Six attachment discourses: convergence, divergence and relay

ABSTRACT

Attachment concepts are used in diverging ways, which has caused confusion in communication among researchers, among practitioners, and between researchers and practitioners, and hinders their potential for collaboration. In this essay we explore how attachment concepts may vary in meaning across six different domains: popular discourses, developmental science, social psychological science, psychiatric diagnosis, psychotherapy, and child welfare practice. We attempt to typify these forms of attachment discourse by highlighting points of convergence, divergence, and relay between the different domains. Our general conclusions are that diversity in the use of attachment concepts across different domains of application has been largely unrecognised, and that recognition of these differences would reduce confusion, help identify sites where infrastructure needs to be developed to support coordination, and strengthen opportunities for collaboration to mutual benefit. We suggest that academic attachment discourse would benefit from clarification of core terminology, including: “attachment”, “internal working model”, “trauma”, and “dysregulation”.

KEYWORDS:

• Attachment
• child welfare
• developmental science
• psychotherapy
• sociology of science

Acknowledgments

Our study of the history and current situation of attachment research has been supported by an Investigator Award from the Wellcome Trust (2014–2020). Using a variety of social scientific and historical methodologies, we have attempted to understand the achievements and challenges of attachment research over time, and to gain insight into the underlying logic and infrastructure that have oriented the field’s work and contributions. This article reports from an integration of observations from these different lines of inquiry. Our work has hugely benefited from guidance and support from Marinus van IJzendoorn and Marian Bakermans-Kranenburg. Members of the team are supported by funds from Wellcome Trust and National Institute of Health Research, School for Primary Care Research.

Doctoral projects within our group have included:

• Sarah Foster has used focus groups and vignette-based interviews with clinical psychologists, social workers and family doctors to understand how practitioners draw on the contributions of attachment research in their work.

• Helen Beckwith has used Q methodology to study convergence and divergence among and within the theoretical commitments of attachment researchers and clinicians.

• Lianne Bakkum has used secondary data analysis to examine the meaning of the unresolved attachment classification, drawing from interviews with Adult Attachment Interview trainers and close study of published and unpublished work by Bowlby and Main.

• Barry Coughlan has used analysis of structured and unstructured data from a large set of clinical records, together with interviews with clinicians, to understand how attachment features within differential diagnosis of child mental health needs.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).