ABSTRACT
A TIACHMENT THEORY ORIGINATED within the domain of psychoanalysis, and like much of psychoanalytic theory examines the
influence of early development upon both healthy and pathological forms of psychological functioning (Bowlby, 1969). Both attachment theory and its accompanying research paradigms differ from traditional psychoanalytic perspectives, however, in (a) focusing on the evolutionary origins or the adaptive (biological) function of the child's
tie to its mother and relatedly, (b) encouraging a simultaneously ethological and experimental approach to research. Early research in attachment had perhaps rightly been criticized for placing too great an emphasis on the observation of behavior at the expense of an examination of internal processes. In recent years, however, significant progress has been made within the field of attachment, and ways of systematically approaching the study of representational processes in children and in adults have been developed (Main, Kaplan and Cassidy, 1985).
