This book focuses on the understanding of the epistemological roots of attachment theory, conceptualised as psychoanalytic paradigm, which highlights the movement away from a 'one-person psychology' to a multi-person psychology'. In this context, attachment theory is viewed as a theory of processes, across generations and across the dynamic interaction between the individual and his 'worlds of others' (including parental figures, offspring, the sexual partner, the group and society). This position is congenial with contemporary philosophical and developmental ideas and recent advances in the neurosciences. It is also a contribution to British Independent Psychoanalytic thinking, the so-called 'relational schools of psychoanalysis' and group analysis. This book involves: A didactic formulation of the basic principles of attachment theory as a psychoanalytic paradigm. Critical discussions of controversial issues in psychoanalysis (such as theories of intersubjectivity, thinking and motivation, the role of the historical reconstruction in psychoanalytic psychotherapy and the relation between attachment and sexuality), viewed from an attachment perspective. An exploration of the clinical implications of these concepts. This text will be of interest to individual therapists as well as group analysts, couple therapists, family therapists and academics.

In his final contribution to the psychoanalytic literature published two months before his untimely death on December 21, 2000, the late Stephen A. Mitchell provided a brilliant synthesis of the interrelated ideas that hover around, and describe aspects of, the relational matrix of human experience. Relationality charts the emergence of the relational perspective in psychoanalysis by reviewing the contributions of Loewald, Fairbairn, Bowlby, and Sullivan, whose voices converge in apprehending the fundamental relationality of mind. Mitchell draws on the multiple dimensions of attachment, intersubjectivity, and systems theory in espousing a clinical approach equally notable for its responsiveness and responsible restraint. Relationality "signals a new height in Mitchell's always illuminating writing" (Nancy Chodorow) and marks the "coming of age" of the relational perspective in psychoanalysis (Peter Fonagy).

The recent explosion of new research about infants, parental care, and infant-parent relationships has shown conclusively that human relationships are central motivators and organizers in development. Relationships in Development examines the practical implications for dynamic psychotherapy with both adults and children, especially following trauma. Stephen Seligman offers engaging examples of infant-parent interactions as well as of psychotherapeutic process. He traces the place of childhood and child development in psychoanalysis from Freud onward, showing how different images about babies evolved and influenced analytic theory and practice. Relationships in Development offers a new integration of ideas that updates established psychoanalytic models in a new context: "Relational-developmental psychoanalysis." Seligman integrates four crucial domains: Infancy Research, including attachment theory and research Developmental Psychoanalysis Relational/intersubjective Psychoanalysis Classical Freudian, Kleinian, and Object Relations theories (including Winnicott). An array of specific sources are included: developmental neuroscience, attachment theory and research, studies of emotion, trauma and infant-parent interaction, and nonlinear dynamic systems theories. Although new psychoanalytic approaches are featured, the classical theories are not neglected, including the Freudian, Kleinian, Winnicottian, and Ego Psychology orientations. Seligman links current knowledge about early experiences and how they shape later development with the traditional psychoanalytic attention to the irrational, unconscious, turbulent, and unknowable aspects of the mind and human interaction. These different fields are taken together to offer an open and flexible approach to psychodynamic therapy with a variety of patients in different socioeconomic and cultural situations. Relationships in Development will appeal to psychoanalysts, psychoanalytic psychotherapists, and graduate students in psychology, social work, and psychotherapy. The fundamental issues and implications presented will also be of great importance to the wider psychodynamic and psychotherapeutic communities.

With new discussions by Theodore Jacobs and Regina Pally Adult psychoanalysis has approached the study of intersubjectivity by concentrating primarily on the verbal dialogue, an explicit mode of communication. Infant research, on the other hand, focuses on nonverbal communication and implicit modes of action sequences, operating largely out of awareness, such as interactions of gaze, facial expression, and body rhythms. This book proposes that an integration of these two approaches is essential to a deeper understanding of the therapeutic action. The authors use a dyadic systems model of self- and interactive regulation as a lens for comparing diverse theories of intersubjectivity, both in adults and infants. Building on the definition of intersubjectivity in infancy as correspondence and matching of expressions, the authors offer an expanded view of the presymbolic origins of intersubjectivity. They address the place of interactive regulation, problems with the concept of matching, the roles of self-regulation and of difference, and the balance of self- and interactive regulation. An adult treatment of early trauma is described through detailed clinical case material illustrating both the verbal narrative and the implicit "action dialogue" operating largely outside of awareness. This book includes new discussions by Theodore Jacobs, arguing that nonverbal communication is vitally important to psychoanalysis, and by Regina Pally, arguing that aspects of this book have parallels in neuroscience.

This eloquent book translates attachment theory and research into an innovative framework that grounds adult psychotherapy in the facts of childhood development. Advancing a model of treatment as transformation through relationship, the author integrates attachment theory with neuroscience, trauma studies, relational psychotherapy, and the psychology of mindfulness. Vivid case material illustrates how therapists can tailor interventions to fit the attachment needs of their patients, thus helping them to generate the internalized secure base for which their early relationships provided no foundation. Demonstrating the clinical uses of a focus on nonverbal interaction, the book describes powerful techniques for working with the emotional responses and bodily experiences of patient and therapist alike.

Neurobiological research helps explain the experience of motherhood. This book, the exciting collaboration of a developmental psychoanalyst at the forefront of functional magnetic resonance attachment research and a leading neurobiological researcher on mirror neurons, presents a fresh and innovative look at intersubjectivity from a neurobiological and developmental perspective. Grounding their analysis of intersubjectivity in the newest advances from developmental neuroscience, modern attachment theory, and relational psychoanalysis, Massimo Ammaniti and Vittorio Gallese illustrate how brain development changes simultaneously with relationally induced alterations in the subjectivities of both mother and infant. Ammaniti and Gallese combine extensive current interdisciplinary research with in-depth clinical interviews that highlight the expectant mother’s changing subjective states and the various typologies of maternal representations. Building on Gallese’s seminal work with mirror neurons and embodied simulation theory, the authors construct a model of intersubjectivity that stresses not symbolic representations but intercorporeality from a second-person perspective. Charting the prenatal and perinatal events that serve as the neurobiological foundation for postnatal reciprocal affective communications, they conclude with direct clinical applications of early assessments and interventions, including interventions with pregnant mothers. This volume is essential for clinicians specializing in attachment disorders and relational trauma, child psychotherapists, infant mental health workers, pediatricians, psychoanalysts, and developmental researchers. It combines fascinating new information and illustrative clinical experience to illustrate the early intersubjective origins of our own and our patients’ internal worlds.

Since the publication of Self Experiences in Group in 1998—the first book to apply self psychology and intersubjectivity to group work—there have been tremendous advancements in the areas of affect, attachment, infant research, intersubjective regulation, motivational theory, neurobiology, philosophy, somatic understanding, and trauma. Carefully edited by Irene Harwood, Walter Stone, and Malcolm Pines, Self Experiences in Group, Revisited is a completely revised and updated application of self-psychological and intersubjective perspectives to couples, family, and group work, incorporating many of these recent findings and theories of the past decade. Divided into five sections, the contributors take an updated approach to the prenate and neonate in group; couples and the family in group; group theory, technique, and application; working with trauma; and group processes and artistic applications. Throughout, the reader is engaged in affectively understanding what is experienced by individuals in the regulation and dysregulation of self as part of the interpersonal relating, learning, and change that can occur in groups. Contributors: Mary Dluhy, Barbara Feld, Darryl Feldman, Vivian Gold, Irene Harwood, Gloria Batkin Kahn, Joseph Lichtenberg, Louisa Livingston, Marty Livingston, Jane van Loon, Judy McLaughlin-Ryan, Malcolm Pines, John Schlapobersky, Robert Schulte, Rosemary Segalla, Emanuel Shapiro, Walter Stone, Paula Thomson