Strange Situation
A Mother's Journey into the Science of Attachment
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
A full-scale investigation of the controversial and often misunderstood science of attachment theory, inspired by the author’s own experience as a parent and daughter.
“A profound and beautiful work . . . searingly honest, brazenly fresh, and startlingly rich.”—Andrew Solomon, author of The Noonday Demon
When professional researcher and writer Bethany Saltman gave birth to her daughter, Azalea, she loved her deeply but felt as if something was missing. Looking back at her lonely childhood, dangerous teenage years, and love-addicted early adulthood, Saltman thought maybe she was broken.
Then she discovered the science of attachment, the field of psychology that explores the question of why—from an evolutionary point of view—love exists between parents and children. Saltman went on a ten-year journey visiting labs, archives, and training sessions, while learning the meaning of “delight” from Mary Ainsworth, one of psychology’s most important but unsung researchers, who died in 1999.
Saltman went deep into the history and findings from Ainsworth’s famous laboratory procedure, the Strange Situation, which, like an X-ray, is still used today by scientists around the world to catch a glimpse of the internal workings of attachment. In this simple twenty-minute procedure, a baby and a caregiver enter an ordinary room with two chairs and some toys. During a series of comings and goings, a trained observer studies the minutiae of the pair’s back-and-forth with each other.
Through the science of attachment, what Saltman discovered was a radical departure from everything she thought she knew—about love and about her own family, her story, and herself. She was far from broken—she saw that love is too powerful to ever break.
Strange Situation is a scientific, lyrical, life-affirming exploration of love. Not only will readers be taken on an emotional ride through one mother’s reckoning with her own past and her family’s future, but they will also be given the tools with which to better understand their own life histories and their relationships today.
Praise for Strange Situation
“A fascinating deep dive into attachment theory . . . Carefully researched and with copious endnotes, this is an excellent resource for anyone interested in child development.”—Publishers Weekly
“Honest and complex . . . A thoughtful engagement with a topic that affects all parents.”—Kirkus Reviews
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Saltman, a journalist and researcher, debuts with a fascinating deep dive into attachment theory. Her interest in the subject began as she struggled with mixed emotions toward motherhood, worrying that in part because of her own upbringing by a cold and distant mother she hadn't formed the "secure attachment" to her young daughter described in parenting literature. Saltman's quest to understand the theory leads her to its formative figure, psychologist Mary Ainsworth. In the early 1950s, Ainsworth began extending and developing the theories of John Bowlby, then an outlier in psychology who, in placing the mother-baby bond at the core of infant development, went against the prevailing "cupboard theory" of behaviorism, which held that infants simply attached to the person who fed them. Saltman, bolstered by her research, provides clear explanations of attachment theory, in particular Ainsworth's cornerstone testing tool, the Strange Situation, where infants' attachment styles are determined as they interact with their mothers in different situations, such as breast-feeding and co-sleeping. Readers will learn along with the author what creates a solid attachment between caregiver and child, how attachment styles manifest in adulthood, and what constitutes "the telltale heart of attachment." Carefully researched and with copious endnotes, this is an excellent resource for anyone interested in child development. Meg Thompson, Thompson Literary.
