Attachment Theory |

Trauma and Attachment

The John Bowlby Memorial Conference Series is the culmination of a collective journey in which we, as John Bowlby Centre conference organizers, share our clinical work, theoretical understanding, and questions about what might be missing in the literature and what may contribute to a deeper appreciation of our clients and ourselves. These conferences have evolved out of our response to clients who have sought our help in their bid to survive vivid experiences of trauma in all its various forms, whether endured first hand or transmitted intergenerationally. This monograph continues that journey of exploration.

Paradigms in Psychoanalysis

At nearly 80, I thought it could be useful to share with readers my experience of nearly fifty years in the field of psychoanalytic psychotherapy.  In addition to my clinical work, four basic experiences converge in this book.

First, after receiving my medical degree in Milan, I trained in genetics and evolutionary theory in Pavia with Cavalli-Sforza, a specialist in human genetics who later moved to the USA. After this, I turned to the field of psychiatry and trained in New York in 1963-64 with Silvano Arieti, who belonged to the interpersonal-cultural school founded in 1943 by Sullivan and Fromm, and whose books I later translated into Italian. In New York, I also attended a course in sociology at the New School for Social Research, where Fromm, and before him, Ferenczi, had lectured.

In 1982 I started to correspond with John Bowlby; in 1985 I met him in London to discuss a paper on “Attachment Theory as an Alternative Basis for Psychoanalysis”, which I presented in Zürich later that year; I then kept up my correspondence with Bowlby until his death in 1990.  My reading of Fromm confirmed my interest in the social sciences, and my acquaintance with Bowlby renewed my interest in evolutionary theory.

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