Book
Attachment and Loss, Vol. 1: Attachment
The first volume of John Bowlby's trilogy lays the theoretical foundation of attachment theory. Bowlby starts not from adult patients' recollections but from direct observation of young children separated from their mothers, who typically pass through protest, despair and detachment, and he asks what kind of theory could explain the strength of the tie that such separations disrupt. Finding Freud's model of psychic energy and drive discharge inadequate, he proposes an alternative theory of instinctive behaviour drawn from ethology, evolutionary biology and control theory. Instinctive behaviour is organized in behavioural systems that pursue set-goals, are activated and terminated by particular conditions, and are shaped by the environment in which the species evolved. On this basis he argues that the child's tie to the mother is not a by-product of feeding, as secondary-drive theories held, but the outcome of a distinct attachment behavioural system whose biological function is protection. Crying, smiling, clinging, following and calling serve to keep the child near a preferred figure and are integrated around that person during the first year. The second half of the book traces the ontogeny of attachment through four phases, from undiscriminating orientation and signalling to a goal-corrected partnership in which the child takes the mother's own goals into account. It discusses the focusing of attachment on one principal figure among a small hierarchy of others, the balance between attachment and exploration from a secure base, the role of the mother's responsiveness, drawing on Mary Ainsworth's studies, and the internal working models of self and attachment figure through which experience is appraised. The book thus recasts the psychoanalytic theory of the child's earliest relationship in the language of the biological and behavioural sciences, and prepares the ground for the volumes on separation and loss that follow.
Main ideas
- Theory should be built prospectively, from direct observation of how young children respond to separation from their mother (protest, despair, detachment), rather than reconstructed from adult analyses.
- Freud's model of psychic energy and drive discharge should be replaced by a theory of instinctive behaviour drawn from ethology, evolutionary biology and control theory.
- Instinctive behaviour is organized in behavioural systems that pursue set-goals, are switched on and off by specific conditions, and are adapted to the species' environment of evolutionary adaptedness.
- The child's tie to the mother is not secondary to feeding or oral gratification, as secondary-drive theories held, but the product of a distinct attachment behavioural system.
- The biological function of attachment behaviour is protection, above all from predators in the environment in which humans evolved.
- Crying, smiling, sucking, clinging, following and calling are component responses that, during the first year, become organized around keeping close to a particular, discriminated figure.
- Attachment develops in four phases: undiscriminating orientation and signalling; signals directed to one or more discriminated figures; maintenance of proximity to a preferred figure by locomotion as well as signals; and, from about the third year, a goal-corrected partnership.
- Attachment tends to focus on one principal figure (monotropy), while a small hierarchy of subsidiary attachment figures can also form.
- Attachment and exploration are complementary: the attachment figure serves as a secure base from which the child explores, and the child returns to it when alarmed.
- Differences in the quality of attachment depend largely on the mother's sensitivity and responsiveness to the infant's signals, as Mary Ainsworth's studies suggest.
- The child builds internal working models of the attachment figure and of the self, through which situations are appraised and attachment behaviour is planned.
Gallery
Cover of John Bowlby's Attachment and Loss, Volume 1: Attachment, Pimlico paperback, 1997 
Dust jacket of John Bowlby's Attachment and Loss, Volume I: Attachment, in the Hogarth Press and Institute of Psycho-Analysis hardcover edition first published in 1969 (International Psycho-Analytical Library No. 79)