Attachment theory and research: Review of the literature

Attachment theory confirms the importance of human relationships and their consequences for individual development. Attachment research has made it clear that infants are predesigned from birth to relate to others, and that their relationships are of preeminent importance in shaping their psychic development. The expectations they have of themselves and others are slowly internalized into working models of the world. These serve as guides for future behavior. Internal working models tend to persist over time, and the history of relationships are transmitted from generation to generation. Attachment research has fostered three important changes in psychoanalytic thinking: it affirms a relational model of psychoanalysis, proposes new guidelines for work with mother-infant dyads, and it offers a new model of theory development based on testable hypotheses. Implications for clinicians are discussed.