Attachment in retrospect and prospect

This Special Issue of Attachment and Human Development on “Attachment in Retrospect and Prospect” has grown out of the recent publication of the book Cornerstones of Attachment Research¹ (2020; hereafter referred to as “Cornerstones”) by the Cambridge historian of science, Robbie Duschinsky. This volume marks an important milestone for the field of attachment. Cornerstones examines and evaluates the contribution of five key research groups that have set the scene for attachment research today, 75 years after theory and research in the field can be said to have formally begun (Bowlby, 1944). Duschinsky argues in Cornerstones that there has been an inevitable “changing of the guard” (p. 555) in the leadership of attachment research; the book calls for reflection and discussion, a taking stock of how far we have come, and where we ought to go from here? These questions must be engaged with by a diverse group of attachment scholars, established and emerging, the chief assumption underpinning this special issue of Attachment and Human Development.

This Special Issue consists of two target papers and seven commentaries directed at the target papers and/or Cornerstones. The first target paper by Duschinsky et al. (2021, pp. 355–374) develops a theme from Cornerstones in characterizing the problem of inconsistent usage of attachment concepts across different domains, including popular discourse, developmental science, psychiatry and child welfare practice. The paper expresses concern that inappropriate or confused uses of attachment theory and measures will continue, with opportunities for mutual enrichment missed, so long as researchers and practitioners fail to recognize the extent to which they are talking past one another. The second target paper by Schuengel, Verhage, and Duschinsky (2021, pp. 375–395) considers the future of attachment research through the lens of developing trends in meta-analytic studies. They advocate for a “move to the level of collaboration” for attachment research, in which societal challenges and the needs of professional practice inform coordinated work across multiple research groups based on preregistered protocols, and more open and careful communication between communities invested in attachment research. Commentaries are offered by members of both the older generation of attachment researchers, the “Cornerstones” of attachment research discussed in Duschinsky’s book, and a younger generation appraising the path forward for their own work as well as for the wider community of researchers.

The first commentary by Sroufe (2021, pp. 396–403) argues that the inaugural and underpinning strength of attachment research is that the fundamental object of analysis is human relationships, considered in developmental perspective, as they shape individual lives. Sroufe acknowledges that his generation of research was focused on building attachment research as a credible field of academic inquiry, but that the time has now come to enter into a deeper dialogue with practitioners and other applied communities, both to correct misunderstandings and to inform the future direction of research. The work of Duschinsky and colleagues (2021) has made it clear that, as Sroufe puts it “the time is ripe” (p. 398). A challenge identified by Sroufe, however, is that it will be difficult to make attachment measures, that prominently include detailed observational and interview measures, scalable for application in professional practice and epidemiological research; not that it would be impossible, but that it will require considerable ingenuity to avoid a vast loss in relevant information.

The second commentary by Waters and Patters (2021, pp. 404–411) characterizes the work by Duschinsky and his colleagues as a “significant asset” to the urgent dialogue between attachment researchers and applied communities. Whereas the target articles offer sketches of some challenges for the field, Waters and Patters characterize Cornerstones as a treasure trove, with major clarifications of theory and suggestive avenues for future research. They highlight the value of researchers specifying more clearly what they mean, for example, talking about expectations of availability and responsiveness rather than the general and imprecise term “security”. Waters and Patters attribute much of the misunderstanding of attachment theory and research to limited immersion, which is a problem stemming partly from the time pressures of applied contexts, partly from the apparent self-evidence of attachment language, but also from the way that much of what is essential to attachment research is bound up in technical and sometimes implicit aspects of its measures. Perhaps there is particular priority today, to make this implicit knowledge explicit and available to non-academics.

The third commentary by Granqvist (2021, pp. 412–421) highlights the important contribution of Cornerstones in identifying that Bowlby used the concept of attachment variously in broad and narrow ways. The result was essentially two different theories of attachment, with materially different accounts of human development. What links the two accounts Bowlby offered is the importance of safe haven provision for socioemotional development. Granqvist argues that we can never define the limits of what will be treated as a safe haven by humans, as it depends so much on individual experience, culture, and context. This is therefore a caution to Duschinsky and colleagues in their call for clarity about definitions. Definitions should not be used to rule phenomena in fixing what is or is not an attachment relationship, but rather should serve a prototyping function, to help various stakeholders recognize the specific lines of similarity or dissimilarity between what they are seeing and what (other) researchers have studied.

The fourth commentary by van IJzendoorn et al. (2021, pp. 422–437) considers the extent to which attachment research has been subject to the same crises of replicability and relevance to which psychological science and other areas of academic study have been subject. This legendary team of authors identifies that attachment research, especially in the developmental tradition, has been threatened by problems around replication due to the small sample sizes of most studies, which risks both false positive and false negative findings. They caution researchers and consumers of attachment research against overreliance on the conclusions of initial pioneering studies, and advocate that knowledge drawn from multiple sources – whether across various methodologies, or on the basis of meta-analytic studies looking at a particular methodological approach – is the necessary basis for dependable knowledge. They also urge recognition that knowledge based on aggregate effects at the group level may be misleading when applied by practitioners to individual cases. Nonetheless, they point to important conclusions that can be drawn from group-level effects, such as the potential harms of institutional care of children. And they urge attachment researchers towards more explicit, open and cautious discussion of the exact implication of these effects for judging the ethical standards for a just society, for example, in decision-making about child custody and removal.

The fifth commentary by Haltigan et al. (2021, pp. 438–454) advocates the need to renew ideas about attachment through consideration of developments in evolutionary theory, specifically the conceptualization of disorganized attachment. The relationship between disorganized attachment and dissociation, for example, remains underspecified, which has hindered integration of studies of disorganized attachment both with wider mental health literatures and with work in biology in recent decades addressing freezing and fear behavior and more fragmentary behavioral sequences. Like Granqvist, Haltigan et al. call for renewed evolutionary thinking about attachment, perhaps a characteristic feature of the “third generation” of attachment research. The use of evolutionary thinking in reconsidering disorganization, though speculative, may usefully contribute to testable hypotheses for studies of clinical phenomena, such as schizophrenia.

The sixth commentary by Dagan and Bernard (2021, pp. 455–467) turns attention to the organized attachment classifications, questioning why deactivating forms of attachment strategy are not linked to later internalizing symptoms, how age may moderate the relationship between insecure subtypes and internalizing symptoms, and why there is divergence between the implications for internalizing symptoms of self-report vs narrative assessments of adult attachment. Dagan and Bernard argue that attachment researchers in the developmental tradition will need to pursue lines of dialogue – with clinical psychology, with evolutionary biology and with social psychology, in order to answer these questions and understand the mechanisms in play. In brief, Dagan and Bernard embrace the efforts of Duschinsky and colleagues agreeing with their call for a clarification of terms in attachment theory and research, in order to facilitate inter-disciplinary dialogue deemed urgent and necessary.

Finally, celebrating Duschinsky’s Cornerstones, epilogue by Main (2021, pp. 468–480) takes a form of memoir of the founder of attachment theory, John Bowlby. For Main, the personal qualities and commitments of Bowlby provided fundamental inspiration for her research. Seeing new researchers taking leadership of the field, researchers who will never have met Bowlby, Main attempts to convey to the younger generation some of the essential qualities, commitments, and influences upon, John Bowlby. Her commentary includes artifacts such as Bowlby’s last letter to Main, several weeks prior to his death. With a fuller image of Bowlby and the history of attachment research, as conveyed by Cornerstones and by Main’s recollections, we are better prepared to weigh up received wisdoms and to respond appropriately to both the serious challenges and the remarkable opportunities faced by attachment research in the present.

As editor of the Special Issue, it is my hope that you enjoy and are inspired by the target papers and the diverse set of commentaries. Together they address critical issues faced by the field, as well as identifying – and in some cases debating – the lines of inquiry that will be fruitful for future attachment research. This Special Issue should also serve as a reminder of Bretherton’s insight that she shared in Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development (Breterton, 1985), titled, “Attachment theory: Retrospect and prospect” and Bowlby’s profound warning: “so long as our history is hidden from us, so long as we hide our history from ourselves, we are very likely to see the present and future in the terms of the past” he issued in a talk the year before he died. Attachment “in retrospect” and “in prospect” are, fundamentally, two sides of the same coin.

Notes

1. Cornerstones of Attachment Research is free to download from the Oxford University Press website (http://fdslive.oup.com/www.oup.com/academic/pdf/openaccess/9780198842064.pdf).