Attachment Theory and Psychosis: Current Perspectives and Future Directions is the first book to provide a practical guide to using attachment theory in the assessment, formulation and treatment of a range of psychological problems that can arise as a result of experiencing psychosis. Katherine Berry, Sandra Bucci and Adam N. Danquah, along with an international selection of contributors, expertly explore how attachment theory can inform theoretical understanding of the development of psychosis, psychological therapy and mental health practice with service users with psychosis. In the first section of the book, contributors describe the application of attachment theory to the understanding of paranoia, voice-hearing, negative symptoms, and relationship difficulties in psychosis. In the second section of the book, the contributors consider different approaches to working therapeutically with psychosis and demonstrate how these approaches draw on the key principles of attachment theory. In the final section, contributors address individual and wider organisation perspectives, including a voice-hearer perspective on formulating the relationship between voices and life history, how attachment principles can be used to organise the provision of mental health services, and the influence of mental health workers’ own attachment experiences on therapeutic work. The book ends by summarising current perspectives and highlighting future directions. Written by leading mental health practitioners and researchers, covering a diverse range of professional backgrounds, topics and theroetical schools, this book is significant in guiding clinicians, managers and commissioners in how attachment theory can inform everyday practice. Attachment Theory and Psychosis: Current Perspectives and Future Directions will be an invaluable resource for mental health professionals, especially psychologists and other clinicians focusing on humanistic treatments, as well as postgraduate students training in these areas.

In the fifty years since its inception, John Bowlby’s attachment theory has been powerfully influential on developmental psychology and, more recently, mental health. Bringing together the experience of a diverse range of mental health practitioners and researchers who routinely use attachment theory in their own work, Attachment Theory in Adult Mental Health provides a guide to using attachment theory in everyday practice. Adam N. Danquah and Katherine Berry present a wide-ranging and practical approach to the topic which includes studies on clinical practice, the provision of mental health services and accommodating intercultural perspectives. Section One covers the basics of attachment theory and practice. Section Two presents clinical problems and presentations including, among others, the treatment of depression, anxiety disorders, psychosis, personality disorder and eating disorders. Section Three addresses the needs of specific populations, discussing the influence of sociocultural factors like gender, ethnicity and age. Finally, Section Four examines the organisation and the practitioner, including using the theory to organise services and how individual therapists can integrate their own attachment histories into their approach. Including the most up-to-date theories and practice in the field, Attachment Theory in Adult Mental Health is ideal for psychologists and psychological therapists, counsellors, psychiatrists, occupational therapists, social workers and mental health service managers and commissioners.

Psychoanalysis Meets Psychosis proposes a major revision of the psychoanalytic theory of the most severe mental illnesses including schizophrenia. Freud believed that psychosis is the consequence of a biologically determined inability to attain and sustain a normal or neurotic mental organization. Michael Robbins proposes instead that psychosis is the outcome of a different developmental pathway. Conscious mind functions in two qualitatively different ways, primordial conscious mentation and reflective representational thought, and psychosis is the result of persistence of a primordial mental process, which is adaptive in infancy, in later situations in which it is neither appropriate nor adaptive. In Part I Robbins describes how the medical model of psychosis underlies the current approach of both psychiatry and psychoanalysis, despite the fact that neuroscience has failed to confirm the model’s basic organic assumption. In Part II Robbins examines two of Freud’s models of psychosis that are based on the assumption of a constitutional inability to develop a normal or neurotic mind. The theories of succeeding generations of analysts have for the most part reiterated the biases of Freud’s two models, so that psychoanalysis considers the psychoses beyond its scope. In Part III Robbins proposes that the psychoses are the result of disturbances in the attachment-separation phase of development, leading to maladaptive persistence of a primordial form of mental activity related to Freud’s primary process. Finally, in Part IV Robbins describes a psychoanalytic approach to treatment based on his model. The book is richly illustrated with material from Robbins’ clinical practice. Psychoanalysis Meets Psychosis has the potential to undo centuries of alienation between society and psychotic persons. The book offers an understanding of severe mental illness that will be novel and inspiring not only to psychoanalysts but to all mental health professionals.

The Editors have a good reputation in this field. The book also has a good line-up of contributors. Provides a new approach to understanding the experience of psychosis that will have implications for clinicians, patients and researchers.

Staying Well After Psychosis Staying Well After Psychosis is extremely readable, based on solid research evidence and packed full of clinical insights and strategies that will satisfy any clinician seeking innovative approaches to the promotion of recovery from psychosis. Anthony P. Morrison, Professor of Clinical Psychology, University of Manchester, UK Over the past decade our understanding of the experience of psychosis has changed dramatically. As part of this change, a range of psychological models of psychosis and associated interventions have developed. Staying Well After Psychosis presents an individually based psychological intervention targeting emotional recovery and relapse prevention. This approach considers the cognitive, interpersonal and developmental aspects involved in recovery and vulnerability to the recurrence of psychosis. Andrew Gumley and Matthias Schwannauer provide a framework for recovery and staying well that focuses on emotional and interpersonal adaptation to psychosis. This practical manual covers, in detail, all aspects of the therapeutic process of Cognitive Interpersonal Therapy, including: Taking a developmental perspective on help seeking and affect regulation. Supporting self-reorganisation and adaptation after acute psychosis. Understanding and treating traumatic reactions to psychosis. Working with feelings of humiliation, entrapment, loss and fear of recurrence. Working with cognitive interpersonal schemata. Developing coping in an interpersonal context. Clinical psychologists, psychiatrists and mental health professionals will find this innovative treatment manual to be a valuable resource in their work with adults and adolescents. This book will also be of interest to lecturers and students of clinical psychology and mental health.

This volume applies attachment theory and methods to extend our understanding and prediction of psychopathology. Studies of such populations as divorced mothers, chronically ill infants, Romanian adoptees, children of mothers with anxiety disorders, and boys with gender identity disorder reveal a variety of clinical implications and highlight issues for attachment theory. Chapters utilize research into a recently discovered form of attachment, the disorganized pattern, as well as new technologies for classifying attachment security beyond infancy. This book should be of interest to practioners, researchers, and students of clinical and developmental psychology, psychiatry, pediatrics, and social work, as well as other professionals concerned with human development.

This volume provides an in-depth examination of traditional and emerging measures of attachment behavior and representations from infancy to adulthood. Leading authorities share their expertise on the Strange Situation, the Attachment Q-set, Ainsworth's Maternal Sensitivity Scales, the Adult Attachment Interview, the Attachment Script Assessments, and the Adult Attachment Projective Picture System, as well as analogue and experimental methods. The book clarifies the conceptual and empirical underpinnings of the various measures and shows how they fit into a coherent developmental framework. Offering detailed discussions of key constructs such as attachment security, the secure base phenomenon, disorganization, and narrative structure, this is a valuable resource for both researchers and practitioners who use attachment assessments in their work.

This state-of-the-art work has been highly praised for bridging the divide between adult and developmental psychopathology. The volume illuminates the interplay of biological, cognitive, affective, and social-environmental factors that place individuals at risk for psychological disturbance throughout development. Childhood-onset and adult forms of major disorders are examined in paired chapters by prominent clinical researchers. An integrative third chapter on each disorder then summarizes what is known about continuity and change in vulnerability across the lifespan. Implications for assessment, treatment, and prevention are also considered.

Now completely revised (over 90% new), this is the authoritative diagnostic manual grounded in psychodynamic clinical models and theories. Explicitly oriented toward case formulation and treatment planning, PDM-2 offers practitioners an empirically based, clinically useful alternative or supplement to DSM and ICD categorical diagnoses. Leading international authorities systematically address personality functioning and psychological problems of infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age, including clear conceptualizations and illustrative case examples. Purchasers get access to a companion website where they can find additional case illustrations and download and print five reproducible PDM-derived rating scales in a convenient 8 1/2" x 11" size. New to This Edition *Significant revisions to all chapters, reflecting a decade of clinical, empirical, and methodological advances. *Chapter with extended case illustrations, including complete PDM profiles. *Separate section on older adults (the first classification system with a geriatric section). *Extensive treatment of psychotic conditions and the psychotic level of personality organization. *Greater attention to issues of culture and diversity, and to both the clinician's and patient's subjectivity. *Chapter on recommended assessment instruments, plus reproducible/downloadable diagnostic tools. *In-depth comparisons to DSM-5 and ICD-10-CM throughout. Sponsoring associations include the International Psychoanalytical Association, Division 39 of the American Psychological Association, the American Psychoanalytic Association, the International Association for Relational Psychoanalysis & Psychotherapy, the American Association for Psychoanalysis in Clinical Social Work, and five other organizations. Winner--American Board and Academy of Psychoanalysis Book Prize (Clinical Category)

Adult Attachment: A Concise Introduction to Theory and Research is an easy-to-read and highly accessible reference on attachment that deals with many of the key concepts and topics studied within attachment theory. This book is comprised of a series of chapters framed by common questions that are typically asked by novices entering the field of attachment. The content of each chapter focuses on answering this overarching question. Topics on the development of attachment are covered from different levels of analysis, including species, individual, and relationship levels, working models of attachment, attachment functions and hierarchies, attachment stability and change over time and across situations, relationship contexts, the cognitive underpinnings of attachment and its activation of enhancement via priming, the interplay between the attachment behavioral system and other behavioral systems, the effects of context on attachment, the contribution of physiology/neurology and genetics to attachment, the associations/differences between attachment and temperament, the conceptualization and measurement of attachment, and the association between attachment and psychopathology/therapy. TEDx talk: The Power of (Secure) Love by Omri Gillath: https://youtu.be/PgIQv-rTGgA - Uses a question-and-answer format to address the most important topics within attachment theory - Presents information in a simple, easy-to-understand way to ensure accessibility for novices in the field of attachment - Covers the main concepts and issues that relate to attachment theory, thus ensuring readers develop a strong foundation in attachment theory that they can then apply to the study of relationships - Addresses future directions in the field of attachment theory - Concisely covers material, ensuring scholars and professionals can quickly get up-to-speed with the most recent research