John Bowlby: Biography (and The Bases Of His Attachment Theory)
Perhaps today it seems obvious to us to think that the relationship between a mother and her baby has great importance in human development, but this idea has not always been so evident.
The idea of the importance of attachment in childhood has often been present in different societies, but it would not be until the creation of the Attachment Theory that the effects of its presence or absence would be analyzed. This theory was developed by John Bowlby, of whom we leave you a brief biography
Edward John Mostyn Bowlby, more popularly known as John Bowlby, was born in London on February 26, 1907. The son of Sir Anthony Alfred Bowlby, who would have the title of baron as surgeon to the royal household, and Mary Bridget Mostyn, he was educated as the fourth of six siblings in a wealthy environment of bourgeois high society.
At that time, the upper classes used to leave their children in the care of the servants, having nannies to take care of them.
Childhood
John Bowlby’s early years were spent in the care of a caregiver named Minnie, having little contact with his mother. However, at the age of four she would leave the family’s domestic service, causing her departure to cause great suffering and a sense of loss for the little one. Although she was replaced by her, the new nanny had a cold character that did not make him feel comfortable.
In 1914, the First World War broke out, which caused the minor’s father to enlist and become an absent figure about whom Bowlby and his brothers would barely have news as their mother did not share the content of the letters he sent.
A few years after that he would be sent to boarding school, partly as a way to keep them protected in case of attack. This set of events would cause him great pain, which would probably contributed to the fact that over time I felt the need to work on aspects such as bonding separation anxiety and fear of loss in minors.
Academic training
After several years of boarding school, he studied at the Dartnorth Naval College. After that he would try to study medicine at the University of Cambridge, but during these studies he began to be attracted to psychology and abandoned them to later begin training in psychology at Trinity College of the same University of Cambridge. His main interest was in childhood and the period of development
After graduating, he would begin to do various studies on delinquent and maladjusted minors, observing that they often came from broken families or had suffered abuse.
Joining the British Psychoanalytical Society
In 1929 he enrolled at the University School of London, finishing his studies in Medicine (as well as Surgery) in 1934. But his concerns with psychology had not ended, training in psychoanalysis.
During 1937 he would be accepted as a psychoanalyst in the British Psychoanalytical Society, being analyzed by Riviere among others. After that he would be trained by Melanie Klein in child psychoanalysis and would begin to carry out analysis of minors. Despite her connection with this author, the perspectives of both will differ, with Bowlby giving greater importance to environmental and upbringing factors and the real relationship between mother or maternal figure and child. This will cause him to be rejected and criticized by the psychoanalytic school by leaving aside aspects as central to this theory as the unconscious.
In 1938 he married Úrsula Longstaff, with whom he would have four children. That same year he would receive the proposal to preside over Trinity College, a proposal that he would accept. In addition, he began working in the child psychiatry unit of a Canonbury clinic. However, World War II would lead him to be drafted. He would eventually hold the position of lieutenant colonel in the medical corps.
Tavistock Clinic and participation in the WHO
After the war, he accepted a position as deputy director at the Tavistock Clinic in 1950, being able to observe first-hand the effects of the war on the psyche of his patients. In this clinic he would end up meeting and working with Ainsworth (who would later expand his theory of attachment and make numerous contributions in this regard).
That year Bowlby would also begin to be consulted by the World Health Organization to advise on the possible mental health of those children who had been left homeless after the war. This contribution would greatly help to eventually create the Charter of the Rights of the Child.
In subsequent years, the author would carry out numerous experiments and studies that would allow him to understand child development Maternal Care and Mental Health would be one of his most prestigious publications of that time, being the preamble to his attachment theory.
Formulation of the Attachment Theory
Bowlby’s best-known contribution to psychology would develop between 1969 and 1980, giving rise to Attachment Theory as description of the relationship between emotional experiences and relationships during childhood and behavior establishing the need to forge secure attachment bonds.
Aspects such as the effects of abandonment or ambivalence and the innate need for maternal care that generates the feeling of attachment are worked on. Attachment is described as an adaptation mechanism based on the search for protection against possible hostile agents, as well as the consequences of cutting said bond or not satisfying this need.
Death and legacy
Bowlby retired in 1972, although he continued writing and researching for the rest of his life. This important psychoanalyst died on the Scottish Isle of Skye on September 2, 1990, at the age of eighty-three.
His legacy is extensive: although his theory has undergone various modifications and has been interpreted by multiple authors, continues to have a great influence on psychology, emphasizing the importance of emotional bonding with our parental figures in childhood. It has also served to develop different evaluation techniques and mechanisms, such as Ainsworth’s strange situation.
