Attachment, Intimacy, Autonomy: Using Attachment Theory in Adult Psychotherapy

266 Pages·1996·11.33 MB·English

by  Jeremy Holmes

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
jeremy Holmes, MD, MRCP, FRCPsych, trained in science, medi
cine, and psychiatry at King's College Cambridge, University Col
lege Hospital London, and at the Maudsley Hospital. A consultant
psychiatrist and psychotherapist in North Devon, England, he is
currently a senior clinical lecturer at Bristol University Medical
School. His research interests are in attachment theory and the
treatment of personality disorder, and in the provision of an
integrated psychotherapy service as part of general psychiatry.
Dr. Holmes lectures widely in the UK and internationally, and has
published seven books and over sixty papers on psychotherapy.

Attachment,
Intimacy,
Autonomy

Attach111ent,
Inti111acy,
Autono111y
USING ATIACHMENT THEORY
IN ADULT PSYCHOTHERAPY
jeremy Holmes, MD, MRCP, FRCPsych
JASON ARONSON INC.
Northvale, New Jersey
London
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Copyright@ 1996 by Jason Aronson Inc.
10 9 8 7 6 54
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Holmes, Jeremy.
Attachment, intimacy, autonomy: using attachment theory
in adult psychotherapy I by Jeremy Holmes.
p. em.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN: 978-1-56821-872-4
l. Attachment behavior. 2. Object relations (Psychoanalysis)
3. Psychotherapist and patient. 4. Intimacy (Psychology)
5. Autonomy (Psychology) I. Title.
[DNLM: l. Object Attachment. 2. Psychotherapy. WM 460.5.02
H751a 1996)
RC455.4.A84H65 1996
616.89'14-dc20
DNLMIDLC
for Library of Congress 96-5660
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Manufactured in the United States of America. Jason Aronson Inc. offers books and cas
settes. For information and catalog write to Jason Aronson Inc., 230 Livingston Street,
Northvale, New Jersey 07647.
Acknowledgments
ln 1982, thanks to the generosity of the Welcome Foundation, I
was able to devote the best part of a year to reading, thinking, and
writing about attachment theory (Holmes 1993). Since returning
to my clinical work in the National Health Service I have tried to
apply attachment concepts in the various clinical situations in
which, as a psychotherapist and psychiatrist, I find myself. This
volume is an attempt to communicate these efforts. This process
could not have come about without the help of the "attachment
community"- that invisible college of researchers, theorists, and
clinicians who have found in attachment theory a congenial meet
ing point and source of inspiration. In different ways, I am greatly
indebted to Ursula and Richard Bowlby, John Birtchnell, John
Byng-Hall, Morris Eagle, Peter Fonagy, Paul Griffiths, Victoria
Hamilton, Dorothy Heard, Peter Hobson, Sebastian Kraemer, Mary
Main, Mary Sue Moore, Brian Lake, Pat Sable, and Felicity de
Zulueta, although, of course, I alone am responsible for the infe
licities, unwarranted speculations, and howlers that this work no
doubt contains.
ix
For the grandchildren:
Floyd
and Rosy, Zenta, and Marcus