Title: Imagining Fear: Attachment, Threat, and Psychic Experience
Abstract: AbstractAttachment theory is today considered an integral part of contemporary psychoanalytic theory and practice, and yet the theoretical and clinical implications of Bowlby's emphasis on fear and the search for safety have been largely overlooked. From Bowlby's perspective, the dynamic relationship between the experience of threat and attachment shapes the development and maintenance of essential relationships, the organization of psychic structure, and the nature of defenses and adaptation. This element of attachment theory—which alerts us to the ways in which the infant or child is compelled to seek safety when in a state of fearful arousal—is particularly relevant to the clinical situation. It helps us imagine moments of fearful arousal in our patients' pasts, attend to their manifestations in the present, and understand current suffering in light of the long-term sequelae of adaptations that were crucial to survival. Finally, it helps us find language that brings alive or mentalizes these aspects of the patient's early experience such that transformation is possible. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSThis paper is based on the John Bowlby Memorial Lecture, delivered in London on April 26, 2008, and the Robert S. Wallerstein Lecture, delivered in San Francisco on March 23, 2011. I am enormously grateful to Richard Bowlby and the Center for Attachment-Based Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy in London for inviting me to give the John Bowlby Memorial Lecture. Writing the Bowlby Lecture was the impetus to begin formulating the ideas presented here. I am also deeply indebted to Steve Seligman for the many ways that he both nurtured and sharpened my thinking; I could not have hoped for a better editor. Huge thanks also to Mary Target, for her incisive read of the paper at a critical juncture, and to Larry Aber, Jude Cassidy, Nancy Crown, Erik Hesse, Jeremy Holmes, Alicia Lieberman, Mary Main, Patty and Tom Rosbrow, Alan and June Sroufe, Steve Tuber, Kaethe Weingarten, and Lissa Weinstein, each of whom supported this work in crucial ways. Finally, I thank Lou Breger, whose brilliant book on Freud's own relationship to fear was an inspiration to me (Freud: Darkness in the Midst of Vision, Wiley, 2000).Notes1. 1The relative failure of psychoanalysis to emphasize this element of attachment theory is particularly surprising given the past two decades' work on the role of fear in the development of disorganized infant attachment and unresolved adult attachment (Carlson, Citation1998; Hesse & Main, Citation1999; Lyons-Ruth, Bronfman, & Atwood, Citation1999; Main & Hesse, Citation1990; Main & Solomon, Citation1990), as well as Lieberman and her colleagues' work on trauma and early attachment (Lieberman & Van Horn, Citation2008). Indeed, it was an offhand but trenchant comment by Karlen Lyons-Ruth (personal communication, April, 2003) that first really alerted me to the role of fear in attachment.2. 2In line with contemporary attachment theory, I use the term "caregiver" here, in order to avoid some of the inherent problems with assuming the person caring for a child is necessarily the mother.3. 3See Breger (Citation2000) for a discussion of how these aspects of Freud's theory may be seen as adaptations to his own early relational experiences, and in particular his history of loss and trauma.4. 4Of interest, a number of mother–infant interventions have focused specifically on helping mothers both recognize and regulate their infants' fear, and to avoid frightening their babies (i.e., Fraiberg, Citation1980; Powell, Cooper, Hoffman, & Marvin, Citation2013).5. 5I thank Alicia Lieberman for this wonderful metaphor.Additional informationNotes on contributorsArietta SladeArietta Slade, Ph.D., is Clinical Professor, Yale Child Study Center and Professor Emerita, The City College and Graduate Center, City University of New York.
Publication Year: 2014
Publication Date: 2014-05-04
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 59
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