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UPDATE - 22.02.08 by John Southgate and Elizabeth London

An Attachment Perspective on Dissociation and Multiplicity by John Southgate

A paper presented at The Third Annual John Bowlby Memorial Lecture
23rd and 24th February 1996



SECTION 1 -
THE ATTACHMENT SPACE AND THE SENSE OF SELF -
page 3 & 4

Chart 1: The Attachment Space

Charts 1A -1E: Self & Other interacting within the attachment space

We have to have a space on which our
attachments can take place
which is why attachment is a spatial theory.
As you read this or hear me speak
there is a space on which we both exist
whether the written page or this lecture hall.
There is such a space inside and outside both of us,
but it is not always very obvious.
Suppose you are sitting there listening to me
but you are in love and give me less than a third ear
as on your internal space you are still with your lover.

The list on the chart includes examples
Mom & Baby, Mom's Partner, Siblings
School, Friends & Buddies,
Grown up Partner and/or Friends
Local, National, International, and Global Spaces
that we perceive "out there"
but inside us and especially in the unconscious
are infinite numbers of spaces
created over a lifetime.

All the other charts include the Attachment Space
in one form or another,
and just as Winnicott said there is no such thing
as a baby without a (M)other
so also there is no attachment between Self and Other
without an attachment space.
An exception might be
the dissociated child lost in a kind of outer space
but more of that later.