The Role of Attachment in Family Dynamics

Name: The Role of Attachment in Family Dynamics
Uploaded: 2025-11-02T00:06:27.000Z
Description: James Furrow on the significance of emotional bonds within familial relationships.

James Furrow on the significance of emotional bonds within familial relationships.

From the course

EFT: Attachment Science in Practice

So ironically one can make the argument that John Bowlby was one of the first family therapists. He was working with families in the 1940s. Exploring his ideas of attachment in practical ways. His ethological perspective, gave him sort of ecosystemic orientation toward a lot of the ways that relationships happen in context. As a family therapist, and knowing something now about attachment theory, it's almost ironic that I didn't ever hear Bowlby's name or hurt, really, for that matter, a mention of emotion in thinking about relational systems, We were talking about structures and hierarchies and communication patterns, cybernetic systems, but not landing in this living emotional world, that attachment so richly captured. It's so obvious that this theory would help shape how a family therapist works because we are working with patterns of relationship. We are working with loss and, and bonds and longing and connection. And it provides a systematic way of understanding how emotion works in family relationships.