Attachment theory and psychotherapy research - Editor's introduction to a special section

This article introduces the special section dealing with research on attach ment and psychotherapy. Although John Bowlby conceptualized his theory as a tool for clinicians to acquire a better understanding of the development o f psychopathology and emotional distress, it took a long time until clinica l researchers started to make use of Bowlby's theory. During the last decad e, a large number of studies have been published showing that attachment th eory could be very useful within different fields of psychotherapy research , such as differentiating psychopathology, therapist characteristics, and a spects of the therapeutic alliance. These fields are briefly stressed and r elated to the articles in the special section emphasizing some future direc tions of attachment response within psychotherapy.