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.
While the Oedipus complex is the centerpiece of Freudian theory, Bowlby emphasizes instead the importance of the child's tie to his mother, which he view as “the resultant of a distinctive and in part pre-programmed set of behavior patterns which in the ordinary expectable environment devlop during the early months of life.” He was awakened to the possible existence of this phenomenon by Lorenz's early studies of the bonding behavior of ducks and goslings.
Bowlby argues that such early behavior patterns in humans, which he calls “attachment behaviour,” affect the ongoing behavior of both the infant and the parenting figures, irrespective of the age of the parties concerned. If the relationship between the individual attached and the attachment figure is going well, there is joy and a sense of security; if it is threatened, there is jealousy, anxiety, and anger; if broken, there is grief and depression. How such attachment behavior comes to be organized within an individual is dependent upon his early experiences both within his family and outside of it. Bowlby suggests that the role of parents should be to provide a secure base from which a child or adolescent can make sorties into the outside world and to which he can return, knowing that he will be welcomed when he gets there, that he will be nourished physically and emotionally comforted if distressed, that he will be reassured if frightened—but with his parents intervening actively only when clearly necessary.
This book explores the mechanisms of human attachment, its implications for lifelong personality development, and its role in the clinical treatment of emotional disorders. Its arguments are grounded in the findings of research in developmental psychology,