In this classic work, now reissued, extensions of the Bowlby/Ainsworth attachment theory are described. It also discusses how human beings aspire to reach ideals or, not infrequently, defensive idealizations.

The Challenge of Attachment for Caregiving proposes a model for the development of caregiving, and shows its relation to therapeutic practice while complementing and extending attachment theory. The authors place the instinctive systems for caregiving and careseeking within a theory relating them to other systems of the self, and present the material in a form that enables the therapist to formulate hyptheses about a client's predicament and their way of relating to the therapist and then explore and test these hypotheses in the course of therapy.

The Challenge of Attachment is now being used as a necessary textbook to introduce trainees to McCluskey’s model of how to intervene in a psychotherapeutic manner with individuals, couples and groups.

Table of Contents:

Part I: The conceptual base for a theory of companionable caregiving

Part II: The construction of a theory of companionable caregiving

Part III: Principles of therapy guided by an attachment-based theory of caregiving