Antigonos Sochos is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Psychology, University of Bedfordshire, UK. He is a Chartered Psychologist and Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society. His main academic interests lie in attachment theory and the integration of psychodynamic and social psychological approaches.

The proposed book falls within the literature addressing the broader question of how concepts and findings derived from the psychology of the individual or small scale relationships such as couples or families, could help us understand phenomena in the wider social world. However, although a number of publications attempt to tackle socio-cultural issues from the various psychoanalytic approaches, such attempts coming from an attachment theory perspective have been very scarce. To the best of my knowledge, only two books so far have directly focused on a link between attachment research and aspects of the wider social environment. These books are:Kraemer, S., & Roberts, J. (1996). The politics of attachment: Towards a secure society. London England: Free Association Books.Marris, P. (1996). The politics of uncertainty: Attachment in private and public life. Florence, KY US: Taylor & Frances/Routledge.Nonetheless, the proposed book goes far beyond the scope of the above. To begin with, it updates the reader on the most recent relevant findings, such as the studies on attachment and social groups, or attachment and socio-political attitudes. The above two books are about 17 years' old and a lot has happened in attachment research since then. However, the most unique contribution of the proposed book is the conceptual innovation that it puts forward. Firstly, the conceptualisation of attachment to the group as attachment to the dominant system of meanings (institutions, beliefs, values) that permeate the organisation of life in the group is an original and important clarification about what attachment to social groups really means. Secondly, and most importantly, the novel concept of collective attachment with its related terms (e.g. object of collective attachment, collective attachment representation, collective attachment security) seem to be taking attachment theory to a different domain of investigation - into the borders between psychology, sociology, anthropology, and social history. While so far attachment theory has been a theory of close dyadic relationships and individual functioning, these new concepts now suggest that it could also inform the construction of social institutions and ideologies, intergroup relationships, and the conflict between traditions and systems of meaning.A more recent book (Erdman, P., & Ng, K. (2010). Attachment: Expanding the cultural connections. New York, NY US: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group) is primarily concerned with the cross-cultural validity of concepts and methods of interpersonal attachment and does not address the issues I mention above

1. Introduction to Attachment Research 2. Attachment and Social Groups 3. Attachment and Systems of Meaning 4. Beyond Dyadic Relationships: The Collective Organisation of Attachment 5. Collective Attachment and The Response to 9/11 6. Collective Attachment and the Western Tradition of Coercion and Violence Epilogue

With an overview of the existing attachment theory literature and new contributions to the field, this book proposes that social groups seek protection and security as they collectively construct their ideologies and social institutions. In doing so, the book extends attachment theory to show how it can inform wider socio-cultural phenomena.