Can the way in which we relate to others seriously affect our health? Can understanding those attachments help health care providers treat us better? In Love, Fear, and Health, psychiatrists Robert Maunder and Jonathan Hunter draw on evidence from neuroscience, stress physiology, social psychology, and evolutionary biology to explain how understanding attachment – the ways in which people seek security in their close relationships – can transform patient outcomes.

Using attachment theory, Maunder and Hunter provide a practical, clinically focused introduction to the influence of attachment styles on an individual’s risk of disease and the effectiveness of their interactions with health care providers. Drawing on more than fifty years of combined experience as health care providers, teachers, and researchers, they explain in clear language how health care workers in all disciplines can use this knowledge to meet their patients’ needs better and to improve their health.

Robert Maunder, MD is a professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto and holds the Chair in Health and Behaviour at Sinai Health. His research focuses on how close relationships influence health, and on the compassionate support of resilience in healthcare workers. Clinically, he provides psychiatric care for people with chronic physical illnesses.

Robert Maunder's profile page

Jonathan Hunter, MD is a professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto and holds the Pencer Family Chair in Applied General Psychiatry at Sinai Health. His research and clinical practice focus on the psychiatric and psychotherapeutic care of cancer patients and other people with serious medical and surgical illnesses.

Jonathan Hunter's profile page

‘Free from jargon, the text is easy to read, and each section provides several examples and a useful summary…. The book could help healthcare workers to better meet their patients’ needs and ultimately improve their health.’

Nursing Standard February 2016

“This book is written to appeal to a wide clinical audience, including physicians, nurses and other care providers. The understanding this book promotes could go far in improving the care all clinicians offer to their patients.”

U of T Medicine Magazine, Winter 2015

“Overall, this book is an engaging one that healthcare workers of all kinds will find interesting, informative and helpful. The rest of us, who sometimes are patients, will also find this book worthwhile, and in reading it may even recognize issues in ourselves and in those we know. “

The Literary Review of Canada, April, 2016

‘This book is an excellent contribution to the literature on human attachment as it relates to health issues. Highly recommended.’

Choice Magazine vol 53:10:2016