Filming Disorganised Attachment

This paper critically explores the politics of screen media and knowledge in contemporary attachment theory. The article considers the role of film in shaping conceptualisations of attachment, focusing on how the influential ‘disorganised/disoriented attachment’ (D) classification of infant behaviour both emerged as a consequence of film technologies and has subsequently been mummified by the way these media have been interpreted. In this way, the paper will explore how tensions between the readability and unreadability of a child’s gesture on film have conventionally been dealt within attachment theory. It will also demonstrate how film theory can help psychology by offering more productive ways of addressing recordings of infant movement which suggest affective disjuncture or conflict. In the course of this exploration, John Bowlby and Gilles Deleuze/Felix Guattari will be discovered as strange allies in conceptualising primate infants as machines of movement and desire. Deleuzian film theory will be used to interrogate the concept of disorganised/disoriented attachment. It will then be used to reconsider the position of conflict between attachment and fear which has been conventionally situated by psychologists as the cause of disorganised/disoriented attachment behaviour.This research was made possible by a Medical Humanities New Investigator Award from the Wellcome Trust (Grant WT103343MA).This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Oxford University Press via https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/hjw042