Representation, Symbolization, and Affect Regulation in the Concomitant Treatment of a Mother and Child: Attachment Theory and Child Psychotherapy

AS EVIDENCED BY THE PRESENT ISSUE, the decades' old standoff between psychoanalysis and attachment theory has in recent years slowly begun to give way to mutually enriching dialogue between psychoanalysts and attachment researchers (Slade and Aber, 1992; Diamond and Blatt, 1994; Osofsky, 1995; Fonagy and Target, 1998; Slade, 1999). This is manifest, on the one hand, in psychoanalysts' increasing interest in the relevance of attachment theory to developmental theory and clinical process and, on the other, in attachment researchers' increasing attention to psychopathology, diagnosis, and developmental deviation. Although there are many ways to understand the softening of the impasse that for so long impeded integration of these two perspectives, there can be little