You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
This is a most important book for anyone interested in Bowlby, “the last of the giants in our field,” as my friend Jules Bemporad said to me when Bowlby died in 1990. The author, Arturo Ezquerro, is highly qualified, for he was in supervision with Bowlby at the Tavistock Clinic for 6 years, from 1984 to 1990, so he has a wealth of first-hand information to give his readers.
In the Foreword, Bowlby's elder son, Sir Richard, mentions traumas endured by his father during childhood. When he was four, his beloved nanny left. When the First World War broke out, Bowlby was 7 years old. His father, Sir Anthony, was away for 5 years, working at the front as an Army surgeon, and when he came back he was a changed man. Sir Richard assumes he suffered from post-traumatic stress.
In the Introduction, the author expresses gratitude to Bowlby for having become a “secure base” for him. The first eight of the book's twelve chapters are a biography of Bowlby, while the last four concern the author's work under Bowlby's supervision, and other topics with Bowlby's comments.
In Chapter 2, in addition to the traumas already presented by Sir Richard, the author discusses the aloofness of Bowlby's mother, who only received her children one hour a day, and the fact that, when the First World War broke out, John and his elder brother Tony were sent to boarding school, with the excuse of protecting them from the danger of bombing. At the boarding school, according to British tradition, corporal punishment was administered. The author suggests that these experiences led Bowlby to develop an avoidant type of attachment (pp. 25 and 194).
After training in psychology at Cambridge, Bowlby went to Priory Gate, a school for maladjusted children, where John Alford advised him to train in psychoanalysis. Accordingly, Bowlby moved to London, where, from 1929 to 1937, he underwent training analysis with Joan Riviere, a Kleinian, and later had supervision with Melanie Klein herself.
In 1936 Bowlby started to