Treating Attachment Pathology

Offering the first comprehensive paradigm on the psychoanalytic treatment of adult and adolescent attachment disorders, Jon Mills argues that attachment pathology is a disorder of the self based on developmental trauma that predisposes patients toward a future trajectory marked by structural deficits, character pathology, and interpersonal discord that fuel and sustain myriad forms of clinical symptomatology. This pivotal work constitutes a treatise on the governing psychic processes of attachment on self-organization, adaptation, and conflicted intersubjective dynamics in non-childhood populations. Through conceptually astute technical strategies grounded in sold clinical practice, the author offers one of the most extensive and original frameworks in the psychoanalytic treatment of attachment disorders.

Jon Mills, Psy.D., Ph.D., ABPP, is a psychologist, philosopher, and psychoanalyst in private practice in Ajax, Ontario, Canada. He is a diplomate in psychoanalysis and clinical psychology with the American Board of Professional Psychology and is currently president of the Section on Psychoanalysis of the Canadian Psychological Association.

Part 1 Part I: Theoretical and Diagnostic Considerations Chapter 2 1 Conceptualizing Attachment Pathology Chapter 3 2 The Attachment Disordered Self Chapter 4 3 Borderline Organization, Trauma, and Attachment Part 5 Part II: Treatment Perspectives Chapter 6 4 Beginning the Treatment Chapter 7 5 The Fragile Nature of Therapeutic Alliance Chapter 8 6 Managing Primitive Defenses Chapter 9 7 Embracing Countertransference Chapter 10 8 Reaching the Affect Part 11 Part III: Extended Case Studies Chapter 12 Engaging Alexithymia in a Depressed, Eating Disordered, Body Dysmorphic Adolescent Female Chapter 13 Feeling Closeted: Der Todestrieb, Guilt, and Self-Punishment in a Bipolar Gay Man Chapter 14 Homo Homini Lupus: Treating a Case of Systemic Ritualistic Abuse Chapter 15 Postscript from the Unconscious