From Broken Attachments to Earned Security: The Role of Empathy in Therapeutic Change

The 2011 John Bowlby Memorial Conference, 'From Broken Attachments to Earned Security - The Role of Empathy in Therapeutic Change', focused on what needs to take place to facilitate empathy and attunement and ultimately the achievement of earned security. The confernce posed the challenge of how to re-establish a secure sense of self, mutuality, and the capacity for inter/intra-subjectivity when difficulties in empathy and attunement exist as a result of relational trauma. This can be between parent and child, within adult relationships, between client and therapist, or in organisational contexts.

The outstanding collection of papers in this volume make a significant contribution to the field of attachment and our understanding of how child rearing affects each aspect of our lives, from the interpersonal to the organisational and societal. Each paper moves beyond the academic and theoretical to provide answers to the many difficult questions raised at the conference.

The practical, sometimes step-by-step explanation of the use of empathy in one-to-one clinical work, in health service organisations or society generally, offer a positive and hopeful way forward. All of the presenters faced up to the challenges of repairing or reversing the impact of derailed attachments and the toxic impact of trauma, offering a realistic but hopeful route to improved relating and healthier attachments.

This publication will be a valuable resource for students, seasoned practitioners, and health service professionals alike who want to enhance their understanding of empathy and attachment in this demanding field.

Subject areas covered by your book in order of importance and key subject area:

- causes of insecure attachments

- impact of relational trauma

- how to re-establish a secure sense of self

- working one to one and in organisational settings

Contributors: Sandra L. Bloom, Sue Gerhardt, Jane Haynes, Oliver James, Andrew Odgers, Anastasia Patrikiou, Eleanor Richards, Kate White