Narrating attachment: Some lessons learned from Charles Dickens' novel ‘Little Dorrit’

Abstract

This article considers attachment from a post-modern, narrative and psychosocial perspective. Charles Dickens' Little Dorrit is used as a case study from which to explore these perspectives. The received wisdom that attachment styles are almost exclusively derived from the caregiver-infant relationship is critiqued, making use of the personal history of one of the authors to illustrate the importance of unintentional and unforeseen childhood experiences in generating attachment narratives. Attachment is treated not merely as a psychological phenomenon, but impacted on by social forces and occurring within social frameworks including identity. Literary sources offer one lens through which such psychosocial phenomena can be examined. Dickens' story illustrates the difficulties faced by boys and men in terms of gendered attachment behaviours, but does so without falling into the trap of portraying either men or women in stereotypical ways. The authors propose that avoidant attachment is a defence against the possibility of extreme dependency, and that the underlying fear is therefore the same for both avoidant and ambivalent internal working models, namely that the loved one will disappear. The therapeutic relationship is conceptualised as one in which personal narratives are re-authored within a collaborative and co-creative framework, but the possibility of re-authoring is also considered possible without the intervention of a psychotherapist and the arts in particular are considered as media in which reflective function is fostered. Conclusions are drawn for how literature can act as research data in order to enhance understanding of the psychosocial complexity within which individuals negotiate issues of attachment.