The Origins of Attachment: Infant Research and Adult Treatment
addresses the origins of attachment in mother-infant face-to-face
communication. New patterns of relational disturbance in infancy are
described. These aspects of communication are out of conscious
awareness. They provide clinicians with new ways of thinking about
infancy, and about nonverbal communication in adult treatment.
Utilizing an extraordinarily detailed microanalysis of videotaped
mother-infant interactions at 4 months, Beatrice Beebe, Frank
Lachmann, and their research collaborators provide a more fine-grained
and precise description of the process of attachment transmission.
Second-by-second microanalysis operates like a social microscope and
reveals more than can be grasped with the naked eye.
The book explores how, alongside linguistic content, the bodily aspect
of communication is an essential component of the capacity to
communicate and understand emotion. The moment-to-moment self- and
interactive processes of relatedness documented in infant research form
the bedrock of adult face-to-face communication and provide the
background fabric for the verbal narrative in the foreground.
The Origins of Attachment is illustrated throughout with several case
vignettes of adult treatment. Discussions by Carolyn Clement, Malcolm
Slavin and E. Joyce Klein, Estelle Shane, Alexandra Harrison and Stephen
Seligman show how the research can be used by practicing clinicians.
This book details aspects of bodily communication between mothers and
infants that will provide useful analogies for therapists of adults. It
will be essential reading for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and
graduate students.
Collaborators Joseph Jaffe, Sara Markese, Karen A. Buck, Henian
Chen, Patricia Cohen, Lorraine Bahrick, Howard Andrews, Stanley
Feldstein
Discussants Carolyn Clement, Malcolm Slavin, E. Joyce Klein, Estelle
Shane, Alexandra Harrison, Stephen Seligman
