Seminal writings

Authored by Henry Strick van Linschoten

A few of the large number of references, which only touch the enormous basis of books, articles and websites devoted to attachment, are worth highlighting as next steps for a psychotherapist who, in addition to face to face professional development, would like to deepen their knowledge of attachment theory by reading.

Out of all books, the first to read is Bowlby (1988), which has lost none of its vivid readability and practical relevance. A second book that it is hard to be without, despite its size and cost, is the Handbook of Attachment, Cassidy & Shaver (2008). It may seem forbiddingly long and heavy, but the average chapter is only 25 pages, not all of them need to be read, but a number of chapters are pretty indispensable in their scope and practical utility. For adult attachment Mikulincer & Shaver (2007) is very helpful and thorough; for the clinical application of client attachment patterns, Wallin (2007) is the prime source; for mentalization, one recent overview book with clinical focus is Allen et al. (2008).

And here is a list of articles, all of which very readable, which in an easy way fit with and expand on this study aid: