Attachment Theory and Psychoanalysis. By Peter Fonagy. New York:  Other Press, 2001.  262 pages.

This book offers a concise, useful, thought-provoking overview of attachment theory in the context of contemporary psychoanalysis, while also providing a meaningful background for the author's more recent publications. Few analysts possess the depth and breadth of scholarship that Peter Fonagy brings to bear in presenting his ideas. The clarity of his presentation is welcome, and the contents of this book are clinically relevant, research based, and theoretically rigorous.

Attachment theory has had a rather beleaguered history. It dates back to Bowlby's widely read and widely criticized work, which was carried out in the 1960s and has been greatly expanded since then. Many factors have played a role in the marginalization of Bowlby's contributions. Some infant and child researchers interested in Bowlby's work came from academic empirical sciences and observational research settings; they were not familiar, for the most part, with the fundamentals of psychoanalytic theory and practice. Bowlby's novel ideas often seemed questionable and difficult for them to embrace. Among psychoanalysts, Bowlby's attachment theory was first vigorously criticized and then largely ignored. Criticism came in part because of his unorthodox view that social bonds are a primary given (rather than derived from drive expression), and because he emphasized observation of the child's reality, rather than focusing on the inner representational world that was of interest to more orthodox analysts. He was criticized even more sharply for allegedly renouncing the unconscious and the centrality of the Oedipus complex, as well as for negating the importance of affects rooted in the infant's bodily experience and of those arising in the context of adaptation and socialization. He was also taken to task for viewing physical separation as the primary source of motivation, for underestimating the role of developmental stages of the ego in understanding the impact of attachment and loss, and for all but i