Anxiously Attached: Understanding and Working with Preoccupied Attachment

by Linda Cundy (Editor)

Anxiously attached individuals feel chronically insecure and their relationships are often intense, angry, and enmeshed. In the spectrum of anxious attachment, some people tip into states of acute rumination following specific life events, while an extreme manifestation may be thought of as "borderline borderline" - inescapable brooding, raging, and inability to separate. Preoccupied clients can be difficult to work with, and these therapies often feel stuck or end badly.Anxiously Attached contains four papers presented at a conference in February 2016. They address the origins of anxious attachment in specific features of parent-infant relationships, findings from research about developmental aspects, typical features, concerns, and defences in adults, and how these may be presented in psychotherapy. Enmeshed dynamics in adult relationships, including the therapeutic relationship, are also highlighted, where threat of separation and loss activate intense attachment seeking.The aim is to increase understanding of preoccupied clients from an attachment perspective, to recognise the nature of their anxieties and resistances, and propose specific skills for therapeutic work.Contributors are Dr Amanda Jones (parent-infant psychotherapist), Dr Steve Farnfield (attachment researcher and child therapist), Linda Cundy (attachment-based psychoanalytic psychotherapist) and Anne Power (attachment-based psychotherapist with individuals and couples). Dr Maggie Turp provides the Introduction.

Genres: Psychology, Parenting

128 pages, ebook

Published August 31, 2017

Reviews

[Eugene Pustoshkin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a short book with four chapters and an introduction, wholly devoted to the anxious-preoccupied type of attachment dysfunction. Quite useful for deepening one’s clinical understanding.

[Elena (bookinistka) · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very interesting read for therapists.

[Clara Vu · Rating 4 out of 5]

ms cundy really called me bpd-lite

[David Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book for understanding preoccupied attachment. I like the combination of attachment theory with the psychodynamic approach - really illuminates the inner dynamics of the attachment style.