Early attachment is viewed as a major organizing principle that may explain important aspects of normal and pathological interpersonal relations across the life cycle – including the therapeutic relationship with patients. (Bowlby 1979) The therapeutic relationship is widely accepted to be the bedrock on which the progress of psychotherapy depends. Attachment theory, with its focus on relationships across the life span, is helpful in understanding the nature and the unfolding of the therapeutic relationship.
That humans are primarily and innately adapted to relatedness with others was proposed by Suttie, (1935) Sullivan (1960) and A. Meares (1961). In the later 1970’s Russell Meares and Robert Hobson further elaborated that the form of relatedness dictates the form of conversation in the psychotherapy situation; and that the form of conversation determines in return the emerging sense of relatedness.
I will briefly describe Attachment Theory (Bowlby 1979) and the different types of attachment, (Bowlby, Ainsworth 1988) and proceed to look at how they inform the development of the therapeutic relationship, and the forms of relatedness required to progress in psychotherapy with the Conversational Model.
