Dr. Bowlby describes some of the results of his work dealing with sequelae of the loss of the mother figure in infancy and early childhood. In these examples the loss is sustained between six months and six years of age. He describes the reaction of the child as consisting of three sequential phases, protest, despair, and detachment. These experiences are felt to be characteristic of all forms of mourning.

Anger is an integral part of the process of grief, rather than a pathological result of bereavement, and is seen as an attempt to recover the lost object. Pathological mourning, then, is a consequence of the inability to express overtly this affect, which undergoes repression. In childhood mourning, the urges to recover and to punish the lost object persist, with serious consequences.