John Bowlby, Attachment Theory and Psychotherapy – Professor Jeremy Holmes

Get early access to our latest psychology lectures: If you are interested in a ’deeper dive’ on this subject, check out our online course on Attachment Theory here: In the world of psychotherapy, John Bowlby was — and to some extent still is — an ambiguous figure. Trained as a psychoanalyst, and with a powerful academic mind, he was keen to place his discipline on a firm scientific footing. In his attempts to do so he alienated the psychoanalytic community, who felt that he had sidelined the role of the unconscious, and replaced the experiential creativity of mind with a mechanistic model. I shall describe this history, and then outline where I see the role of attachment in contemporary psychotherapeutic thinking. I shall address the themes of mentalising, the ‘ambiguous therapist’ (ambiguity again!), epistemic trust and the neurobiological underpinnings of the therapeutic relationship. I will conclude with some guidelines for the practice of att