The Importance of Emotion Regulation in Understanding Attachment and Intersubjectivity: A Comment on Lyons-Ruth

This discussion provides a commentary on Lyons-Ruth's article examining the interface between attachment and intersubjectivity. First, this commentary posits that it may be useful to conceptualize proximity-seeking behaviors more broadly in order to encompass the types of communicative bids obs...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychoanalytic inquiry 2006-09, Vol.26 (4), p.622-630
Main Author: Borelli, Jessica
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Behavior
Caregivers
Emotions
Theory
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This discussion provides a commentary on Lyons-Ruth's article examining the interface between attachment and intersubjectivity. First, this commentary posits that it may be useful to conceptualize proximity-seeking behaviors more broadly in order to encompass the types of communicative bids observed in the affective face-to-face interactions of parents and infants. Such a revision to this concept underscores the similarity between primitive proximity-seeking behaviors and the drive for intersubjectivity, which may fundamentally constitute part of the same motivational system. Finally, this article argues that both Lyons-Ruth and others have discussed the role of the attachment relationship as promoting the regulation of affects of all valences as opposed to just distress and that the augmentation and regulation of positive affect within the attachment relationship may be a promising direction for future research and theory.
ISSN:0735-1690
1940-9133
DOI:10.1080/07351690701310672