This course explores the dynamics involved when people from different cultures interact with one another, the changes they undergo and what facilitates and hinders attachment. Attention is given to nonverbal communication at levels beneath awareness, the importance of connecting emotionally as well as intellectually across cultures, and how interactively to regulate emotions to facilitate healthy attachment. The course draws on the latest developments of attachment theory and uses Allan N. Schore’s developmental attachment theory as a framework to investigate intercultural attachment. It is designed for students with no previous psychological or neurobiological training to improve their understanding and skills in relating with people from other cultures.

• Broadening of theoretical and methodological horizons of intercultural interactions.
• Understanding of the theory of attachment and its importance for analyzing intercultural relationships.
• Understanding of the principles of Schore’s developmental attachment theory as they are integrated into intercultural studies.
• Gain conceptual tools and skills that will enhance intercultural attachment.

The course will be developed through lectures, audio-visual presentations, and class interactions. Students will have the opportunity to reflect on their own intercultural attachment experiences and engage in exercises and group work to apply attachment principles.

Since this class integrates various fields of studies, such as neurobiology, anthropology, intercultural communication, and theology, there will be no books required to read but instead a wide range of articles and book chapters included in the syllabus and/or a reader.

Examples of articles and chapters of books used in class are:

Ainsworth, M. D. S. 1967. Infancy in Uganda: Infant Care and the Growth of Love. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press. (Section II and III)
Bretherton, Inge. 1992. "The Origin of Attachment Theory: John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth." Developmental Psychology 28:759-775.
Schore. Allan N. 2000. "Attachment and the Regulation of the Right Brain." Attachment and Human Development 2 (1). Pp. 23-47.
2001 Minds in the Making: Attachment, the Self-Organizing Brain, and Developmentally-Oriented Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy. British Journal of Psychotherapy 17(3). Pp 299-328.
Van Ijzendoorn, Marinus H., and Abraham Sagi. 1999. "Cross-Cultural Patterns of Attachment: Universal and Contextual Dimensions." In Handbook of Attachment. Jude Cassidy and Phillip R. Shaver, eds. Pp. 713-734. New York: The Guilford Press.

The student is required to read 1,500 pages from the reading list in the syllabus/reader, and/or suggested bibliography. Various exercices, reading reports, personal reflection, observations, group work, and interviews by students will be included in a term paper. This 20-page paper will help students integrate an emotion-based attachment perspective in their living or working context.