How important is an understanding of the client’s early attachment experience to the psychodynamic practice of counselling psychology?

Abstract

Content and FocusThis paper will examine how important an understanding of the client’s early attachment experience is to the psychodynamic practice of counselling psychology. This question will not only be addressed through Bowlby’s attachment theory, but also through the psychodynamic approach of Winnicott and will be positioned within counselling psychology’s relational framework. The paper asks whether counselling psychology’s philosophical foundations, which is grounded in two radically different epistemologies, serves as a help or a hindrance to answering this question and what this means for theory and practice. The paper begins with a review of the theory of attachment-related psychodynamics, intersubjectivity and counselling psychology, before moving on to presenting two client examples which will be conceptualised using attachment theory. It concludes with a critique that examines attachment theory’s position within counselling psychology’s conflicted epistemological framework, and finally it argues that the field of counselling psychology can serve as a progressive influence on future research which aims to explore attachment-related dynamics and intersubjectivity.