The introduction of attachment theory to couples therapy

In recent years a groundswell of huge proportions has begun to impact the practice of marital therapy. This lies in the application of attachment theory pioneered by John Bowlby. Mary Ainsworth and Mary Main to the understanding and treatment of couples. Exemplified by the work of Sue Johnson and Les Greenberg, the foundations of this approach is the understanding that marital attachment is largely an adult expression of primary attachment styles learned in early childhood. A central point made by attachment theorists is that psychological differentiation follows after the creation of attachment in the developmental process; hence, it is reasoned that in marriage the same sequencing is important. The argument here is that to grow differentiation in a marital relationship without first growing attachment is to grow differentiation without a solid relational foundation upon which the marital differentiation can rest; that differentiation is only healthy when it is based upon the security of safe home-based attachment. That such differentiation ends up missing emotional depth and emotional connection. This is a very different view from those marital therapists who argue that initial differentiation is the necessary foundation for secure self-other relating. In the differentiation school of thought it is only in getting fully separate from one’s partner that one is then able to fully and richly “see” and “hear” and “experience” ones partner. From the differentiation perspective, it is the experience of psychological apartness that then enables a a taking down of negative projecting onto ones partner that then enables reattachment within the marriage. The thought here is that it is the taking down of projections that creates a renewed sense of safety with one’s partner.