Customer Reviews
Excellent Overview to Bowlby's Writing - By: Lark, 02 Jun 2006 
This book is deservedly a classic, referring to affectional bonds in the psychological sense of affect or emotion it is an innovative collection of essays from Bowlby.
Bowlby was an analyst who was central to developments placing psycho-analyse on a more scientific footing, in this book he contrasts analysis with social learning theory which he felt was more scientific proceeding from testable hypothesis, & focusing upon the development of psychological traits, ie attachment.
In many of the chapters Bowlby appears to be writing recommendations for further research or establishing the limitations of existing theory. This book is a good place to begin to discover Bowlby's essential ideas about attachment, bonding, seperation & loss, the emotional conflict this entails & resulting acquisition of emotional copeing skills & strategy in childhood. Included is some speculation about negative patterns of behaviour originating when secure attachment styles do not develop.
The book also serves as a fair critism of psycho-analysis in general at the time, in this respect its like The Crisis in Psycho-analysis by Eric Fromm or some of Fromm's books in the routledge classics series.
Bowlby praises psycho-analysis for providing good conceptual tools for assessment or treatment, such as transference, repression, projection, from observation.
However, on the other hand, he criticises analysis for not being scientific enough to proceed from testable hypothesis. As previously stated Bowlby compares & contrasts analysis with social learning theory, which he praises for scientific grounding but finds too mechanical.
Ethnography, for Bowlby is a possible bridge for the gap between the disciplines of psycho-analysis & social learning theory, providing a scientific foundation. Its not immediately apparent from this book alone but Bowlby was a great admirer of Darwin, writing material about Darwin's life.
Darwin's own observations about physical & "psychological" development serving a survival function, particularly in a species young, provide good back ground reading for people interested in Bowlby's influences & the origins of attachment theory. Darwin's book on the topic The Expressiion of The Emotions In Man & Animals is available from Dover press in an affordable edition on sale here on the amazon website.
The measured criticisms of Freud & Jung explains a bit about the origins & development of analytical theory. Bowlby describes Freud as beginning with the examination of irrationality & irrational unconscious drives/motivation but trying to do so within the bounds of observation & analysis. The work of other theorists, like Jung, takes analysis further into the bounds of the irrational & right into huermetics or symbolism.
This is by no means the final word on attachment, neither is the whole of Bowlby's work. Other researchers have developed Bowlby's theories further through child observation & strange situation tests where unknown adults are substituted for parents or attachment figures. There are a lot of books available on amazon from different disciplines & aimed at different professional audiences, for instance David Howe is a notable figure writing for an audience of social work practitioners.
There are also parenting books online discussing breast feeding & attachment & some interesting more recent anthropological observations & findings which would appear to vindicate Bowlby's theories too, in particular the continuum concept by Jean Liedloff.
I can recommend this book not just to social work practitioners or professionals but also people interested in general social theory, its referred to in Eric Fromm's The Crisis In Psychoanalysis. This book is better, if you can handle the writing style which does not impress me as too academic or clinical, than a lot of pop psychology books.
