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One of the saddest aspects of recent developments in psychoanalytic thought has been that its main protagonists often seem unaware of its impact on other disciplines. As a result, in their turn, the workers in these other disciplines are never obliged to communicate more broadly and lapse into ever more specialised jargon of their own. Bartholomew and Perlman's book, based entirely on a theoretical framework developed by a psychoanalyst but couched in terms of academic social science, is one example-of this gulf between groups of allied thinkers. And yet anyone who believes in object-relations theory ought to be grateful to the growing body of academic research workers who seek to make it scientifically testable, and whose concerns therefore involve the intricacies of data collection, measurement systems, reliability and validity. This volume, the fifth in a series on personal relationships, is devoted to John Bowlby's attachment theory and details recent developments in methodology and aetiological research in this field. These features are dealt with clearly and thoroughly but, in the absence of specific subheadings on therapeutic outcome, few psychotherapists will find the motivation to burrow away among the worthy statistics in order to locate the gems of insight which exist among the findings.
The book has four main themes: conceptualisation/measurement, developmental aspects, applications to adult couples, and conceptual extensions of attachment theory to the fields of coping with stress, caregiving (as well as receiving) and religious belief. While the first part is invaluable in its exposition of Bowlby's basic theory of ‘internal working models of relationships’ it is also the part most devoted to academic discussion of methodological issues.
Part two provides more substance. First the Steeles report on the London Parent-Child Project, which revealed the close connections between the attachment style of mothers interviewed in late pregnancy about their childh