Abstract
In Chap. 2, we provided a sketch of the internal working model of each attachment style and related patterns of attachment behavior. During a clinical interview or a similar interaction between a health-care provider and a patient, other aspects of communication and interaction can help a clinician acquire a deeper understanding of a patient’s attachment style, which can be very helpful in providing care. Therefore, in order to increase the utility of an attachment perspective in clinical practice, we now describe the aspects of attachment style that are most relevant in these interactions: narrative coherence, mentalizing, affect regulation (particularly the expression of anger), and interpersonal pulls. We will examine how individuals with different attachment styles differ in these domains and how they affect medical care.
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Notes
- 1.
See Chap. 9 for an in-depth discussion of this concept in the context of persistent somatic complaints.
- 2.
Note that the word secure is used in two ways, as the description of a feeling (which suggests the perception of calm and safety) and as the label of a pattern of attachment.
- 3.
Empirically, the expectation that affiliative behaviors pull for a matching response is supported more consistently than the expectation that power responses pull for the opposite response (Leszcz et al. 2014). Under some circumstances, dominance pulls for a competitive dominant response.
- 4.
See Chap. 4.
- 5.
From Osler’s “Address to the Students of the Albany Medical College,” first published in Albany Medical Annals in 1899 and quoted in Silverman and Bryan (2007).
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Hunter, J., Maunder, R. (2016). Advanced Concepts in Attachment Theory and Their Application to Health Care. In: Hunter, J., Maunder, R. (eds) Improving Patient Treatment with Attachment Theory. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23300-0_3
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