Attachment Theory: Working Towards Learned Security

Attachment theory has continued to evolve since the death of John Bowlby in 1990. One of the most recent and exciting developments in the theory concerns the concept of “earned security”. The author has taken this concept and developed it subtly in order to promote the way that it is possible for the therapist to explicitly devote herself in the consulting room to the provision of an environment where the client learns to internalize a sense of possessing a “secure base”.

The book takes the basic ideas of attachment theory and integrates it with other relational theories, such as those of Stolorow, Brandchaft and Atwood’s “intersubjective perspective” and Heinz Kohut’s “psychology of the self”. The author takes us through this process step-by-step, developing an integrative, relational theory which, if utilized clinically, will help practitioners to enable their clients to gain a sense of “learned security”: a sense of having a secure base to which to return to in times of vulnerability.

Many clients sadly miss this stage of development in their attachment histories as a result of developmental deficit and trauma. By concentrating on providing a secure base for the client in the therapeutic environment, a seminal change can take place within the client’s psychic organization. The book contains a section which covers how such developmental deficits commonly occur.

The integrative theory that the author promulgates is evidenced by the presentation of four extended case studies; in one, the client himself has written a narrative of how he deems his therapy to have worked. It is unusual for us as practitioners to find our clients prepared to write a narrative of the therapeutic process, and it is refreshing to be provided with a client’s perspective.