Both clinicians and researchers have noted the importance of close interpersonal relationships for the development of personality, character, and overall well-being. Attachment theory was originally created by a psychoanalytically oriented psychiatrist, John Bowlby, but unlike many psychoanalytic theories, attachment theory has been vigorously researched during the past 35 years.
The earliest research focused on child-parent relationships and their effects on child development and mental health. More recently, researchers have been exploring adolescent and adult attachment, with implications for relationship (e.g., marital) quality and individual well-being (both psychological and physical) mental health.
The theory’s key concepts center on a distinction between fundamental security and insecurity. Researchers have identified some notable (and measurable) patterns of attachment: secure, anxious, and avoidant. There is now good evidence concerning the mental and neural processes underlying these patterns, the relation of the patterns to particular forms of psychopathology and unhappiness, and the potential to intervene to increase a person’s basic sense of security and the success of his or her close relationships with others.
Length: 90 Minutes
