Editorial

The burgeoning growth of attachment studies, based on Bowlby's model and developed by researchers such as Ainsworth, Main and Fonagy, has moved psychoanalytic research into alignment with experimental psychology, laying new groundwork for scientific respectability. This most welcome and much needed development in the research field enables predictions to be made about the attachment patterns of infants according to the parent's attachment history, illustrating how disturbed (or secure) relating is transmitted to the next generation. Attachment literature makes significant links with the clinical orientation when detailed observations of attachment behaviour are made in situ that can be applied to clinical understanding, as our first paper by Patricia Hughes and Gill McGauley shows. A mother and her infant were subjects in a large study of families in which a previous child had been stillborn, using videos of mother/infant interaction, the Strange Situation and the Adult Attachment Interview. Separately, weekly baby observations were made over the course of the first year with this vulnerable mother who had not resolved her own separation difficulties, nor sufficiently mourned her stillborn baby. The child was rated ‘avoidant’ and ‘disorganized’ in respect of attachment, observed vividly in interaction with a mother who was hostile and overstimulating towards her child, clearly signalling the type of pattern resulting from maternal unresolved loss that so often shows up in adults in psychotherapy. The potential for this research methodology to develop further in sophistication in observing and documenting not only attachment behaviours but other various types of object relations is immense, and hopefully will continue to grow, informing clinical work as well as further theory and research.

In our work with psychotherapy patients I suspect all practitioners apply their knowledge flexibly, according to the specific needs of the particular patient. As Bion said, one choo