The Making and Breaking of Affectional Bonds

This book introduces and explores subjects that are still at the forefront of child and adolescent psychiatry today, and highlights the work of the acknowledged “father of attachment theory,” John Bowlby.

Abstract

Consisting of seven lectures that John Bowlby gave between 1956 and 1977, this book introduces and explores subjects that are still at the forefront of child and adolescent psychiatry today. It is impossible to overestimate Bowlby’s influence on subsequent psychiatric research and practice. The acknowledged “father of attachment theory,” he focused on child development, though his interests were far wider. A clear thinker with a dislike of jargon, he could quote Oscar Wilde (“Each man kills the thing he loves”), Shakespeare (“Give sorrow words”), or (rather alarmingly) George Bernard Shaw (“Never hit a child except in hot blood”). Bowlby had …