The Search for the Secure Base: Attachment Theory and Psychotherapy

The Search for the Secure Base introduces an exciting new attachment paradigm in psychotherapy with adults, describing the principles and practice of attachment-informed therapy in a way that will be useful to beginners and experienced therapists alike. Based on the scientific foundations of attachment theory and research, Jeremy Holmes identifies the areas within which attachment-informed therapy operates, including secure base, exploration and pleasure, anger and protest, and loss. Therapeutic techniques including providing a secure base, methods of listening and responding, facilitation of emergent meaning and reflexive practice. Jeremy Holmes uses a wide range of clinical and literary examples to illustrate these techniques, and discusses topics such as Basic Fault, the intergenerational transmission of attachment insecurity, and working with traumatized and abused clients. Viewing attachment-based therapy as a variant of object relations, the book argues strongly for a rapprochement between psychoanalysis and attachment theory.