BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Psychology for Clinical Settings
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1637760
This article is part of the Research TopicThe Interaction between Self and Other in the Clinical Setting: The Role of Inter-SubjectivityView all 11 articles
Psychotherapists' Self-protective Attachment Strategies
Provisionally accepted
- 1Universita degli Studi di Trento Dipartimento di Psicologia e Scienze Cognitive, Rovereto, Italy
- 2Family Relations Institute, Black Mountain, NC, USA, United States
- 3Family Relations Institute, Reggio Emilia, Italy
- 4Scuola Bolognese di Psicoterapia Cognitiva, Center for Cognitive Therapy, Forlì, Italy
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Attachment describes how people use relationships to cope with exposure to danger. That function is central to psychotherapy. This study used the Adult Attachment Interview (DMM-AAI) to compare psychotherapists' attachment strategies to those of patients in psychotherapy and adults drawn from the normative non-patient population. The central variables were attachment strategies (dismissing of relationships Type A1-8, secure/balanced in relationships B1-5, and preoccupied with relationships Type C1-8, plus A/C combinations), psychological trauma and unresolved loss, extremes of arousal, and reorganization toward psychological balance and integration (i.e., conscious change toward B strategies). Differences based on professional training (psychodynamic, cognitive, and family systems) were explored for psychotherapists. The results indicated that non-patients demonstrated the lowest risk attachment strategies (i.e., A1-2, B1-5, C1-2), whereas patients exhibited the highest risk and most extreme attachment strategies (i.e., A5-8, C5-8, A5-8/C5-8), and the most psychological trauma, unresolved loss, and extreme arousal. Psychotherapists were not a homogeneous group: approximately 40% showed extreme attachment strategies, whereas the remainder demonstrated low-risk strategies. A higher proportion of psychotherapists (24.6%) showed reorganization toward B strategies than patients (6.8%); this replicates earlier work on British psychotherapy students and patients. Trauma and loss were significantly more frequent in both patients and psychotherapists than in non-patients. No differences were identified based on psychotherapists' theory training. These findings suggest that more than half of Italian psychotherapists have the potential to establish intersubjectivity with their patients whereas almost half might face problems reaching beyond their personal perspective. Suggestions for improving training and supervision of psychotherapists are offered.
Keywords: Attachment, psychotherapists, Patients, Trauma, Unresolved loss, Dynamic-maturational model, DMM
Received: 29 May 2025; Accepted: 15 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Giannotti, Crittenden, Landini and Lambruschi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Michele Giannotti, michele.giannotti@unitn.it
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