Mary Main’s Written Legacy: A Bibliometric Analysis

Mary Main’s written work profoundly changed the direction of attachment research. She disseminated her ideas partly through her publications and partly through her teachings in which she circulated both published and unpublished materials. The aim of the current study was to describe the scientific impact of her writings through her published and unpublished work. Based on existing bibliographies and systematic searching, we identified k = 86 works. Citation analysis found k = 7,571 citing published sources, written by 13,398 unique authors. The topics of citing work clustered around clinical psychological research, early dyadic relationships, romantic attachment, traumatic experiences, and the adult attachment interview itself. Based on co-citation patterns, Main occupied an intellectual space shared with authors known for work on developmental psychopathology and child development, parent-child relationships, adult attachment, psychodynamic theorizing, and reciprocity in interaction and infant mental health. We conclude by discussing the impact of the ‘move to the level of representation’ and how forging new ties with researchers unfamiliar with these ideas will be important to realize some of the remaining unused potential in the ideas and methods given to the field by Mary Main.