As you and my other loyal readers know, I am constantly looking for effective ways to integrate the best concepts from Attachment Theory, Differentiation Theory and Neuroscience into my couples work.  As far back as 1995, I set up a live debate between Harville Hendrix, David Schnarch and myself on this topic. In my consultation groups we are always working to push the edges of these theories and apply them to challenging couples, learning how to distinguish when to use interventions from each of these theories.

Recently I made the happy discovery that Psychotherapy Networker magazine was organizing a similar discussion called,  “The Great Attachment Debate.”  Rich Simon, the editor, is an excellent interviewer. He collected 6 experts in this area to discuss the pros and cons of Attachment Theory, trying to understand whether or not it is even relevant.

I am hopeful we can continue this dialogue here. For my June and July newsletters, I am going to summarize what the “experts” had to say, summarizing one hour interviews into brief synopses of the main points, with hopes of agitating you to jump into the discussion and report on your experiences with these models, especially your experience using them with your couple clients.

The 6 experts interviewed were Alan Sroufe, Jerome Kagan, Dan Siegel, David Schnarch, Sue Johnson and Alan Schore.

Alan Sroufe, a leading attachment researcher on the Minnesota Longitudinal Study, began the debate stating that 40 years of research has supported Bowlby’s ideas about Attachment theory. Based on John Bowlby’s work, Sroufe followed 180 children born into poverty. He authored The Development of the Person: The Minnesota Study of Risk and Adaptation from Birth to Adulthood. He makes a strong case for Attachment being a Developmental Theory, reminding us that Bowlby strongly emphasized the importance of actual experience.  It is the quality of experience in infancy that allows babies to learn how to elicit positive (or negative) reactions from others. His data shows that troubled children (in latency and adolescence) with positive secure attachment are more likely to recover in adulthood than troubled children who did not have early secure attachment. He also found that children with histories of anxious attachment are more likely to have problems in adolescence than are the securely attached children. He describes the infancy experience as essential, but not more important than later experience. It does however form the foundation for healthy development.

Next, along came Jerome Kagan, a Daniel and Amy Starch Research Professor of Psychology, Emeritus at Harvard University, and co-faculty at the New England Complex Systems Institute. He strongly confronted therapists’ comfort with Attachment theory. He proclaims that the case for Attachment Theory is dead. He explains that it is an idea that is way, way overstated and that most child development researchers abandoned this theory long ago. He says clinicians find it much more compelling than any child development researchers. In fact, he is not even certain that Attachment can be measured in the “Strange Situation” lab experiment. The lab is an unfamiliar environment. In his research, babies who cried in the lab also cried more at home.

He concurs that there is no disagreement across professions that variations of experience do occur in early bonding. However, he states that the empirical data do not support the idea that consequences from the early bond persist into adulthood. He believes that temperament is more significant and has shown that an infant's “temperament” is quite stable over time

For Kagan, “Social class is a far better predictor of adult outcome than anything measured in the Strange Situation.” The three factors that most strongly predict anxiety, depression, addiction and college graduation are 1) social class 2) temperament, and in a very distant 3rd place, what happens in the first year of life.

He believes that Bowlby’s ideas were so popular because he was writing post-World war II.  After the horror of the genocidal killings and bombings, people were craving gentleness, the value of nurturance and thus the cultural context supported Bowlby’s ideas.

If you are mainly a systemic thinker, you will resonate with his position that, “Most importantly, identification with social class never goes away.” And you might enjoy the title of one of his publications, “The temperamental thread. How genes, culture, time, and luck make us who we are.”

Next Dan Siegel, an innovator in interpersonal neurobiology and  a clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine presents another way to think about the importance of Attachment.  He states that sub-optimal attachment results in impaired brain integration. And, that of course a lack of brain integration will have long lasting effects.

He states that genes, relational influences and experience all contribute to forming synaptic connections in the brain. Health emerges from increased brain integration and that lack of health derives from impediments to integration in the form of either blockages to linkage or differentiation.

In his interview with Rich, Dan focuses more on the process of therapy. He states that effective therapy helps to integrate the brain in terms of increasing vertical or bilateral integration. To do this, therapy might involve medication, meditation, neuroplasticity training, or SNAGing interventions (Stimulating Neural Activation and Growth) and increasing and developing the fundamental aspects of good relationships.

I love the richness of these different points of view. It makes me realize how much we still don’t know about early development and brain development, in spite of all the recent scientific advances in the field. However, for all of us who work with couples, it is undeniable that the quality of connection/attachment is crucial to how partners feel being together.

Please share your reflections and join me again next month, when I’ll summarize the other three presenters in my next newsletter/blog post.

Our resource called “In Quest of the Mythical Mate Kit” is a 10-hour audio set with workbook and other materials for couples therapists. It integrates some important childhood development ideas into the practice of couples therapy. Click here to find out more or order.