ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the changing theoretical basis of psychoanalytic psychotherapy and relevant findings from psychotherapy research, to use ideas from attachment theory to justify aimlessness. It highlights an attachment perspective to bear on the crucial differences between cognitive-behavioural and psychodynamic therapies. Stiles et al. proposed a piagetian integrative framework in which argues the fundamental task of psychotherapy is what call the 'assimilation of problematic experience'. The initial task is to form a secure base in therapy for the patient, a need to maintain base and to attend to rupture-repair cycles. Psychotherapy research suggests in the face of childhood trauma, reflexive function a crucial determinant of not leads to enduring personality disorder. The capacity for reflexive function is a crucial therapeutic skill. The chapter suggests the therapy to set train the unfolding of a developmental process, within the therapy if it prolonged, or catalyst to 'real life' therapy.
