There is increasing and widespread international interest in attachment theory (including policy makers, clinicians and practitioners, graduate students, as well as laypersons). Yet, major researchers as well as important theoretical and empirical contributions are often poorly read and understood, and key texts are not readily accessible together. Indeed, it has been highlighted that misconceptions of the theory are common, even among practitioners putting the theory to work, and that usage of attachment theory have sometimes reflected serious misapplications. We have reasons to believe that part of the issue lies in the fact that important texts about attachment lie in journals behind paywalls or in books that are either not readily available to clinicians and other interested readers, or are too extensive and therefore put readers off. The aim of the proposed book is therefore to provide a book that is sufficiently short and accessible – “a reader” – which will nonetheless provide an interesting and up to date account of attachment theory and its diversity. We therefore propose an “attachment reader” containing reprints of carefully selected book chapters and journal articles, spiced with previously unpublished material by the founder of the theory.

Tommie Forslund, Psychologist, PhD, is a researcher at the Department of Psychology, Stockholm University; and a researcher at SUF Resource Center, Region Uppsala, Sweden. He is a coder of the Strange Situation Procedure, author of an international consensus statement regarding attachment theory and research, and winner of the Society in Emotion and Attachment Studies dissertation award "Excellence in Attachment Research". 

Robbie Duschinsky, PhD, is University Senior Lecturer in Social Sciences in the Primary Care Unit, University of Cambridge; and Director of Studies and a Fellow at Sidney Sussex College. He is the author of Cornerstones of Attachment Research (2020) and, with Kate White, co-editor of Trauma and Loss: Key Texts from the John Bowlby Archive (2019). 

Introduction

Tommie Forslund and Robbie Duschinsky

1 Separation Anxiety (1960)

 John Bowlby

2 Anxiety, Stress and Homeostasis (previously unpublished; written 1969)

 John Bowlby

3 Attachment (1984)

 Mary D. Salter Ainsworth

4 Love as Attachment: The Integration of Three Behavioral Systems (1988)

 Phillip Shaver, Cindy Hazan, and Donna Bradshaw

5 Relationships, Self, and Individual Adaptation (1989)

 L. Alan Sroufe

6 Disorganized/disoriented Infant Behavior in the Strange Situation, Lapses in the  Monitoring of Reasoning and Discourse during the Parent’s Adult Attachment  Interview, and Dissociative States (1992)

 M. Main and E. Hesse.

7 The Prototype Hypothesis and the Origins of Attachment Working Models: Adult  Relationships With Parents and Romantic Partners (1995)

 Gretchen Owens, Judith A. Crowell, Helen Pan, Dominique Treboux,

 Elizabeth O’Connor, and Everett Waters

8 Dynamics of Romantic Love: Comments, Questions, and Future Directions (2006)

 Phillip R. Shaver

9 Integrating Temperament and Attachment: The Differential Susceptibility Paradigm (2012)

 Marinus H. van IJzendoorn and Marian J. Bakermans-Kranenburg

10 Annual Research Review: Attachment Disorders in Early Childhood – Clinical  Presentation, Causes, Correlates, and Treatment (2015)

 Charles H. Zeanah and Mary Margaret Gleason

11 Attachment Disorders Versus more Common Problems in Looked After and Adopted  Children: Comparing Community and Expert Assessments (2015)

 Matt Woolgar and Emma Baldock

12 Attachment in the Early Life Course: Meta-Analytic Evidence for Its Role in  Socioemotional Development (2017)

 Ashley M. Groh, R. M. Pasco Fearon, Marinus H. van IJzendoorn, Marian J.  Bakermans-Kranenburg, and Glenn I. Roisman

13 Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up: Addressing the Needs of Infants and  Toddlers Exposed to Inadequate or Problematic Caregiving (2017)

 Mary Dozier and Kristin Bernard

14 Children’s Multiple Attachment Relationships and Representations in Different  Family Contexts (2021)

 Fabien Bacro, Tommie Forslund, and Pehr Granqvist

15 New Correlates of Disorganization from a West-African Dataset, and

 Shared Rhythmic Touch as a Hidden Pathway to Infant Attachment Security (2021)

 Mary M. True

Index