Psychoanalytic Psychology, Vol 42(4), Oct 2025, 199-206; doi:10.1037/pap0000556
The purpose of this article is to enrich and elucidate the connections between attachment research and psychoanalytic practice, linking Bowlby’s psychoanalytic origins with the influential body of research produced in this field. The findings on attachment disorganization will be examined from two standpoints. The first regards what is “behind” it, namely the origins of disorganized attachment, as illustrated by Beatrice Beebe’s research on the precursors of attachment patterns identified from microanalytic nonverbal communication between 4-month-old infants and their mothers. The second pertains to what is “beyond” it, namely the trajectories of attachment disorganization after childhood and specifically in the context of the couple bond, where disorganized attachment patterns may be observed. Drawing on Bowlby’s proposal that conflict arises when two or more incompatible systems are at play, this article will propose that the compelling need of being seen and known frequently coexists with fear, activating the attachment system in contradictory ways. The article will then explore the clinical value of considering attachment and recognition in their entanglements. A clinical vignette will illustrate the ways in which these systems may act simultaneously, determining conflict, competition, dissociation, and even disorganized/disorganizing states. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)