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Bowlby is concerned with applying “concepts of ethology … in the field of human behavior,” and a large part of Attachment is devoted to this effort. The major observations center upon the tie of infant and child to the mother figure. After a series of trusts that are betrayed, the child commits himself less and less to other figures and, in time, stops attaching himself to anyone. The most important factor at the root of this disturbance is the absence of the familiar mother figure. When there is a protracted separation, the child goes through a period of protest, despair, and finally, detachment. The Spitz and Wolfe studies (1945-6) have demonstrated that if the absence of the mother is rectified within three months, this pathological process is reversible. These observations and the problems arising out of them constitute the heart of Bowlby's study. Answers are sought in a new model of instinctive behavior, which is intended to replace Freud's energy model.
“Man's environment of evolutionary adaptedness” is quite different from even the primates’ in the animal world. Due to his capacity for innovation and his versatility, man has so changed his environment as to outstrip the pace at which natural selection is able to work. He has thus by-passed the very conditions under which “his environmentally stable systems were evolved and to which they are intrinsically adapted.” The author recognizes these differences between the human and animal world but “for the purposes of this book, it is argued … similarities are equally important and perhaps more so than their differences” (italics added). It is with this final phrase that one can take issue. That which makes man uniquely man and the manchild and mother human are played down far too much to give a rounded picture.
Diminishing the importance of affect and emotions in human relationships is a concomitant to this perspective. The words “affect” and “emotions” are dismissed, even discarded as unscientific, and the word “f