Becoming Attached: Unfolding the Mystery of the Infant-Mother Bond and Its Impact on Later Life PDF

Rating: (53 reviews) Author: Visit Amazon's Robert Karen Page ISBN : 9780446516341 New from $8.02 Format: PDF

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From Kirkus Reviews

The complex topic of attachment theory is opened up to parents, as well as other interested adults, by putting issues of child development, usually couched in antiseptic academic parlance, in lay terms. Ranging through historical developments in the field, Karen, formerly a psychotherapist in the pediatric unit of Bellevue Hospital, attempts to demystify ``mother love,'' or the bond babies have with their primary caregiver (Karen is also concerned with what happens to babies when that bond is disrupted). The author introduces and defends the English researcher John Bowlby, whose intuitions in the late 1930's about ``maternal attachment'' would be borne out not by his research but by that of Mary Ainsworth decades later. It may be historians and would-be child psychologists to whom this book matters most, for the delineation of who contributed what to the field, and when, puts both attachment theory and psychoanalytic theory into a context of early speculations, later advances, due championing, and (some) tarnishment. Amid occasionally florid prose, and with a tendency to characterize figures as either brilliant or great, Karen delves into what theorists have believed to be children's earliest feelings of rage and helplessness, love and security. Wittily titled chapters with effective cliffhanger endings will carry readers along on the tide of discovery and naysaying, furious debate, and placid acceptance of what these days is considered universally scandalous treatment of children (from abandonment of orphans to the analysis by her father of Anna Freud). Karen's work makes clear that, regardless of the path of scientific thought, there are newly minted, common-sense reasons for giving offspring all the love and respect we can. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Review

"Robert Karen has a rare capacity for presenting complex psychological ideas in language that is accessible to nonspecialists....Karen's book makes fascinating reading and constitutes a considerable achievement."--Contemporary Psychology

"Robert Karen...is one of our smartest and most accessible guides to the arcane world of psychoanalytic theory and research."--Elle

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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• Product Details
• Table of Contents
• Reviews

• Hardcover: 509 pages
• Publisher: Warner Books; First edition (March 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446516341
• ISBN-13: 978-0446516341
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 5.8 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds

Becoming Attached: Unfolding the Mystery of the Infant-Mother Bond and Its Impact on Later Life PDF

This review probably won't do this book justice. I'm analytical, Master's Degree in Statistics kind of guy, yea, stoic. Psychology. Yea that stuff is for quacks. In graduate school I worked with enough of them trying to squeeze any interpretation out of their "data".

So I have one of those life altering experiences. I go to Iraq as a reservist, spend sixteen months away from my wife and job, come back to a wife that doesn't love me anymore and doesn't know if she can. PTSD, Generalized Anxiety, and Depression all in one. But other than the PTSD symptoms, all of the other things have constantly been in my life working mysteriously in the background.

I go to a shrink as my marriage has fallen apart and I have no one to talk to and she brings up Attachment. I have never heard of it, so the scientist in me wants to learn anything and everything before our next meeting. I next day this book and begin reading "my life away" online and in the book. Or more apropriately "reading my life back." I'm fitting into this mold that is everything I don't want to be, but am and jealous of the mold that is everything that I am not, I'm being divorced by a woman that has been hardening my mold for the last 5 years. This book altered my perspective on so many things. I identified with so many others. It gave me a framework and definitions for defense mechanisims like (passive agressiveness and sublimation), a way to look at my childhood, and although the odds are against me being Ambivalently Attached and seeking Secure Attachment, I can now somewhat accurately "self-reflect" on my life experiences.