The Exploring Study On Improving Dating Couples' Intimate Relationships By Applying Adult Attachment Theory

Adult Attachment refers to "the intense and enduring emotion bond between Individual and the current partner". The researches on adult attachment have thrived since mid 1980s, which have attained burgeoning achievements. Meanwhile, John Bowlby's Attachment-based therapy mode was widely used and proved to be very useful. However, there is little research on attachment in China let alone the case studies on its clinical application. Until now, there is no counseling mode being proposed to understand and explain the difference between dating couples concerning to their cognition, behavior and sensation by adult attachment theory in china.This paper plans to reach three goals. Firstly, introduce the definition of adult attachment and the global research situation on intimate relationships through attachment view. Secondly, get a general idea of adult attachment status of young dating couples and their Intimate relationship quality by investigation as well as explore the difference in intimate experience of people with different attachment style and the correlation between intimate characters and attachment dimensions. Thirdly, present 3 typical case studies to show how attachment theory based counseling help to improve the intimate relationships between young dating couples.The research shows: (1) Among the dating couples, people who with secure attachment style occupies the dominant part, with preoccupied style occupies the second and with dismissing style are the least. There is no difference in gender concerning to the attachment style. (2) People with different attachment style have different intimate relationship quality. (3) There is no difference in gender concerning to the intimate relationship quality of people with same attachment style. (4) The whole lasting character and the understanding factor in intimacy character are in marked negative correlation with both avoidance and anxiety dimension of adult attachment.The case study reports three cases. They are fearful male alone, dismissing female and secure male and secure female and preoccupied male. The counseling is in an assessment and explanation - recognition adjustment - communication training process. The cases received good therapeutic effects according to the investigation afterwards. Three cases are reported in details and rethinked carefully about the application of adult attachment theory in dating couple counseling. Based on these case studies, the author points out some conclusions about clinical practice of the attachment based counseling mode In dating couple counseling and the research direction in the future.Finally, the research concludes that the counseling method which is to understand and explain the dating couples' problem through adult attachment theory and adjust the close relationships according to their specific attachment styles is of highly application and deserves to be studied and promoted.