A Secure Base
Also known as A Secure Base: Parent-Child Attachment and Healthy Human Development, A Secure Base: Clinical Applications of Attachment Theory, Secure Base
John Bowlby's 1988 lectures applying attachment theory to parenting and psychotherapy
At a glance
What it argues
Early relationships shape development, Parenting is hard work, Therapy as a secure base
See all 3Key ideas
Where attachment theory came from, Transference as working models, Change through the parents
See all 3Examples from the book
The lectures, No theory in 1951
See all 2Criticism and limits
Controversial
Read next
Attachment and Loss, Attachment Theory in Practice, Hold Me Tight
See all 3Connections
John Bowlby, Attachment theory and 2 others
See all 4
Also on this page: Key facts · Links · Sources · Related pages
- A short collection of Bowlby's late lectures, written for a wider audience than his trilogy.
- It argues that early interactions between infant and caregiver shape social, emotional and intellectual growth.
- It retells how his 1951 WHO report led him to build attachment theory.
- Its later lectures apply the theory to therapy: the therapist acts as a secure base from which a client explores and revises old working models.
Why it matters
- The shortest way into Bowlby in his own words, and the place where he says how attachment theory should change psychotherapy.
Key facts
- Author
- John Bowlby1
- Published
- 19881
- Routledge Classics edition
- 2005, with a preface by Jeremy Holmes2
- Publishers
- Routledge (London), subtitle Clinical Applications of Attachment Theory; Basic Books (New York)1
- Pages
- 2242
- ISBN
- 9780465075973 (Basic Books)3
- Audience
- Parents and clinicians; a collection of lectures2
What it argues
-
Early relationships shape development2
Early interactions between infant and caregiver have a profound effect on a child's social, emotional and intellectual growth.
-
Parenting is hard work2
Bowlby says plainly that giving children time and attention means sacrificing other interests.
-
Therapy as a secure base4
A main goal of therapy is revising outdated working models of self and attachment figures, with the therapist as a reliable secure base.
Key ideas
-
Where attachment theory came from1
Bowlby explains that his 1951 data fitted no theory of the time, and how he then built attachment theory.
-
Transference as working models4
Clients with rigid working models impose them on the therapist; therapist and client work out where those models came from.
-
Change through the parents5
For child and family problems he focused on the parents' working models, their parenting and their relationship with the therapist.
Examples from the book
Criticism and limits
-
Controversial2
Its publisher calls the book controversial yet powerfully influential to this day.
Read next
-
The full theory behind these lectures.
-
Sue Johnson's therapy built on the secure base idea.
-
The same ideas applied to adult couples.
Connections
Links
Sources
- John Bowlby (Wikipedia) (opens en.wikipedia.org)
- A Secure Base, Routledge Classics edition (Routledge) (opens routledge.com)
- A Secure Base by John Bowlby (Basic Books / Hachette) (opens hachettebookgroup.com)
- Bretherton I. The origins of attachment theory: John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth, Developmental Psychology 1992 (opens psychology.sunysb.edu)
- Attachment theory (Wikipedia) (opens en.wikipedia.org)
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