Cornerstones and discourses in attachment study: celebrating the publication of a new landmark

ABSTRACT

Cornerstones in attachment research is a landmark history of five major research groups that have helped establish the empirical foundations of the Bowlby-Ainsworth attachment tradition. This essay highlights Duschinsky’s use of historical methodology rather than the narrative-style review more familiar to psychologists. We then turn to a recurring theme in the book, the inconsistent use of language and theoretical misunderstandings, especially as they arise at the interface between attachment study and more applied disciplines. We discuss Duschinsky’s sociological analysis of how these difficulties arose and are maintained and our own perspective, which emphasizes more difficulties attending communication across declining and emerging paradigms. We expect Cornerstones will be a significant asset as we try to establish new modes of collaboration and communication with educators, clinicians and other practitioners who work not with abstractions and populations but with individuals presenting complex histories and living complex lives.

KEYWORDS:

• Attachment
• cornerstones
• terminology
• history

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1. This is not to say that Mary Ainsworth didn’t share Bowlby’s hope of making children’s lives better. However, founded in by 1883 G Stanley Hall in as the first laboratory for experimental psychology in America, Johns Hopkins did not have a clinical Ph.D. program. This obviously shaped the interest profiles of applicants for graduate training. With the possible exceptions of Sylvia Bell and Alicia Lieberman, clinical training was not a primary career goal among Ainsworth’s students. Doubtless there would have been studies on clinical populations and intervention projects, and more interaction with psychiatry and social work if Hopkins had a clinical program. Mark Greenberg, who worked on the Baltimore project as an undergraduate assistant, informs us that, when Ainsworth moved to Virginia, with its excellent clinical Ph.D. program, she was “quite open and involved in discussions about clinical applications, but was always clear that the classifications (mostly A-B-C at that point) not be considered as clinical diagnoses or as sole justifications for therapy (personal communication, October 5, 2020). This was in the mid-1980’s. Some of these discussions are reflected in the 1987 Belsky & Nezworski (1987) volume, Clinical implications of attachment.