The ‘Goal-Corrected Partnership’ in Attachment Theory: A Critical Assessment of the Research Programme

Abstract

The ‘Goal-Corrected Partnership’ in Attachment Theory: A Critical Assessment of the Research Programme ABSTRACT Despite counting as one of the largest research programmes in human development, the contours of Attachment Theory remain quite difficult to define. A pressing requirement to clarify what the ‘theory’ actually contends remains. This thesis is an interdisciplinary project that brings the dual lens of history and philosophy to shed new light on the theory. John Bowlby’s (1907-1990) hopes for Attachment Theory were both radical and innovative. First, he set out to ‘radically’ overhaul the entire of edifice of psychoanalysis—what he would call Freud’s original metapsychology. Second, Bowlby combined three fields in a manner that anticipated today’s more integrative non-dualist, non-reductive approaches to the human mind: (1) Tinbergen’s four questions in behavioural biology, (2) questions in emotion research, and (3) a range of concepts from the cognitive sciences, especially Craik’s notion of mental models. The thesis distinguishes 13 attachment constructs—the initial 12 allocated across the Tinbergen framework. This supports a clarification of the expanding complexity of the theory. Equally, a 13th construct—the organisational perspective—provides a plank for tying attachment to lifespan insights within Developmental Systems Theory. Bowlby’s Goal-Corrected Partnership (GCP) proposed that attachment relationships beyond infancy required engagement with newly emerging cognitive skills. The thesis argues that the GCP offers an important corrective to conceptualisations that somehow limit attachment phenomena to a purely implicit, infancy derived, affectively triggered protection function only. Attachment Theory makes possible a reintroduction of a developmental perspective into psychiatry. Its causal credentials could also provide a breath of fresh air for a mental health arena. Finally, an acknowledgement of GCP relationships matches the growing empirical awareness that behaviour, emotion and cognition are more integrated phenomena than current studies may allow.