Attachment Theory and Psychoanalysis: Further Differentiation Within Insecure Attachment Patterns

This shift to object relations theories within psychoanalysis is consistent with and, in part, influenced by research in infant development (e.g., Emde, 1983; Litchenberg, 1985; Stern, 1985) and by attachment theory and research (e.g., Bowlby, 1973, 1980, 1982; Ainsworth et al., 1978; Sroufe, 1983; Main, Kaplan, and Cassidy, 1985; Main and Cassidy, 1988). Despite its historical links with psychoanalytic and object relations perspectives, attachment theory has been adopted primarily by investigators in developmental psychology concerned about "normal" development and, until recently, has been relatively neglected by psychoanalytic clinicians. The recent theoretical and empirical work of Mary Main and her colleagues (Main and Goldwyn, 1985; Main et al., 1985; Main and Cassidy, 1988; Main and Hesse, 1990), elaborating on the nature of internal working models of attachment, provides further opportunity to integrate attachment theory and research with object relational theories of mental representations in psychoanalysis.