Gerhart Rott: ATTACHMENT AND SEPARATION THEORY IN HIGHER 
EDUCATION  AND STUDENT COUNSELLING 
This paper stress' the importance of understanding  the current interaction of higher education and psychotherapy within students'  contextually defined environment. This environment doesn't mirror an objective point of view but is always constructed in an individual world. It is a psychological context which is related to others e.g. learning environments and institutional settings. 
Thanks to attachment theory (Bowlby, J. and Ainsworth, M . and others) we can better understand the ways interactions in early childhood influence the kind of context one creates as an adult . In students' lives, in their learning environment, and in higher education in general, transition processes play an import ant role. (e.g. entry into university, leaving the university). Within those transitions separation and attachment are newly balanced. 
To clarify some of the risks and resources for these transitions the balancing process presents itself as a developmental perspective on student counselling and higher education in which both - student counselling and high education - might be realized as resources for each other.

Peter Figge: ATTACHMENT STRATEGIES IN THERAPEUTIC RELATIONSHIPS. VALUING A LOOK AT BOTH SIDES OF THE DYAD 
Therapeutic research has well established the fact  that the quality of the therapeutic relationship may be assumed to be one  of the major factors responsible for therapy outcome (Grawe 1990a, b, 1994,  Figge, 1980, 1982, 1999). Therapists in the process of therapy have been described by clients and outside raters, using different means such as questionnaires,  pictures, tape, and video), and research has described connections between  of therapist quality and therapeutic change. Recent publications have focused  on aspects of the pre-therapy situation. On the influence regarding the expectation  of clients towards the relationship to their future therapist and on the compatibility of attachment strategies of client and therapist (Höger 1995, 1996). Therapists offer professional types of well defined relationships, mostly dependent on the professional school they belong to, dependent on their professional experience or the therapeutic setting - and of course dependent on the therapists' personal background. Clients on the other hand are generally looking for professional help, and are mostly lacking any experience of this type of relationship. Thus their expectations and 
wishes cover a wide range of conscious and unconscious contents. Client and 
therapist have one thing in common though. They can both look back on their 
individual backgrounds of personal attachment experiences. Usually the difference 
between client and therapist can be found in the degrees to which they have 
access to these experiences and have integrated them into their personality.Having been introduced to the subject of our conference by previous papers I would like to skip outlining the framework of attachment theory ( especially referring to the research of Bowlby (1987, 1988), Ainsworth (1978), and Main and their coworkers (1985). My personal interest as a clinical psychologist has lately 
focused on the possible contribution of attachment theory to improve aspects 
of therapy indication. In improving therapy prognosis it doesn't seem sufficient 
taking into account if a certain type of therapy would be suitable for an individual client.On top of this it should be kept in mind that a therapeutic relationship is not only a meeting of two functions, that is of a therapist and a client but of two individuals with their different, highly personal attachment strategies and their respective representations. And I believe that the compatibility of these strategies - in whichever dynamic form - might have a decisive influence on the outcome of the therapy point of view but is always constructed in an individual world. It is a 
psychological  context which is related to others e.g. learning environments 
and institutional  settings. Thanks to attachment theory (Bowlby, J. and Ainsworth, M. and others)  we can better understand the ways interactions in early childhood influence  the kind of context one creates as an adult. In students' lives, in their  learning environment, and in higher education in general, transition processes  play an important role. (e.g. entry into university, leaving the university).  Within those transitions separation and attachment are newly balanced. To  clarify some of the risks and resources for these transitions the balancing  process presents itself as a developmental perspective on student counselling  and higher education in which both - student counselling and high education  - might be realized as resources for each other. 

Susanna Maione and Alessandra Franceschini: CUORI - A PLACE FOR UNIVERSITY STUDENTS TO DISCOVER THEIR ADULTHOOD 
In Italy the separation/ attachment phenomenon is  more accentuated than in other European countries. Young people leave their  parent's home very late, living, protected in a situation where they have  no responsibility. The assuming of an adult identity is therefore postponed,  as is also the moment of separation from the family and the autonomy of the  young person. CUORI (University centre for counselling and information) a  psychological counselling service of ESU (Organisation for the rights of study) is a neutral and undifferentiated place for college students. CUORI seeks to meet a student need to be looked after but the same time his/her need to be autonomous, encouraging his/her growth and exploration of his/her own resources and self-determination abilities. In this paper a few cases are presented that could explain the kind of counselling that our centre 
offers to college students. Each case is presented bearing in mind the aforesaid 
 Italian separation/attachment phenomenon, considering also attachment in 
its cross-cultural meaning.

Prijna  F. van Duuren 
A.T.M. Boekhorst
P.H.W.M. Deuss:
Group Psychotherapy with adolescents can be operationalised  as a development oriented model of treatment. Adolescents who are teased by peers when they are 13 years old, do not attach themselves to the peer group. In the therapy group those teased students get the opportunity to attach to a peer group, and so develop their social and scholastic abilities.  The subject of the present research project is the relationship of a good passage through the second false of attachment, what means attachment to the peer group, with study-attitude. Assessment scales have been used for the group therapy-clients on two different moments with an interval of half a year between them. The following scales have been used: a personality inventory  (NVM, this is a shortened MMPI), a Dutch Autonomy scale and two study-behaviour  scales. This paper presents the initial finding and a discussion of the relationship  between study-attitude and group psychotherapy. 

Jean Paul Broonen: ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT AND ATTACHMENT 
Very little information is available about why, in French-speaking Universities so many students withdraw from or do not participate in support sessions during the academic year. Romainville (1992) and Broonen (1998) proposed hypotheses to explain why some or most of the students do not participate in helping sessions: self-reliance inside an individualistic society, instrumental attitude rooting in secondary school, self-handicapping, procrastination, external locus of control, etc. The present study aims at exploring the relationships between collective self-esteem and, firstly, participating in help sessions after failing in examinations, 
and secondly, achievement in the next set of examinations by undergraduate 
students. Data presented here pertain to the measure of students' collective 
self-esteem as applied to the academic institution and include comparison 
on that construct between students who participate in help sessions and students 
who do not.

 
Declan Aherne: STUDENT STRESS IN THE CONTEXT OF ATTACHMENT AND SEPARATION 
An exploration of the development of the dependence-independence 
 polarity of both male and female students. Kegan (1982) and others have 
described  the development of both dependence and independence in the young 
adult. Gilligan  (1982) highlighted differences in this aspect of development 
between males  and females. Aherne (1997) sugggested that student stress 
for many students  may involve struggle with this aspect of their development 
e.g. male students  many have more difficulty than females in forming relationships, whilst females  may struggle more with separation issues. Aherne (1997) has proposed a profile  of stressed students congruent with this aspect of development and stress.  The aim of the current paper is to explore this matter in greater detail amongst students attending for counseling. Individual case studies 
will be used regarding the nature of the students development of independence. 
Included in the study will be an assessment of the therapeutic process in resolving any polarity issues. 

Ann Conlon: THE TRANSITION INTO HIGHER EDUCATION. DEVELOPMENTAL ISSUES ENCOUNTERED BY STUDENTS 
This paper addresses the concept of transition within  the context of the students' struggle to grow and develop - academically,  emotionally and socially. As normal developmental processes, including separation  and individuation are inevitably going to overlap with being a student, the  academic and social commitments which are essential to university life force  the student into facing those developmental issues which will cause difficulty  if the individual is not ready to tackle them, or if they have become stuck  at some point. A number of clinical vignettes are presented to illustrate  the problems and symptoms which may arise if the transition into university  reactivates unresolved conflicts of the past. This will 
inevitably entail  examining the quality of the students' attachment to their 
family of origin,  and of how they were helped or not within their family 
to cope with earlier  transitional phases in childhood and adolescence.

Ernst Frank: SEPARATION AND ATTACHMENT AND THE BASIC ABILITY OF DIFFERENTIATION & SUMMARISING IN ACADEMIC WORK 
The present paper examines writing difficulties in the context of a disturbed in ego development. On the path from symbiosis  to individuation (M. Mahler), ego develops through separation and attachment.  For instance an extensive piece of written work requires the common ability  to differentiate & summarize - on the one hand is the analyzing, making  something precise, moving up closer to get to the details - and on the other  hand at a distance is finding the essential and the main statement, making  a well-formed and integrated complete structure. This is a basic academic  ability, which has to been seen in context to the development of a well-formed  and differentiated ego/identity and the crucial task of separation and of 
 establishing independence. An ability, in contrast to a saying. To see the  wood - because of the trees. 
Stig Poulsen: ATTACHMENT AND SEPARATION IN INDIVIDUAL AND GROUP PSYCHOTHERAPY 
This paper examines the issue of separation and attachment in both individual and group psychtherapy. The paper begins by discussing object relations theory and attachment theory in particluar. The therapeutic alliance and the nature of the clients experience in psychotherapy are discussed in some detail in order to demonstrate the significance of attachment processes. The author then goes on to address group psychotherapy. He outlines the various models of group development and notes the fact that changes occur in the importance of different therapeutic factors in the course of the groups lifespan. Finally, the results are presented of interviews carried out with individual members of two groups, for students with procrastination problems and thesis anxiety. These results confirm the original hypothesis of the importance of separation and attachment issues for students working in groups but add some further complexity to the issue which the author attempts to resolve. 

Mette Bauer and Trine Fredtoft: IN ORDER TO COMPLETE YOU HAVE TO SEPARATE 
Students with thesis and essay anxiety often fear  separation from parents and from university, which makes it difficult for  them to attach themselves to a world outside the family and institutional  boundaries. Helping them take the step to complete their thesis will enable  them to a more grown up identity. Participating in a short term psychodynamic  group may facilitate this process. In this paper the authors set out their  experiences with short term psychodynamic groups for university students with procrastination and thesis anxiety, including the group-members evaluation  of the previous two groups. 

Ann Clara: UNIVERSITY LIFE AND THE DELAY OF ADULTHOOD 
The present paper discusses University life in the  context of it being a moratorium on development, facilitating the delay of  development into adulthood. For many students, their registration at the university marks the beginning of their first prolonged separation from home. Learning to be alone, to turn this condition to profitable use and to enjoy it, is of major importance for students in order to be able to function autonomously  as regards their studies. Obviously this is a very demanding task: homesickness,  loneliness, depressive moods and lack of self confidence are frequent complaints  among freshers, consulting in the University Mental Health Centre of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. At the other end, those 
who finish their studies have to try and find a place in the professional 
world and in society in general. Some tend to postpone this last step, for 
example by engaging in post-graduate studies or becoming members of the academic staff. An academic career may be an elegant solution of those who do not want to grow up completely and wish to stay in the protective environment 
of the university. 

Graça Figueiredo Dias: DEVELOPMENTAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN STUDENTS SEEKING  AND NOT SEEKING PSYCHOLOGICAL COUNSELLING* 
The psychological separation from parents, the development  of the capacity for love interaction and self-esteem consolidation are some  of the developmental tasks of young people. This study examines the differences  shown in the capacity to resolve these developmental tasks between students  seeking and not seeking psychological counselling. Two scales evaluating important dimensions of autonomy construction and of capacity to establish love relationships, constructed by the author, together with the Rosenberg (1965) selfesteem scale, and a parental separation inventory (PSI; Hoffman, 1984), were applied to a sample of 315 university students not having sought counselling, and to a sample of 40 students having sought counselling. The results show the existence of significant differences in all those variables. The implications for counselling with university students are discussed.
 
This paper examines more thoroughly some of the  ideas exposed in my communication "Assessment and treatment of university  students with separation/attachment difficulties", made to the FEDORA Conference 1999.