stability and security (Sroufe, Egeland, & Carlson, 2005). The development of these basic concepts of attachment is credited to the work of John Bowlby, a British psychoanalyst whose analytic training coin-cided with the development of object relations theory. Mary Ainsworth, a Canadian developmental psychologist, who was Bowlby's collaborator for many years, designed the research methodology that showed the concepts could be empirically tested, and she provided the impetus for the enormous amount of research that is continuing to expand the theory in the twenty-first century. This chapter provides a particular focus on historical aspects that are pertinent to adult attachment and traces the development of attachment theory from early in Bowlby's career when he began to formulate his ideas about affectional bonds. Though Bowlby conceived attachment as a phenomenon that operates throughout the life cycle, the field of adult attachment, including how the concepts are applied to psychotherapy with adults, has been less studied than his pioneering work on the mother–child bond.