This book attempts to integrate research on normative psychological development (spurred by attachment theory) with clinical issues and psychopathology. Ironically, Bowlby started out as a psychoanalyst. His followers here are for the most part academic and research psychologists.

The lens through which these phenomena are viewed is perhaps necessarily narrow in scope as the focus of the research deals specifically with infants, toddlers, and older children. It also appears to indicate a preferential view of the editors and contributors, who eschew concepts like infantile and childhood sexuality, and seem ambivalent about the concept of unconscious motivation in general.

The volume largely celebrates research instruments such as the Infant Strange Situation and the Adult Attachment Interview, which further emphasize the lack of clinical richness evident throughout most of the chapters.