Stalking and Other Addictions: A Disordered Attachment and Mourning Variant
Diane Powers, Psy.D., CADC
The Juniper Group
140 Palm Drive
Barrington, IL 60010
(847) 917-3839
An escalating crisis has hit America. Hundreds of thousands of people have become victims to individuals who obsessively focus
upon them. In the past, only celebrity cases were news worthy. However, stalking is a phenomenon well known to individuals in the
service professions Those in the fields of pastoral care, psychology, and law enforcement are familiar with this problem. Everyday
people have become involved in violent stalking episodes at the workplace, where unfortunate employees have found themselves
between an irate stalker and his/her love object, often becoming victims themselves.
Dr. Powers became interested in the stalking phenomena while writing her doctoral dissertation. She was struck by the similarities
between stalking behaviors and John Bowlby's Protest Stage of his Attachment Theory and the 2nd Stage,Pining, Anger and Seeking of
his Mourning Theory.
After studying Bowlby's Theory of Disordered Mourning, Dr. Powers created a hypothesis which conceptualized stalking behavior as
a Disordered Mourning Variant. Predatory stalking, behavior which theoretically occurs in the absence of attachment, is excluded from
her hypothesis. Dr. Powers case study of a stalker illustrated her hypothesis. Later, Dr. Powers included addictions and some violent
behaviors into her hypothesis. She included stalking as a behavior often associated with relationship addiction, frequently
demonstrated by domestic violence perpetrators
As a backdrop to her presentation, Dr. Powers reviews relevant basics from Family Systems Theory, Behavior Theory and Object
Relations Theory. She includes a cursory presentation of child attachment researchers, Answorth and Soloman & Main, and adult
attachment researchers, Bartholomew and George & Main.
Dr. Powers has the audience accompany her along her journey of discovery. She presents the material in the order in which she
uncovered s and seeing you in March.
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