The Routledge Handbook of Attachment

The Routledge Handbooks of Attachment provide a uniquely detailed yet accessible approach to attachment. Paul Holmes and Steve Farnfield have assembled an international selection of contributors and here present three volumes covering theory, assessment and implications and interventions.

The Routledge Handbook of Attachment: Theory presents a broadly based introduction to attachment theory and associated areas, written in an accessible style by experts from around the world. The book covers the basic theories of attachment and discusses the similarities and differences of the two predominant schools of attachment theory.

The Routledge Handbook of Attachment: Assessment provides a detailed discussion of the formal measurement tools available to assess attachment across the age range, including with families. It contains comprehensive chapters on many attachment-based validated procedures for assessing parenting and evaluating risk, to enable professionals to decide what type of assessment is appropriate, who should conduct it and the usefulness of the results.

The Routledge Handbook of Attachment: Implications and Interventions offers an introduction to therapies produced as a result of the popularity of attachment studies. These therapies can be divided into two categories: those that are ‘attachment-based’, in that they use evidence-based attachment assessments in their development, or ‘attachment-informed’, in that the theories of attachment have been integrated into the practice of existing schools of therapy.

The Routledge Handbooks of Attachment are indispensable guides for clinical psychologists, psychiatrists and social workers working with and assessing children and families, clinicians in training and students.

Paul Holmes is a child and adolescent psychiatrist who also trained as an adult psychotherapist. He worked in community child and adolescent mental health teams for many years, and with specialist services for fostered and adopted children. He has increasingly applied his long-standard interest in attachment theory to his work in providing expert psychiatric opinions to the British courts in child care proceedings.

Steve Farnfield is a Senior Lecturer and established the MSc in Attachment Studies at the University of Roehampton. He is a social worker and play therapist of many years’ experience and a licensed trainer for the Dynamic Maturational Model of Attachment Infant CARE-Index, Preschool Assessment of Attachment and Adult Attachment Interview developed by Patricia Crittenden.