Abstract

Evolutionary Psychology human-nature.com/ep – 2006. 4: 211-214 Book Review An Odyssey over Attachment and Religion A review of Lee A. Kirkpatrick, Attachment, Evolution, and the Psychology of Religion. New York: Guilford Publications, 2005. 400 pp. Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Haifa, Haifa 31905, ISRAEL, Email: benny@psy.haifa.ac.il This densely argued book is a report on a personal odyssey, which turns out to be representative of recent and important developments in the psychology of religion. This voyage starts with the work of a British psychoanalyst, who more than fifty years ago created, single- handedly, one of the most influential theories in present-day research on personality development. What has been known as the British school of psychoanalytic object-relations theory represents the psychoanalytic study of the nature and origins of interpersonal relations, and of the nature and origins of internal, unconscious, structures, deriving from interpersonal contacts and experiences. Present interpersonal relationships are regarded as the reactivation of past internalized relations with others. Psychoanalytic object-relations theory theorized (or speculated) on the internalization of interpersonal relations, their contribution to normal and pathological personality development, and the mutual influences of internal fantasies and the reality of interpersonal relations. To the uninitiated, the term