Informative & Inspirational
I keep delving into the chapters of Dr Wallin's inspirational book. There is so much of interest in knowing about attachment and how to best meet the needs of our clients, and Dr Wallin's book reaches a new level in furthering our ability to make sense of those with relationship difficulties.
A book to keep, and not just by the bedside.
I love David's book
I am extremely enthusiastic about this book. I use it in all of my classes on Healing Attachment Wounds whether we are focused on enhancing clinical applications for therapists for their clients or learning how to help heal our own attachment histories. David gives an insightful view of attachment theory and clarifies the contributions of many in this very readable work. Everyone interested in improving their clinical interventions with clients as well as understanding the complex underpinings of human relationships relevant to us all with find this a guide full of deep wisdom, compassionate understanding and practical tools.
Excellent!
As a practicing psychotherapist and educator at the graduate level, I cannot say enough about this book. The author does an excellent job of building a strong and well referenced basis for his review, understanding and use of attachment in psychotherapy. This book is not for those who are new to the field of psychology or therapy. This is a book to be read and digested in palatable bites in order to gain the full flavor, body and depth of this work. This book has changed the way I look at every relationship from day to day interactions, family, friends, students and business associates. A must read.
Not just for therapists
Many books will claim to change your life. By giving me the conceptual (not to mention terminological!) framework to understand myself at a fundamental behavioral level, this one actually is proving to be a significant contributor to accomplishing that very arduous task.
I can't recommend Wallin's tome too highly for those in search of self-knowledge, and in pursuit of self-repair. This is NOT just a book for therapists! Though as you can see from the reviews here, any serious practitioner of therapy WILL be putting this at the top of their must-read list. For the sake of emphasis, I'll repeat myself:
This is NOT a book just for therapists!
I'm not a therapist - far from it: I'm an engineer. An engineer with deficits in attachment security which I can now articulate and see with far more clarity, thanks to David Wallin. Subjectively speaking, the level of confidence that I feel in terms of my ability to resolve my own very painful attachment issues has increased markedly as a result of reading this book. I don't know that higher praise exists for a work dealing with this subject.
Objectively speaking, 'Attachment in Psychotherapy' represents a major work in the field of psychology (for both the clinical and theoretical aspects), standing comfortably - and rigorously - shoulder to shoulder with other major works in that discipline. In it, Wallin accomplishes two very significant milestones (in my non-professional opinion). The first is a synthesis of the current state of knowledge of attachment theory and intersubjectivity theory, offering lucid descriptions - often case studies - of how the application of this knowledge lies at the heart of efficacious relational psychotherapy. This alone makes the book damn near required reading for all students of the human psyche, but it's the 2nd accomplishment which marks it as a major milestone and which represents what I believe to be Wallin's more significant and original contribution: his seamless intergration of mindfulness, and the mindful self, into that aforementioned synthesis. This is brilliance. This is insight. This is major.
To put all of this another way, I will say this: if you are in psychotherapy, and your therapist has not yet read Wallin's book, insist that they do so. If possible, before your next session. It's that important.
A Psycho-spiritual Path to Wholeness
David Wallin has elegantly articulated a process that many of us in the psychotherapeutic field have practiced intuitively for many years. The contribution his book has made toward integrating psychotherapy with a mindful practice, with hands-on clinical teachings, has helped give a language and specific tools to the next stages of attachment theory and therapy.
Not only is he a great storyteller in giving us the background for attachment theory and therapy, his own practice evidences the deeper places that patients are able to open up within us, should we be humble enough, if we are open and available to the continuation of our own journey. As we are willing to progress in our own non-verbal, pre-verbal set of attachment issues in the room, work our own counter-transference as completely as we ask them to do their work, so our patients have space to grow.
We have known since Freud of the significance of the relationship in therapy. What Wallin does is take us to deeper places on a moment-to-moment basis. We are not the handler of the patient: we are the fellow traveler. Wallin inspires us to stay on the same road with the patient, not only in each clinical moment but in our other, less enlightened moments. It is a forever practice and not an event. Without this element of practice in psychotherapy, the inevitable challenges for all of us, would continue to erase the good work we do.
An invaluable contribution to the study of Self, for which I am grateful.
Valerie Johns, MA, MFT
Hermosa Beach, CA
