Introduction

Abstract

Current healthcare is plagued by issues of expense, complexity, and fragmentation. Appreciating the relational foundation of healthcare - via the lens of attachment theory–can address several of the issues that compromise our current system, This volume summarizes the attachment perspective on heathcare, for any discipline, by describing the foundations of attachment theory, the current evidence for its clinical applications to specific patient populations and interventions, and potential future directions. In 1952, James Robertson picked up a movie camera for the first time in his life and made a remarkable film. Robertson, a Quaker, who had joined the Hampstead Wartime Nurseries in 1941 as a conscientious objector, became a social worker who contributed to the care of children who had lost family in the war. Working with John Bowlby, the founder of attachment theory, Robertson set out to demonstrate how separation from parents affects a young child. One of the easiest places to find children strained by separation was a hospital.