Touch: Attachment and the Body

by Kate White

For over ten years The Bowlby Memorial Lecture has provided an opportunity for clinicians and researchers to present work at the leading edge in the field of Attachment Theory and its applications. This year’s theme "Touch: Attachment and the Body" was particularly successful in bringing new thinking into these often misunderstood, complex areas of mental health.

"In this welcome collection, Kate White has gathered together the presentations from the tenth John Bowlby Memorial Conference so that we can explore issues of the body and the historically taboo subject of touch in psychoanalysis. The authors, all of whom utilize the framework of contemporary attachment theory, challenge the discipline's neglect of touch and move towards a relational conceptualization of bodies and selves-in-relation. Clinical attention is paid to traumatised patients who have been brought up with little experience of loving touch, as well as to the complex difficulties raised when touch enters the consulting room. This collection demonstrates that although the body may have been under-theorised by attachment theorists, it has always been implicit. Touch: Attachment and the Body is a significant and valuable addition to the exploration of the body in contemporary relational psychoanalysis." — Lewis Aron, Ph.D., Director, New York University, Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. Co-editor with F. S. Anderson, (1998) of Relational Perspectives on the Body, Hillside NJ: Analytic Press.

Contributors include Anne Aiyegbusi, Sarah Benamer, Sarah Jack, Brett Kahr, Bernice Laschinger, Morwenna Opie, Susie Orbach, Margot Sunderland, Colwyn Trevarthen and Kate White

76 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2004

About the author

Kate White is a training therapist, supervisor and teacher at The Bowlby Centre. Formerly a senior lecturer at South Bank University in the Department of Nursing and Community Health Studies, she has used her extensive experience in adult education to contribute to the innovative psychotherapy curriculum developed at The Bowlby Centre. In addition to working as an individual psychotherapist, Kate writes about psychotherapy education and runs workshops on the themes of attachment and trauma in clinical practice.

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