This volume is intended to explain the applicability of attachment theory to counselling and clinical psychology, is academically referenced but written in a very accessible style.  It contains eight chapters that are derived from lectures delivered over the previous ten years to psychiatrists, psychoanalysis and other mental health professionals, and provides an excellent introduction to the fundamental ideas underlying attachment theory and its contribution to counselling psychology.

Chapter summaries:

1. Caring for Children
   Bowlby provides a clear and concise account of the ethological model of attachment and of the formation of an attachment bond between infant and primary caregiver. He shows how attachment behaviours are activated when an individual feels fear, fatigue or pain. He briefly reviews research indicating that whilst both the mother and infant are biologically preprogrammed to develop an attachment relationship, their roles are different. The infant's role is to lead the relationship while the mother's part is to sensitively repond and cooperate. This leads to adaptations in the infant either towards or away from cooperation depending on how well the mother responds to the infant's cues.

2. The Origins of Attachment Theory
   Bowlby describes the history of the development of attachment theory. He overviews its origins in studies conducted during the 1940's examining the developmental effects of institutional care of children; His own report to the World Health Organisation in the 50s on maternal care and mental health; The detailed study of the child-mother relationship during the 50s and early 60s; Harlow's work on maternal deprivation amongst rhesus monkeys; and the formulation of attachment theory from 1957 to 1980 along with the research which supported this development.

3. Psychoanalysis as Art and Science
   No summary available.

4. Psychoanalysis as a Natural Science
   No summary available.

5. Violence in the Family
   Bowlby considers the aetiology of violent behaviour within family systems. He argues that family violence is rooted in functional anger but has been taken to an extreme and cites various studies t osupport this. He shows that physically abusive mothers tend to yearn for care and are over sensitive to forms of rejection, having experience threatened or actual abandonment in their own childhood. When their own children fail to care for them, they resort to anger and violence. Infants of these mothers tend to show approach-aviodance behaviour towards their mothers. During childhood, they tend to become violent and often engage in malicious behaviours which appear to have the sole purpose of causing distress to another. Men who batter their wives tend to do so in apparently inexplicable outbursts. This may take the form of bi-directional violence, coersion or imprisonment, or battering . Like abusive mothers, abusive men also tend to have experienced violence from their own parents. Couples consisting of abused male and female partners are not uncommon. Studies have shown that abused women tend to gravitate towards abusive men, leading to a relationship in which both partners are anxiously attached to each other. A common characteristic of these relationship is the belief, on both parts, that their partner 'needs' them and a drear of loneliness. Bowlby goes on to discuss attachment based intervention programmes that have been set up to try to reduce the incidence of child abuse.

6. On Knowing What You Are Not Supposed to Know and Feeling What You Are Not Supposed to Feel 
   Discusses the contention that many adult psychiatric disorders are derived from early attachment experiences. He discusses amnesia as generally representative of repressive processes and incorporates consideration of modern cognitive views of memory and information processing. Bowlby argues that there are two main classes of early situation concerned: where children 'forget' because their parents cooerce them into doing so, and where children 'forget' experiences that are too painful to remember. He notes that there are many reported cases of parents encouraging children to forget painful episodes in the genuine belief that this will somehow protect their child's sanity. He cites research and case studies in support of his contentions, including work connecting multiple personality disorder to extended, painful experiences between the ages of 4 and 7. Bowlby sees the solution to these conditions as the reexperiencing and integration of the lost childhood experiences.

7. The Role of Atachment in Personality Development 
   Bowlby begins by justifying the place of attachment as a basic human drive, alongside the drives for food and sex, and considers attachment as a homeostatic control system operating  within the context of other behavioural control systems. He summarises Ainsworth's early work and describes the four basic infant attachment styles of secure, anxious/avoidant, anxious/resistant and disoriented/disorganised.  He overviews early persistence and construct validity research as well as evidence indicating the internalisation of early attachment experiences.  He cites studies relating adolescent personality to early attachment. He considers the processes by which attachment organisation persists across time and the circumstances under which internal working models may become updated.  He notes that security of attachment is strongly related to the degree of freedom of communication between caregiver and infant.  This being the case, a secure attachment organisation should be more amenable to change and updating as the individual grows.  He argues that the result of less free and easy early communication, along with a mother whose responses are highly contingent on the infant's displayed emotions,  is the development of fragmentation within the personality. This fragmentation, or lack of internal communication, makes these patterns more resistant to change. Bowlby relates this to the work of Main who found that adult attachment style could be determined by examining the coherency of memories of previous attachment related experiences (Main, Kaplan & Cassidy, 1985). Bowlby ends by noting that attachment theory supports a pathway, rather than a stage, theory of personality development, whereby a number of developmental pathways are available.

8. Attachment, Communication and the Therapeutic Process 
   In this chapter, Bowlby discusses attachment in the context of individual therapy whilst noting that attachment can also contribute to family and group therapeutic processes. Bowlby sees therapy as essentially involving the provision of a relationship within which a client feels adequately secure to engage in exploratory behaviour, investigating their own representational models and experimenting with feelings and recollections that may have  been threatening within the context of earlier attachment relationships. He notes that the clients behaviour within the client:therapist relationship is likely to be influenced by early attachment experiences and may shed light on the client's underlying attachment working models. Reflection on the client's behaviour, and on the early relationships that have led to the present day behaviour, may permit a reinterpretation of these early relationships and a consequent updating of working models. This then brings about the personality and behavioural changes that are the outcome of successful therapy. Bowlby notes that this view of therapy largely concords with many current views. He particularly compares it with Brief Psychotherapy (Horowitz, Marmar, Krupnick, Wilner, Kaltreider & Wallerstein, 1994). Bowlby concludes by listing a number of specific situations that may arise during the course of therapy could be used by the therapist to make inferences about the client's early attachment experiences.