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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Attachment theory | 11/12 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attachment_theory | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T15:31:31.580137+00:00 | kb-cron |
In 1988, Bowlby published a series of lectures that outlined how attachment theory and research could be used to understand and treat child and family disorders. His focus in bringing about change was the parents' internal working models, parenting behaviours, and the parents' relationship with the therapeutic intervenor. Ongoing research has led to a number of individual treatments and prevention and intervention programs. In regard to personal development, children from all age groups were tested to show the effectiveness of the theory that is being theorized by Bowlby. They range from individual therapy to public health programs to interventions designed for foster caregivers. For infants and younger children, the focus is on increasing the responsiveness and sensitivity of the caregiver, or if that is not possible, placing the child with a different caregiver. An assessment of the attachment status or caregiving responses of the caregiver is invariably included, as attachment is a two-way process involving attachment behaviour and caregiver response. Some programs are aimed at foster care because the attachment behaviours of infants or children with attachment difficulties often do not elicit appropriate caregiver responses. Modern prevention and intervention programs have proven successful. In the view of attachment-based therapists, attachment theory offers a broad, far-reaching view of human functioning and can enrich a therapist's understanding of patients and the therapeutic relationship rather than dictate a particular form of treatment. Some forms of psychoanalysis-based therapy for adults—within relational psychoanalysis and other approaches—also incorporate attachment theory and patterns.
== Criticism == John Bowlby staunchly defended attachment theory as being a theory of the kind Karl Popper called scientific. This meant it would be refuted if any of its empirical predictions were found to be false. Mary Ainsworth and her colleagues disagreed:
Attachment theory might be described as "programmatic" and open-ended. It does not purport to be a tight network of propositions on the basis of which hypotheses may be formulated, any one of which, in the event of an adequate but unsuccessful test, could invalidate the theory as a whole ... Despite its lack of resemblance to a mathematico-physical theory, both the general theory of behaviour and attachment theory amount to what Kuhn (1962) termed a paradigm change for developmental psychology—a complete shift of perspective. Many of Bowlby's empirical claims and predictions have been refuted by subsequent research, yet the latest edition of The Handbook of Attachment asserts that "nothing that has emerged from the thousands of studies produced over the past 40 years has led to a serious challenge to the core theory ... since the time of Bowlby's writings." This supports Ainsworth's contention that attachment theory is not a scientific theory but a psycho-social movement of the kind identified by Thomas Kuhn as lying behind changes of epistemic perspective. This does not stop many people, including attachment advocates, developmental psychologists, and policy-makers, from continuing to claim that attachment theory is scientific. As developmental psychologist Suzanne Zeedyk puts it, when attachment theory is referred to nowadays, "that statement is no longer regarded as 'theory'. The operation of the attachment system is now regarded as 'fact.'"
=== The attachment theory bubble === The attachment perspective attracts tender-hearted scientists and layfolk alike because it is seen as putting children and their needs at centre stage of developmental discussions. Attachment advocates sometimes go further than this, writing as if child-centered parenting styles are a direct consequence of Bowlby's theory (though, in fact, child-centeredness was being popularized a decade or more before he devised his theory). The over-estimation of the importance of Bowlby's influence has become a staple of the attachment movement, which often pays tribute to him as if he were a saint. Thus, the prominent British psychoanalyst Professor Brett Kahr states that Bowlby's findings are now "beyond all doubt", and as a consequence:
Bowlby's paradigm, now known as attachment theory, deserves a place in the history of medicine, in the history of psychology, in the history of science, and in the history of humanity, as one of the greatest achievements, on a par, I wish to suggest, with the art of Leonardo da Vinci, the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and the nonviolent militarism of Mohandas Gandhi. Fulsome praise for high-profile attachment theorists is commonplace within circles that promote attachment theory. Thus Peter Fonagy and his colleagues state that attachment theory is securely based on "the complex and meticulous observational work of Mary Ainsworth", and that the concept of internal working models has been sanctioned by some of the "greatest minds in the attachment field". The presence of a strong in-group and out-group dynamic within attachment advocacy is confirmed by the way that those 'inside the bubble' fail to see the theory's scientific shortcomings until they remove themselves. Here is Judi Mesman's observation:
Having been academically 'raised' in one of the world's strongholds of attachment research, I was a firm believer of the universality assumptions of attachment theory and its methods. It wasn't until I started working with young scholars from the Global South, collecting video data of family life in over 20 countries, that I could not escape questioning the basis for some of these universality claims. Conversely, if scientists who work inside the attachment theory bubble publish results which do seriously challenge the claims of attachment theory, those results are typically ignored, and the scientists themselves ostracised. For example, the findings and arguments that Michael Lamb and colleagues published in the 1980s to challenge the attachment perspective are neither referenced nor discussed in the latest edition of The Handbook of Attachment (a book of 43 chapters), Lamb's attachment-advocating colleagues having "effectively ostracized" him.