Attachment and psychosis

The main goal of this thesis was to further our understanding of current psychosocial models by introducing attachment as a relevant developmental framework. Firstly, attachment theory provides a psychosocial model for a developmental pathway to psychosis. Secondly, after expression of psychotic symptoms and interpersonal difficulties, attachment theory provides new insights for a psychosocial model regarding the road to recovery.
Taken together this thesis provided a reliable and valid Dutch attachment measure for use in psychotic and non-clinical samples and important findings that support the relevance of two pathways in which attachment plays a pivotal role: one describing the development of psychosis and one describing a pathway to outcome. Studies were conducted with participants derived from the GROUP study, which allowed studying important associations of attachment and psychosis in patient and sibling samples. The insights gained from this thesis may broaden our understanding of current psychosocial models and may be implicated in improvements of psychotherapeutic interventions.