Becoming attached first relationships and how they shape our capacity to love / Robert Karen, Ph.D.
| Author/creator | Karen, Robert author. |
| Format | Book |
| Edition | Second Edition. |
| Publication | New York : Oxford University Press, [2024] |
| Description | xiv, 803 pages ; 24 cm |
| Subjects |
| Contents | Introduction. Does love matter? -- Part I. What do children need? Mother-love : worst-case scenarios -- Enter Bowlby : the search for a theory of relatedness -- Bowlby and Klein : fantasy vs. reality -- Psychopaths in the making : forty-four juvenile thieves -- Call to arms : the world health report -- First battlefield : "a two-year-old goes to hospital" -- Of goslings and babies : the birth of attachment theory -- "What's the use to psychoanalyze a goose?" : turmoil, hostility, and debate -- Monkey love : warm, secure, continuous -- Part II. Breakthrough : the assessment of parenting style. Ainsworth in Uganda -- The strange situation -- Payoff! Ainsworth's revolution -- Part III. The fate of early attachments. The Minnesota studies : parenting style and personality development -- The mother, the father, and the outside world -- Structures of the mind : building a model of human connection -- The black box reopened : Mary Main's Berkeley studies -- Why do we turn out like them? The residue of our parents -- Part IV. Give parents a break! Nature-nurture erupts anew. Born that way? Stella Chess and the difficult child -- The rush to debunk : a new generation of critics -- The fight over the first year -- Renaissance of biological determinism : the twin studies -- A waning of the extremes -- Attachment resurgent -- A rage in the nursery : the infant daycare wars -- Part V. The holding environment. An Athens of infancy : the baby Bowlby left behind -- Being oneself with others : Winnicott's true self -- Life as it is : mourning, integration, and repair -- Astonishing attunements : mothers and babies in slow motion -- The older baby and the family drama : video studies, part two -- And now for something entirely different : the neurobiology of love -- The regulation of self and other : the challenge of Allen Schore -- The (lovingly) reflective parent : seeing the examined life -- Part VI. Fault lines and repairs : the inner lives of anxiously attached children. Fear, guilt, and shame : stalkers of the insecure self -- They are leaning out for love : the survival strategies of insecure children and the prospects for change -- Part VII. Secure base and insecure base : a therapise considers adult attachment. Love and reliance : the secure self in adulthood -- Repetition : why people don't change -- All the discomforts of home : the insecure base -- Beckoning : the fight for the secure self -- Part VIII. The odyssey of an idea. Avoidant society -- Looking back : Bowlby and Ainsworth. |
| Abstract | "Love is the good we all search for, and yet we have different conceptions (and misconceptions) about what it is, ambivalence about how close we want to get to it, doubts about whether we can achieve it or even deserve it. Some of us repeat futile patterns with intimates, mates, and children to the point where we may question whether we are capable of close, satisfying relationships at all. At times it feels as if the shadow of our parents hangs over us like a fate we cannot elude. And we wonder: How much do our childhoods, and especially the quality of our first loving bonds, determine whether we can get love right as adults?"-- Provided by publisher. |
| Abstract | "Becoming Attached tells the story of one of the great undertakings of modern psychology: the hundred-year quest to understand what children need and what constitutes good parenting. In this expanded and fully updated new edition, psychotherapist and journalist Robert Karen chronicles the origin of a groundbreaking idea - attachment theory - and its resounding impact on the fields of developmental psychology, psychiatry, and psychoanalysis. Karen charts the historic course of attachment theory as it gained notoriety and support-and not a little controversy. Do "securely attached" children fare better as adults than "insecurely attached" ones? What do children truly need to thrive? Can babies handle prolonged separations? Presenting the origin story of an important idea in child development, this new edition also reveals how attachment research has exploded worldwide in the past several years as evidence for the benefits of secure attachment continue to grow. Karen explores the cutting-edge science examining the relationship between infants and their caregivers - such as the hidden world of synchronized play, fMRI studies that reveal neural patterns of parental and receptive love, and the link between attachment and genetics, wherein early experience changes the expression of genes. Karen also tells a dramatic story of scientists at work and at war, what happens when a theory such as attachment becomes complicated by political and economic pressures, and how its entanglement with gender roles and equity in the workforce continue to overshadow research to this day. Karen shares anecdotes drawn from his own practice to illuminate the challenges many adults face in overcoming insecurities that may originate in infancy and childhood, and how resulting harmful relationship patterns may be quashed." -- Publisher's description. |
| General note | Revised edition of the author's Becoming attached, 1998. |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| Issued in other form | Online version: Karen, Robert. Becoming attached 2. New York : Oxford University Press, [2023] 9780199398812 |
| LCCN | 2023004727 |
| ISBN | 9780199398799 paperback |
| ISBN | 0199398798 paperback |
| ISBN | electronic book |
| ISBN | electronic book |
| ISBN | electronic book |