Intimate Attachments

Reviews / Votes

The authors of Intimate Attachments are consummate integrationists. They masterfully weave together conceptual strands from classical analysis, self psychology, intersubjectivity theory, motivational systems theory, attachment theory, infant research, and principles of nonlinear systems into a comprehensive, multidimensional, developmentally based psychoanalytic framework that is both a significant theoretical advance and extremely useful clinically. The therapeutic implications of this framework, emphasizing the transformative potential of positive new experiences with the analyst, are immensely important and thought-provoking. --Robert D. Stolorow, PhD, Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis, Los Angeles

Shane, Shane and Gales' new book, Intimate Attachments, is a brilliant integration of systems theory, attachment research and self psychology. Their application of the theory of bi-directional co-construction to the clinical encounter, and to the role of a mutual intimate attachment in therapeutic change, richly expands our understanding of the analyst's as well as the patient's development. This is an enormously valuable book for the practicing clinician, richly illustrated with clinical examples, written in a fresh, accessible style. --Beatrice Beebe, PhD, Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University, New York, Faculty member at NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, The Institute for the Psychoanalytic Study of Subjectivity, Columbia University Psychoanalytic Center

This is a masterful integration of self-psychology, attachment theory, and developmental systems perspectives. The authors do a superb job of extracting the major principles from each of these perspectives in a clear and cogent manner. There is a strong connection with contemporary research and theory in developmental psychology; because of this the authors preserve and yet transform psychoanalytic theory, and in so doing revitalize it as a clinical framework. The book is beautifully written. It is thoroughly lucid and engaging. --L. Alan Sroufe, PhD, Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota

A book so clear, cogent, and compelling that the reader is able to see its fundamental and revolutionary message as unassailable. The authors reposition psychoanalysis as a developmental experience and support their perspective with elegance and enthusiasm. --Arnold Goldberg, MD, Professor of Psychiatry, Rush Medical College; Training and Supervising Analysis, Institute for Psychoanalysis, Chicago

This is a remarkable and outstanding achievement. It is the best integration of psychoanalytic theory and attachment theory available so far. It reflects the authors' rich experience of the self-psychology tradition and a remarkable grasp of the attachment literature. It succeeds where many others have failed in showing the value of integrating these related and expanding bodies of work rather than carping from the sidelines of the inadequacies of one or other approaches. It is a genuine work of integration which could dramatically advance the field. The authors are to be congratulated for the imagination and sensitivity with which they identify clinically pertinent aspects of attachment theory and combine this and use compelling clinical illustrations to bring the theoretical integration alive and relevant to clinical work. --Peter Fonagy, Freud Memorial Professor of Psychoanalysis, University of London
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