Family Systems Theory, Attachment Theory, and Culture*

Family systems theory, attachment theory, and culture.

Family systems theory and attachment theory have important similarities and complementarities. Here we consider two areas in which the theories converge: (a) in family system theorists' description of an overly close, or "enmeshed," mother-child dyad, which attachment theorists conceptualize as the interaction of children's ambivalent attachment and mothers' preoccupied attachment; (b) in famil...

Attachment Theory and Artificial Cognitive Systems

John Bowlby formulated the core of Attachment Theory whilst working in a multidisciplinary team of childcare professionals, psychoanalysts, ethologists and other researchers at the Tavistock Clinic for over thirty years after the Second World War (Holmes 1993). From its inception Attachment Theory integrated concepts from academic fields as diverse as Ethology, Cognitive Science and Psychoanaly...

Examining Family Stress: Theory and Research

Environmental Influences: Family Systems Theory

Therapy for Childhood Sexual Abuse Survivors using Attachment and Family Systems Theory Orientations.

The aim of this paper is to understand the effects of childhood sexual abuse on a survivor's later life. For understanding and treating the emotional distress and interpersonal problems resulting from childhood sexual abuse, attachment theory provides a valuable framework. When this framework is combined with family systems theory, it can help therapists understand the family context where sexu...