The History Section

The Editorial Board of Attachment: New Directions in Psychotherapy and Relational Psychoanalysis is delighted to announce that with effect from the current issue, we are inaugurating a regular new feature, the “History Section”, devoted to an exploration of work on the history of attachment theory, and on the life and work of John Bowlby and his colleagues. In recent years, the field of attachment has become so increasingly prominent and of such long-standing value that we are now old enough to have a history of our own, and this section will help to chronicle, to celebrate, to explore, and to learn from the leading figures and concepts from our rich professional past.

We are very pleased that Professor Brett Kahr, a long-standing member of The Bowlby Centre and, also, a trained historian, will serve as Historical Consultant, and will help to recruit historically-orientated contributions and to advise the Editor and the Editorial Board. Brett Kahr serves as Series Co-Editor of the “History of Psychoanalysis Series” for Karnac Books and is also a Trustee of the Freud Museum. It seems fitting that the first contribution to the new History Section has been written by him; and his paper, “Ursula Longstaff Bowlby : the creative inspiration behind the secure base”, provides a beautiful portrait of John Bowlby's remarkable wife and author of a hitherto forgotten, but soon-to-be published, book on child care entitled Happy Infancy.

The history of our profession will become of increasing importance to us all, not least in view of the fact that Kate White, our long-serving Editor, will be stepping down after many years of loyal service, and will be devoting herself to the gargantuan historical task of preparing a standard edition of the complete works of John Bowlby for Karnac Books, undertaken with the support of the Bowlby family.

Any authors wishing to submit papers on the history of attachment theory and related ideas for the History Section should, in the first instance, wr